An article in the Wall Street Journal warns of the coming "erasable internet" which may spell the end for Google. Wait, what? He points to the success of Snapchat - the asp that allows you to send pictures that disappear after 7 seconds. If that idea is expanded to other internet services, it would be the end of a service like Google, which catalogs existing web pages.
I find all this hard to believe. Snapchat may be appealing to teenagers who are unfamiliar with the concept of "screenshots," but I don't know how many other services could benefit from a transient quality. Could you imagine a Snapwikipedia, which has to be re-written every day? Even Twitter, which seems to be fast-moving and temporary, actually stores tweets permanently, with no harm to most.
This seems to happen with every new technology and success story: people start assuming it's the beginning of a permanent and universal trend. Snapchat is successful: everything will be temporary. Foursquare is successful: everything will be location-based. And it goes the other way too: when something wanted in popularity, it and everything similar is forever a part of history. Take blogging. I've heard many claims of its death, but this blog's popularity is proof of... Okay, bad example.
Partly, this phenomena comes from wanting to simplify a complicated and ever-changing field. And some of it is Emperor's New Clothes, where no one wants to be caught using instant messaging if the cool kids are using Snapchat. But what's really happening is that were building and exploring a new world, and and acquiring new tools, and each of those tools finds a use appropriate to its qualities. Blogging is a great example of this. It's declined in popularity during the rise of Twitter, Facebook and others, as people just looking to stay in touch or make the of observation leave. But blogging remains strong among those who want to read or write regularly in a slightly longer format.
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