The Importance Of Connections
Posted by Denis Cullinane on January 12, 2010 in Online, Web technologies with 0 CommentsTechnology in general and web technologies in particular are prone to buzzwords. One relatively new term I noticed climbing the trending charts recently is 'the Synaptic Web'. Not to be confused with the Semantic Web, the Synaptic Web is a concept currently generating much discourse as a descriptive idea for current developments in the web sphere and indeed, the direction that it is heading in.
So what is the synaptic web, how will it effect us mere mortal web users, and why the analogy with neuroscience?
Neuroscience 101
The word "synapse" comes from "synaptein", coined from the Greek "syn-" ("together") and "haptein" ("to clasp"). In the human brain, impulses are passed from neuron to neuron across a space called the synapse. Each neuron forms synapses with other neurons and, furthermore, each neuron receives synaptic inputs from numerous others. Neuroscience points to the flexibility of these connections and believe that our cognitive capacity for intelligence is found in the interconnectivity of the neurons and not simply the neurons themselves.
Collective Intelligence
The web today is an ever-expanding network of content, people, information, real-time streams, user profiles, databases, applications and much much more. The concept of the Synaptic Web is that the connections between these elements are more important than the elements themselves. It refers the collective intelligence and meaning gained by the intersection of these diverse systems, information streams and organisations.
Where before we searched the Golden Pages to return a list of results and we are now seeing the emergence of web applications that present highly targeted directory listings in real-time without the need to instigate a search. These apps combine geo-location information from our phones with personal interests data derived from our social network user profiles or even from our online purchasing trends. This information can then be distilled and presented to us in an augmented reality video overlay as we look at a city street through the camera on our phone. We have certainly come a long way.
Synaptic web applications are deemed to be apps that make a connection between at least two diverse categories of information such as People & Data, Data & Devices, Places & Companies, Content & Communication. They can adapt in near real time to changes in user behavior and can formulate new meaning from these connections.
Chris Saad, VP Product Strategy & Community at Echo and co-founder of the DataPortability Project explains: "Where we once built websites - destinations that attracted 'traffic' from which we monetized 'eye balls' - that had loose connections in the forms of links, we now build widgets; lightweight pieces of functionality that connect countless sites and services using rich, deep and meaningful pieces of functionality. Like individual neurons, "sites" must now maximize their connections to outside data sources and applications in response to external stimuli or risk being pruned themselves. " Chris goes on to state: "More profoundly, though, the connections between those pieces will be just as important as the pieces themselves. The connections will be interoperable and create spontaneous meaningful interactions." (See here for more detailed discussions).
What Does The Future Hold?
It is still unclear where all this is leading. However, what is clear is that we are now seeing the emergence of new more meaningful and useful user-focused applications. These near real-time applications are providing more increasingly relevant information as we make the move from data searching to data filtering. The relevancy of this information, in turn, provides enormous possibilities for advertising - extremely highly targeted ads benefiting both consumers and advertisers. Better placed ads equals more conversions for advertisers and better information for consumers.
Whether or not the Synaptic Web concept is a lasting one is possibly irrelevant because, call it what you may, the next generation of the web will be all about connections.
Denis Cullinane 's experience is in the online arena with strong focus on web design, user experience and the latest web technologies.Find out more at Denis's Profile. Don't forget to subscribe if you'd like to hear more!
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