Status-Q

Given the valuations that have been floating around for social network companies, there must be quite a financial reward in store for anyone who can predict, or invent, the next one. Sadly, I don’t have time to create it just at present, but I can tell you what it will look like.

Forsaking blogs, where you have to write reasonably coherent paragraphs, and Facebook, where you could at least write sentences, the youth of today are flocking to Twitter, where 140 characters is the limit of self-expression, partly so you can send and receive ‘tweets’ via SMS, which can’t do much more.

It’s clear, I think, that this trend must continue.

I expect the next killer network – let’s call it something monosyllabic like ‘Flub’ – to restrict you to one word only for each post. A post will automatically be submitted if you hit the space key, and conversations will be much more efficient, yet still allow you to share your plans with your pals:

A: coffee
B: yeah
A: starbucks
B: ‘k

You get the idea. Of course, some devices you might use to flub are capable of more complex interaction, but the beauty of flubbing is that you can type your response in morse using only the button on your iPhone headset.