Ryan Dillman

The problem with a large social networking site like Myspace is that there are millions of users on there, and it’s often difficult to connect with people from your specific community.  Even if you do manage this, you still have to deal with all of these other voices on your radar, and you have to compete with people all over the world when you want to share your local photos and videos.  People from your own part of the country may never even find your content.

This is why many people feel that the future of social networking will involve hyper-local sites based around small geographic areas, such as a city or county.  Many media companies are gambling on this idea as well.  Our own version of a local Myspace can be found at Hamilton County Today.  It allows people in Hamilton County, Indiana to share their videos, photos, stories, and other information with each other and maybe even see it in print as well.

In the future, some predict that your social networking profile will be similar to your e-mail address, in that you’ll be able to take it with your from site to site.  For example, say I sign up to Myspace, Facebook, and Hamilton County Today.  I wouldn’t have to fill out any information at these sites other than to give them my universal social networking ID, which would fill in all of my personal info for me and even populate my profile with all of my photos and videos.  We may be a few years away from this, but many believe this may be the way the web is heading.