Computing networks and social networks alike need a new casualness factor, and I’m calling for it now. In the case of computing, I want mesh networks like what comes built into the OLPC platform to propagate. I want network security to shift to zone and application in most areas such that we can have simpler collaboration. We have tools to protect us. We have protocols and security to keep the most critical parts of business networks secure. Free up the REST of the network for simpler connectivity and open us all up for the way work gets done these days. (One word: porous).

Social networks? Break open, loosen up. I want 2 profiles max for the rest of my life: business buttoned up and casual. (Okay, for me they’re the same, but that’s just to prove a point). But I don’t WANT to add a headshot, tell you how old I am, tell you which movies are my favorite, and then dump my gmail inbox into yet another server to see who else followed the lemmings to sign up (do my 4600 gmail contacts make me look fat? Lots of social networks buckle when I try to import them).

In the next bunch of months, I want a disassociated profile, a portable friends array, aggregation of lifestreams akin to FriendFeed but faster, and I want to have second-stage promotion of quality content (aka filtering) such that if seven of my friends say this article by Marshall Kirkpatrick is the BEST, then I want THAT to rise to the top of my RSS pile, instead of staying nestled into the rest of the blog posts.

Is any of this not do-able? I don’t think so. Supernova would be a great place to throw down and discuss all this. Don’t you agree?