Academics To Predict Next Twitter and Its Pitfalls

An anonymous reader writes "University researchers in the UK have put together a team tasked with predicting the next big thing in terms of communication technologies, in a bid to tackle ethical pitfalls before they become a problem. This is in the wake of the rise of social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, which has led to a dramatic increase in the amount of personal information available online."

Comments

Social network medical records

[xzvf]

Thanks to the stimulus input, Medbook Space, the social network for medical records will be the next online sensation. X-rays, videos of prostrate exams, drug history ... all available to employers, insurance agencies and interested voyeurs.

Re:Social network medical records

[jae471]

Well, first you will have to find someone who knows MUMPS to create the back-end.

Academics meh...

[TempusMagus]

Seriously, forget the academics. Put 10 teens in a room of various social types with a smart developer who listens and a programmable mobile device. You'll come out with a product.

Telegraph prose

[grcumb]

One character messages only. Now you can say the same things even faster.

Feh. Ancient history.

An entire genre of prose was derived from the high cost of sending telegrams. Hemingway is probably the most famous example, but a whole generation of journalists learned to pare down their sentences to the absolute minimum to save on transmission costs.

True story: A foreign correspondent was sent to a distant country to prepare some coverage of an imminent war. Because telegraph costs were so high, the home office had prepared large amounts of background already, and kept it sitting on file. All they needed to know was when to print it.

The parsimonious editor sent the following message to his correspondent:

?

To which the correspondent replied:

!

The same day the front page announced news of the outbreak of war.