Ten red balloons from the Pentagon are evidence of the next step for Facebook. This news is either very scary or very exciting. You pick.
We are starting to get a picture of where will social networks be used, when they mature. Watch the government, and how they start to use new channels and ideas. Above the constant noise of being reminded that we must participate in social networks is the harsh reality of short attention spans and crushing work loads. Many are taking a wait and see approach. Not me. I am in the social networking gene pool with both feet, and am paying attention to where it is going.
It isn’t mature yet. Baby steps. I have been encouraging everyone to stick a toe in the water. Some are reporting problems. One friend reports that after building a good set of followers in Twitter, his account was hacked and everyone started getting spam on the channel. Not just spam, but offensive spam. He is a senior communications manager at a national firm. Not good. I assure him these are teething problems.
Now, for the balloons.
There are 10 of these - find 'em all and win!
You may know of DARPA. It’s the Department of Defense. The full name is Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and it was created as a reaction to the Russkies launching Sputnik. DARPA started what would become the Internet. When DARPA gets interested in Facebook, we should pay attention. Well, they just did.
In their project, which just ended a few hours ago, they did something clever. They recently announced the Network Challenge to mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet. They said that the competition was meant to explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.
What DARPA did a few days ago was tether 10 red weather balloons marked with numbers in random sites scattered all over the US. The first person or group who could use social networking tools to identify the latitudes and longitudes of the 10 balloons across the continental U.S. was promised$40,000.
How long did it take for ad hoc groups to form? Minutes. How long till all 10 balloons were identified? About 9 hours. Wow. Read the press release here. The winning group’s page that explains how they did it is here. A news story with a good summary is here.
What does this all mean? The important lesson is that social networking is important enough to be taken seriously by the Pentagon. On the good side, it clearly indicates that those of us who study and advance the use of these new tools are clearly not wasting our time. On the bad side, the Pentagon is getting involved.
Scary.
Karl Ahlrichs' Uncommon Experience 
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