For a little bit I have been considering why the internet isn’t doing what I wish it was. My frustration is broken down into two areas: how we interact and communicate with people and how we publish and consume information and stories.

People

It seems that all these different tools and sites are just making it harder to communicate with the people we care about.

Facebook is getting messed up. Beacon. Tons of apps on profiles.
Google Reader new social network doesn’t work well.
Open ID doesn’t do enough. (Though it is a good first step)
Facebook isn’t that open.
Email isn’t good enough anymore.

I think the main problem is that I can’t keep track and interact with all the people I need to and want to by using one application. Facebook works for friends, email for family, Twitter for others. This is a problem, I agree that social network portability is needed. Everybody has email, but that doesn’t mean everybody is going to get Facebook. Facebook is great and all, but it is still seen as a social network, and people use email for their business, family, private, and social life.

We need a system that allows us to control all of our sites, allow each site where we have information and content to interact with each other, and make it easier for people to find friends. Open ID is a great start, but it doesn’t solve this problem.

A new system needs to be made. A system that is simple, open, and not for profit. Take Open ID and add some features. Allow people to have a profile that lists all of their other sites, social network profiles, and online presences. Have a way for me to message people and indicate how we know each other. Add a life-stream where what people do online is presented in a stream of information. Just make it so that people can track their friends and see what sites they are using. That’s it, nothing else.

Consuming and Publishing

While it easy to publish content and consume it online, it could be easier and more effective.

Feed readers are poorly designed.
Some blogs are no conversational enough and aren’t that authentic
Passing content around and re-publishing is fine, but making original content is even better.

We need a new tool. It needs to allow us to publish any kind of content we want: photos, blog posts, videos, tweets, and more. Then based on the kind of content, we need to be able to consume it. Videos need special treatment, so design it so that different types of content are viewed properly. Make it easy to share with people and save items for later. Add filters and make it organized. Then use the new system for managing people on top of it all.

Anyways, looking toward the future of the internet…I think that we will see developments in online and mobile video this year, along with re-inventing the way stories are told online. And maybe we can even work on fixing some of the things this post talks about.

What do you think we should do to solve this problem and what do you seeing being the big developments this coming year?

These are just some first thoughts on the issue and might not be the best move for the internet community, let me know what you think.