If you watch technology long enough, you get to see it become socialised. Cyber punk author Gibson said it well - "The Street finds its own uses for things". Networked audiences, powerful image and video capture devices, and simple publishing tools are all adding up to a new social vector. During a recent chat with one of my clients, they observed drily that their new generation of users seemed to be interested in just one thing. Make me famous. Its a trend that has been bubbling for a while. Photo sharing and blog sites used to let everyone know what you and your friends have been doing. Youtube providing a platform for video confessions and gather fans. Teenagers using Myspace to package and promote themselves. Forget social identity and think personal brands.
Over the last few months, strangely compulsive sites like Justin.tv have bubbled up. If you haven't seen it - its basically a live feed from a geeky guy who has managed to strap a video camera to his head, pushing out a feed from a mobile broadcast rig. The footage when cheeky users call emergency services who promptly burst into Justin's apartment waving guns is priceless.
Don't feel left out. There are a whole range of startups that let you get in on the act yourself. Ustream.tv provides a platform for live videocasting. Kyte.tv offers tools that let you broadcast video live from your phone, or Gordon Bell style, transmit images taken at regular intervals from your mobile camera. And lets not forget the text insanity of instant update service Twitter. However, chances are - unless you were born after 1994 - turning yourself into a personal version of the Truman Show is the very last thing you would want to do.
But there are plenty that will. And when I look at all of these shiny new personal broadcast toys I'm convinced that the world's most famous celebrity in the next few years will be an undiscovered teenage girl whose rampant party hedonism, off the shelf video streaming sunglasses and instant worldwide net audience will propel her into stellar regions. Yeah, its Paris 2.0.
It may be a hijack of the original purpose of what all this stuff was designed for. But as the Bowie song goes - fame, what you need you have to borrow.
Making Western designed electronics products faster, cheaper and in greater quantities was a copycat game that Asian manufacturers played from the 70s onward, until it was pretty clear that they had conclusively won. Ironically, the same thing is happening again in the Web2.0 space - but with a twist.
With no small trace of nostalgia, I read through Wired's recent 