Social weather

The ubiquitous use of mobile devices to document and distribute our daily activities in a never-ending stream of updates, checkins, tweets and retweets is generating an ever-expanding biosphere of social information.

This advancing ecosystem is growing into an adaptive system of informational weather. Technologist Ben Hammersley calls it ‘social weather’: “I want to feel my friends like I feel the weather.”

The social weather is here, and more people want to know the forecast: should I book a room at the Lloyd? Facebook: ‘yes, but be aware of the crazy-bath room.’ Is the Bimhuis happening? Foursquare: ‘now trending in Amsterdam’. And how was the ‘Talk To Me’ opening at MoMA last night? ‘Awesome’, according to Instagram.

So where do we go now? Sonar says someone I follow on Twitter, who likes Alog on Facebook, is checked into the Stedelijk on Foursquare.

Today is a good day.

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This article has been published in the Trend Book of the tenth Dutch Design Week Eindhoven.