Current Events: All in One and One for All

Facebook’s ongoing success pervades the headlines: “Microsoft to Pay $240 Million for Stake in Facebook”, “Web companies looking to replicate Facebook's success”, and “New Mobile Social Networks” which interact with Facebook from your cell phone. Like other successful hardware and software of it's day, it has discovered the key to success: to accomplish all, in one.

For years there have been sites that allow you to create an account to upload pictures from a family reunion or sites that facilitate online chatting, blogging or file exchange. There have been sites for community calendars, for class forums, and for finding past acquaintances. But who wants to create an account on 50 different sites? Just as the iPhone brought together an MP3 player, a palm pilot with internet access, and a phone (to name a few of the device’s features), Facebook is finding ways to merge the essence of hundreds of websites into one. Whether software or hardware, consolidation is the future.

In the next few decades the vision will only expand. Instead of having a myriad of keys or a wallet with a driver’s license, money, coupons, IDs, credit cards, and whatever else, all of that information will be stored in a single, universally-accepted device; the newest iPhone. Everyone will have one. Built in to your device is your Facebook account or something similar which, as a minimum, serves for identification. For security it will be activated by fingerprint. Perhaps it will be built in to your finger (chapstick and swiss army knife included). Though the idea seems silly, the principle is a reality: society wants consolidation and from an economic standpoint, society usually gets what it wants.