Here is an interesting article on ‘death of email’. It argues Social Media based communication systems are growing and far more effective than emails. A thought struck me. What if we could have ‘Social Media’ systems as Official Communication Systems. Now-a-days we use email extensively for office purposes, and in some case we also add a Office Communicator System (like the one provided by Microsoft) for instant communication between employees. Isn’t the office communicator same as chat in Facebook with additional capabilities of sending file and et al? Effectively it is? So what are we looking at now? Would it not be great to have an ‘Official Social Networking and Tool’ (which obviously is cloud based) where You can communicate (like emails) and “chat” all at the same time and from the same place? Add on to that, multiple such platforms/’official social network’ combine together to form one GIANT NETWORKING TOOL across the globe, so that just as You send ‘official’ emails to others, we use a similar platform for the communication. The best part could be ‘finding other people’ across the globe- adding (LinkedIn’s or any normal Social Networking Tools capabilities).
The sad part also would be, it would be a Hackers’ Paradise, but then we are working towards data security and such measures.
I definitely look forward to such an ‘all encompassing communication system’.
What would it mean to telcos and most from an RA perspective? (Hey I’m on ‘TalkRA’!!) I guess nothing- except for a lot more data to deal with, a lot more security checks, and a lot more partner management activities in terms of revenue. Am I missing something in here for the ‘Big Brother’ telecoms who I guess would still be backbone service providers at dirt cheap rates?
Dear, Moinak
As you can see in this document Social Networks Providers are joining several roles in terms of which laws and estatutes are applicable to them: social network sites = hosting provider (electronic commerce directive, data protection directive) + electronic communications operator (telecom directive package and data retention, data protection directive) + online advertising agency (advertising directives, data protection directive)
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/policies/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2009/wp163_en.pdf
Social networks services as communication services platform could be one more option of cloud services to be deployed, and as you may know with several security problems
https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/topthreats/csathreats.v1.0.pdf
Before taking the decision to move all enterprise communications, or even just developing a social marketing plan or initiative, a risk assessment should be done in advance
@ Álvaro: Thanks for Your comment. I completely agree with You that all possible measures have to be taken to save ‘the concept’ from being a hackers paradise, however, I definitely would look forward to a situation where I can have Social Media like communication systems even for my Office Work.
Moinak,
No one said that your desires can not be satisfied ;-p
I was just pointing out that risk assessment should be accomplished beforehand
One more front to be tackled: ownership of social media profiles, communications,… and acceptable use policies in order to avoid situations like these ones
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidcoursey/2011/11/03/who-owns-your-linkedin-contacts/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/who-gets-custody-of-twitter-when-an-employee-quits.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29