Communities or What I'm Waiting For Already

I think we can all agree that the Internet is a mind-blowing phenomenon that has changed the way we connect to others in the world and how we access and process information. But when I ask myself, "Where to next?" I'm left dwelling on that highly overused phrase "online communities."

Facebook is a powerful community tool that culturally speaking is used to connect with people we've met in real life. I caveat that not everyone uses it this way, but it's by far the trend. Twitter, far from the full-service community tool of Facebook, is used primarily to connect with others that share our interests, often total strangers to us offline.

I think the first step in the next phase is to take these like-minded groups that exist in places like Twitter and community forums and put them on a platform more like Facebook. Better filtering tools are needed as well. The human mind can only effectively process so much information with any level of value. Not only do we need to filter out content not relevant to our current interest state, but also the inherent value of that content. If I see one more Facebook status that says "Monday...," well, I may do more than hide that person's statuses.

But seriously, I'm ready to see more focused tools for interest-centered communities.