I think this is the best reason for why people love the internet.

When we’re online — not just online, but participating in social media — we’re meeting some of our most basic human needs. [...] Needs like creative expression. The need to connect with other people. The need to be part of a community. [...] It’s the very fact that the Internet can meet so many fundamental needs, significantly if not completely, that gets people nervous.

The Social Network is set to hit theaters October 1. I’m pretty excited to see it. With the release upcoming, two of the founders of Facebook have been profiled. Sean Parker was covered by Vanity Fair and Mark Zuckerberg was profiled by the New Yorker. Great reads. I found the one on Parker to be more interesting as I didn’t know much about him.

This world of the Internet, if we know anything from its brief history, it likes nothing more than to build someone up only to topple them. Who has an AOL account these days? Not that long ago, AOL was the single most powerful player on the Internet. Who has a MySpace account these days? MySpace sold for billions of dollars not that long ago. I’m very reluctant to crown Facebook king of the future. They certainly are flavour of the month. This is not a world that respects loyalties and longevity.

Malcolm Gladwell on social media.

I fall somewhere between what Umair Haque says and what Bud Caddell says. Mostly I don’t care if social media is a bubble; I love thinking, playing and working with the media, technology and information that have sprouted up from it.

I see both sides of the argument. And, my overriding theme through all of this is that it’s great if we can figure out a few things. The largest being how to identify the trusted network of users in our social networking lives.

Craig Newmark has identified and clearly stated what I believe the problem with all this to be (article via Everyday UX),

what he thinks is the next big problem the web has to solve. And what is that? The question of who to trust online, according to Newmark. To solve it, he believes that what the web needs is a “distributed trust network” that allows us to manage our online relationships and reputations.

They interact with the peers across the globe: This impacts employers, brands, teachers, parents, as this first generation enters the workforce.

Always online: By age 20, kids will have spent 20,000 hours online –the same amount of time a professional piano player would have spent practicing Urs Gasser, paraphrased Multiple identities, personal and social, shared online and offline (blurring): Online representation is the same as physical representation: what your clothes, friends, vehicles say about you.

Swiss Miss points us to Dr. Urs Gasser of Harvard’s Berkman Center who coined the term Digital Natives. There’s some deliberate practice thoughts there (10,000 hours of practice).

If you’re interested in The Grateful Dead and/or Business (Internet) Models, I’d suggest giving Management Secrets from The Grateful Dead a read. I am amazed at how well thought out and progressive The Dead were about their business.

When I read an interview like this one with Matt Haughey, I get excited. It’s rather obvious to say “he gets it”, but it’s the truth. Metafilter is an amazing community and as I study how to best build communities, I imagine I will be using MF as a case study. I never realized how MF setup its revenue model (combine it with the bit about ‘exclusivity’).

Me: Do you have streams of revenue besides the signup-fee and advertising?
Matt: That’s pretty much it…The $5 signup fee isn’t subscription revenue [since it's a one-time thing]. It’s mostly just putting a huge hurdle in front of having to deal with new users. ‘Cause it’s such a pain. The last ten years have shown that any time there’s press, like the New York Times writes something about us, 300 people sign up and then wreak havoc for a while, and then go away. [Without barriers to entry] it would just be a nightmare.

So it’s really ad-based. It’s not something I ever set out to establish. I lucked into it, being in the right place at the right time.

Me: So what does your ad revenue look like?
Matt: It’s been really successful. I’m really lucky with the way Ask Metafilter works. Every question’s about a topic that’s easy to match ads to.

The other weird thing is, ads aren’t even shown to members. Members asking about what kind of digital cameras they should get want honest answers. But non-members searching for digital cameras online get [to Ask Metafilter] in that search.

Clay Shirky captured this question in a distinction between work and Work. (Capital-W) Work is what we have considered for years: your boss tells you to do something, you do it, and you get paid. By contrast, (little-w) work is motivated by inherent interest and generally unpaid. Think of the difference between an Encyclopedia Britannica editor doing Work, and a Wikipedia editor doing work during spare hours. Big Work drives the economy; little work drives the Internet. Big Work builds skyscrapers; little work generates a half million fanfiction stories about Harry Potter.

I’m trying to make work be my Work, I think.

I think Foursquare is great, and I think that it’s soon to spur a bunch of services built on top of it (and not in a Social Great way; I think in more applicable and useful ways). In it’s current state, I like it, but don’t love it. I think it’s got a lot going for it and lots of places it can go.

What I think is Foursquare’s secret sauce is it’s ability to point out places I’d enjoy. Right now, I don’t find the tips to be useful and the tips that I do read, I’m not sure who the person recommending them is, so I don’t trust them like I maybe should. I still use Yelp for that, even though I don’t like that service since I don’t know anyone recommending me a coffee shop to try.

Check-ins are fine, but I don’t (necessarily) care where you, my friends, have checked-in. The only reason I care about that information is if I’m out and want to meet up with you, but frankly if I wanted to meet up with you I would have called/emailed/texted you. That information really does nothing for me, personally. It could be very valuable to brands – and, as we’re seeing, it is.

I find myself in different cities constantly, and exploring new places is fun for me. Where I get frustrated is when I try a new place and it’s a complete stinker. And this is where I want Foursquare (or something built on top) to step in.

One thought I’ve had is to build a way to email me all my check-ins for the past week where I’m asked to fill out a tip. I could do this from my computer anytime I felt the need. Completing a tip on my phone just isn’t practical. And, if a place stunk, I could say so, and my network would know about it.

My prediction is that there will be services built on top of Foursquare to help create small tribes of like-minded users to point to trusted and reputable places to visit/eat/drink. It’s the trust and personal web that I’m missing from Foursquare and desperately want.

I’m in the process of building an online community and want to be able to take it somewhat offline. Enter an app built on top of Foursquare where I segment the users from “my” community on Foursquare and encourage recommendations to create a listing of “my” approved places, which I think adds that element of trust to the reviews. Make sense? Thoughts?

As I think about it, it makes sense for Foursquare to build a lists function (like Twitter!) to handle this for us.

Tyler Brule ended this week’s FT column with this line (Quickly. Am I the only one who checks their RSS reader on Friday night’s for his column? Actually, don’t answer that.).

I’ve yet to find an online experience that’s superior to ye olde shoppe in terms of consumer serendipity. You may not be able to judge a book, CD or DVD by its cover but it’s certainly an excellent starting point. For me, it’s much easier to part with cash at Daunt Books in London, Tsutaya at Roppongi Hills in Tokyo and La Hune in Paris than it is at Amazon and its competitors.

This is a great point when it comes to online versus offline shopping (although I think there is a distinction that needs to be added between ‘buying’ and ‘shopping’.). I agree that it’s easier to spend money (buying) offline at physical stores. Seeing the quality, the fit, the style and details makes buying something much easier. However, when it comes to scanning a store or finding a product you’re interested in (shopping) I think the web is far superior. I can scan a number of stores for the best price, similar product, different brands, and other options.

I think this all ties to a theme I have around these parts where I believe that, while completely awesome, the internet should be used in conjunction and along side a “physical component”.

The internet is another channel for companies to use. In some cases it is the only channel, in others it’s one of many.