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Its just new tools - not a new way of life!

Those interested in Technology might have been following the news of Facebook (a social networking website like Orkut) releasing an API to allow service providers build applications on its platform for its users. While it is indeed an impacting development, it isn't an lifestyle changing behavior as some tech gurus are proclaiming.

Take for example David Sacks, who says:
Facebook has a new answer to the portal question. The social graph, or your network of relationships, will push information to you. You'll learn from your friends. Thanks to Facebook's new developer platform ...
To be frank there is nothing new in we learning about new content from our network of friends. From the pre-Yahoo days till today, we come across new websites, less so from a random Google Search and more so due to recommendations from friends. The majority of these recommendations flow through traditional methods - emails, IMs and SMS.

So, if at all something changed 'thanks to Facebook' - it is that its users can pass these recommendations through its website rather than through email. But then this is no 'habit change' for users - Facebook's users will probably still use emails, Messengers and SMS - just that one more new tool would get added. Just like some people in India prefer Orkut to email, there will be some users in the US who would prefer Facebook to email.

Another example of such over-enthusiasm over new technologies is Julie Ask from Wireless News, who says:
... mobile is a stand-alone channel for many advertisers and vendors at the moment, but won’t be for long. The longer-term vision for mobile marketing includes integration with Internet, TV, radio, print ... Advertisers will use the phone as a direct response mechanism and as a tool for delivering personalized ads...
Here again I ask, why use the word 'will'. Isn't the phone already being used as a direct response mechanism? Doesn't every TV program have a suggestion or contest running which asks for SMS replies? Doesn't every utility from 'stock updates' to 'train timing' to 'Bank balance enquiry' today come on SMS request? (Please note that 'Bank Balance' is a 'personalized' information.)

With the entry of new mobile technologies, just the method and quality of delivered content would change - it would start using more of WAP and less of simple text, the content would become more jazzy - but it would again not change fundamental in the way we transact!

Lets not confuse the entry of new tools with 'life changing events'!

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