Marissa Mayer on Web culture

Online tools have changed the way people interact and socialize online

The recent explosion of awareness tools like Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook are without a doubt, changing the way people are interacting and socializing with one another.  

Bambi Francisco interviewed Marissa Mayer, VP of search products and user experience at Google, on her thoughts about the subject.

According to Mayer, the top three changes in online behavior relate to:

1. Users today really look for interactive features on the Web. These being buttons, forums, and dynamic searching tools.

2. Internet users are looking for a personalized Web experience. For example, online news can now be customized.  Users can pick and choose what types of articles they want to show up on their front pages.  The same goes for video, shopping, and music.  

3. The Web is becoming a lot more social.  We now connect and interact with one another online.  Whether it be social networks, forums, blogs, virtual worlds, we are all connecting in one way or another through the Internet.  You know longer have to pick up the phone to set up a meeting, just send an Instant Message.

Mayer summarized that, “The virtual world mirrors the physical world. In the physical world it's really hard to do something entirely anonymous.  People want to build a notion of trust.  That is what social networks are about.  People can know, your friends especially, what you've been up to, but it should be done with transparency and user choice.”

Check the video out for the full interview.

This interview is part of an ongoing series on how the Web has changed our behavior. Others who've participated in this series include Esther Dyson, in "Twitter and spreading genes," Slide founder and CEO Max Levchin in "Self-expression 2.0," to name a few.