Techcrunch's 10 rocking 2010 technologies

This has been doing the rounds but I thought it was worth listing Techcrunch's 10 technologoies that will rock 2010.

1.The Tablet
2.Geo
3.Realtime Search
4.Chrome OS
5.HTML5
6.Mobile Video
7.Augmented Reality
8.Mobile Transactions
9.Android
10.Social CRM

The last may well be the most important business wise

We’ve seen the rise of Twitter and Facebook as social communication tools. This year, those modes of realtime communication will find their way deeper into the enterprise. Salesforce.com is set to launch Chatter, it’s realtime stream of enterprise data which interfaces with Twitter and Facebook and turn them into business tools. Startups like Yammer and Bantam Live are also making business more social.

Save for technolgy the noughties will not be missed

A survey by Pew which came out just before Xmas voted the noughties the worst decade in 50 years only helped by the changes in technology that have occurred since the millenium.

Clear majorities see cell phones, the internet and e-mail as changes for the better, and most also view specific changes such as handheld internet devices and online shopping as beneficial trends. There is greater division of opinion, however, over whether social networking sites or internet blogs have been changes for the better or changes for the worse.

But overall the decade is seen as negative

the 9/11 terrorist attacks are seen as the most important event of the decade, with Barack Obama’s election as president a distant second – even among his political supporters.

Ht-Stephen's Lighthouse

Is this what is going to happen to information in the future

The lessons of the likes of Google becoming too powerful?




Ht-Stephen's Lighthouse

Newspapers should stop thinking as fixed products and start acting valuable, branded interfaces to on

CJR carries an interesting interview with Rob Durst, a Boston-based business and technology consultant who believes that newspapers can remain viable.

How? Well according to Durst,if they move quickly and use innovations such as “mobile codes.then have a cahnce of surviving.

Magazines and newspapers should stop treating their publications as fixed products and start thinking about them as valuable, branded interfaces to online content and services. They can do this using mobile codes, which are essentially printed barcodes that readers “click on” using a camera phone—kind of like clicking on a Web link with a mouse. QR (quick response) codes are a good example. They are in widespread use throughout Asia. QR codes contain a Web address, and your phone’s browser automatically connects to that Web site when you take a picture of the code with your camera phone.

Who would have thought a mango could cause so much debate.

There,I thought the headline might attract you,more on the mango shortly.

Yesterday I attended an interesting and lively discussion at the Zion Arts centre in Hulme Manchester.

It was organised by The Manchester Beacon who designed what they called Comixed as a way of bringing different people together to explore ideas collaboratively.

Five ideas were brought to the event and via blogs and twitter of which the one that fascinated me was the role of technology.

Prof. Jon Whittle, Chair of Software Engineering, Lancaster University put this question to the audience prior to the event.

Twitter, Bebo, Facebook, mash-ups, web 3.0, delicious…. where does it all end? Are all these new technologies really improving our lives? Or are they just a drain on our time and resources, keeping us away from the things that really matter….?
The time is ripe for developments in technology to change society for the better. There are unprecedented opportunities to solve some of society’s most complex challenges through the appropriate use of technology. But we must be careful to focus on substance not fads.
Unless we understand the impact of technologies on society, we may never fully realise their potential.

It provided some lively discussion which given the current trend's centred around social media.

The event was live blogged and you can read all five discussions HERE

But to the mango.Kate Bailey, Senior Research Associate, Food Process Innovation Unit, Cardiff Business School offered a lively debate on the sustainability of agriculture.

As global population looks set to grow from 6 billion to 9 billion, food production will need to double at a time where there are real concerns over the availability of energy, land and water as well as the challenge of climate change.

Hence the introduction of the mango.It to the audience symbolised everything about the argument.Should we be able to buy a mango in a British shop,or should all our food be grown locally? Should we be allowed the choice of buying what we want where and when we want or should government intervene.What about the carbon footprint of flying in a mango? But should we take away a steady source of income from the developing world?

How technology can change the future

Author, speaker and technologist Juliette Powell sees the true significance of social media technology in the new kinds of collaborations we are able to forge that offer the potential to create a new kind of future. Powell believes that the ability to connect with people who previously did not have that opportunity will add tremendous value to government, business, and media undertakings.via (Ideas Network)

When was the last time you read a newspaper in the loo

Ht-Adam Tinworth

Set for a micropayments platform

It looks like UK content owners could have a working national micropayment network by next summer.

According to this report by Paid Content,

A testbed network is already being planned out, after Digital Britain allocated the government’s Technology Strategy Board (TSB) £30 million in June.

It follows this week's announcement of a £6m fund for those with interesting ideas for applications and platforms.

The continuing development of social media but don't fear the technology

Vice-President of Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce Phil Jones took part in a panel discussion on social media and business networking last week.

He made three points

1.That he thought that Social media networking is a trend. In the same way that vinyl went to cassettes, then to CD's, then to MP3's. Traditional methods of networking are also transitioning.

2.Social media networking allows you to have a different type of conversation direct with a key stakeholder, bypassing traditional gatekeepers

3.Social media networking requires human capital investment, more than financial investment.

They are all good points.How much of a fad social networking is,we will have to wait and see but both the fact that it bypasses traditional communication channels and its need to have sufficient human resoures devoted to it are both very valid points.

On the topic of return on investment,Brian K. McDaniel makes a case for an alternative measure pointing out that

Businesses of all shapes and sizes are clamoring for a spot on the social media landscape, opening accounts and buying domain names at a furious pace and then trying to figure out how to use them and who to outsource to or purchase training from.

ad concludes that

the return on my relatively minimal investment of time and energy in social media has resulted in a profit.

One thing that puts people off is the fear of technology and over at the Biving's report David Murray writes that this should not be the case

Technology is a scary word. It means new and expensive. These words can spell death for a business or organization who is thinking of trying new things .

but he adds

Social Media is not new and it doesn’t need to be expensive (though, it can take time when done right). The point is, forget about technology.

Technology-a reminder

Ht-Stephen's Lighthouse

The speed of connectivity

Phil Jones,Director and Vice-President of Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce writes a good blog which often focuses on technology new media and its use in commerce.

Yesterday it looked at how technology platforms are making the world a very tiny place.

If you look at how long communication platforms have taken to attract 50m users. Radio = 38 years. TV = 13 Yrs. Myspace = 2 yrs. (Factoid: If Myspace were a country, it would be the fifth largest in the world). Point being, 50M people suddenly became digitally connected in 2 yrs, that's just for starters. So, the theoretical idea that you can (within six steps) be connected to anyone in the world, doesn't seem so unreal.

Technology is neutral remember

There is an interesting piece in this morning's FT by John Gapper who looks at the role of technology in Iran following this week's events.

He writes that

The events in Iran tempt us to view digital technology as a purely liberating force. Rupert Murdoch upset China in 1993 when he asserted that “advances in the technology of telecommunications have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere”, but that view is now accepted wisdom.

But a warning it can have the opposite effect

technology is neutral: the power it hands to citizens who twitter about their political activities could in future be used against them by governments. As they broadcast, they identify themselves as dissidents and leave digital fingerprints on networks.

Too much information and too much technology

The Internet may one day prove to be the most profoundly transformative creation of humankind. There is also the possibility it can turn into a garbage dump of the human mind where the glittering is buried beneath the refuse.

writes James Moore adding that

The overwhelming flow, redirection, and accumulation of information have the potential to render almost everything meaningless. New developments, which are designed to simplify, have often tended to complicate.

Journalists get much criticism though as he continues

Suddenly, reporters and anchors are asking people to follow them on Twitter and Facebook and their news programs have pages where viewers can post comments on the latest stories.

and technology may be to blame

My sense is that for technology to succeed it must be simple and work in the background to perform a task. I want my computer to be an appliance like a toaster. Instead, the net, new applications, smart phones, (dumb users), downloads, uploads, updates, and browsers that are evolving faster than machines in a Terminator flick are complicating what were once mundane, daily tasks.

The wave is coming.

The latest in communication collaboration was announced yesterday by Google.


Being not particually technically brilliant I will refer you to the post from Martin Bryant who is so much better at explaining the latest technological developments.

He writes that

Wave allows groups to work together in the same web environment, throwing images, photos and videos into a shared conversation stream. The concept is essentially the same as a FriendFeed group, with the same realtime multimedia flow. However, while FriendFeed is geared up for threaded discussions similar to the bulletin boards of yore, Google Wave seems like it will be more suitable to an on-going teamworking environment. Interestingly, a ‘replay’ function is available, allowing the evolution of a conversation to be reviewed later.

Martin believes that the potential is huge

One market that will be likely to lap this up is journalists who could collaborate on the same story from multiple locations, all into the same stream. Wave-powered election night coverage, for example, could be highly effective. Group gaming is another area where Wave could be useful.

A frightening vision of the future-you will never be alone with a book

comes from the Wall Street Journal's Steven Johnson who looks at the consequences of the E book in this great article.

an infinite bookstore at your fingertips is great news for book sales, and may be great news for the dissemination of knowledge, but not necessarily so great for that most finite of 21st-century resources: attention.

Why you may ask-well

1.one of the great joys of book reading -- the total immersion in another world, or in the world of the author's ideas -- will be compromised. We all may read books the way we increasingly read magazines and newspapers: a little bit here, a little bit there.

2.Imagine every page of every book individually competing with every page of every other book that has ever been written, each of them commented on and indexed and ranked. The unity of the book will disperse into a multitude of pages and paragraphs vying for Google's attention.

Hansard report-but no mention of twitter

Just had a quick flick through the Hansard report into how MP's are using digital media to keep in touch with their consitituents.


Here are some highlights.

1.The internet is now part of an MP's daily life.

2.They see digital media as a positive way of communicationg with their constituents.

3.Adoption is down to a members personal attitude to technology and the precariousness of the majourity in the seat.

Interestingly the report concludes that one area blogging is not as popular due in part to time constraints but also as members don't beleive taht they target their audience sufficiently.

But perhaps tucked down in the recomendations is the cautionary tale that the internet does not exist in isolation.In fact it must not be divorced from the non digital approach

2008-The year of social media

Social media has certainly been the buzzword of 2008 and if you want a excellent round up of what is all actually means read Liako.Biz. who says that

2008 was when the Information Age’s "social media" finally displaced the Industrial Era’s "mass media".

For a great definition of what it is or what is isn't he refers to Stowe Boyd who says

1.Social Media Is Not A Broadcast Medium: unlike traditional publishing -- either online or off -- social media are not organized around a one-to-many communications model.

2.Social Media Is Many-To-Many: All social media experiments worthy of the name are conversational, and involve an open-ended discussion between author(s) and other participants, who may range from very active to relatively passive in their involvement. However, the sense of a discussion among a group of interested participants is quite distinct from the broadcast feel of the New York Times, CNN, or a corporate website circa 1995. Likewise, the cross linking that happens in the blogosphere is quite unlike what happens in conventional media.

3.Social Media Is Open: The barriers to becoming a web publisher are amazingly low, and therefore anyone can become a publisher. And if you have something worth listening to, you can attract a large community of likeminded people who will join in the conversation you are having. [Although it is just as interesting in principle to converse with a small group of likeminded people. Social media doesn't need to scale up to large communities to be viable or productive. The long tail is at work here.]

4.Social Media Is Disruptive: The-people-formerly-known-as-the-audience (thank you, Jay Rosen!) are rapidly migrating away from the old-school mainstream media, away from the centrally controlled and managed model of broadcast media. They are crafting new connections between themselves, out at the edge, and are increasingly ignoring the metered and manipulated messages that centroid organizations -- large media companies, multi national organizations, national governments -- are pushing at them. We, the edglings, are having a conversation amongst ourselves, now; and if CNN, CEOs, or the presidential candidates want to participate they will have to put down the megaphone and sit down at the cracker barrel to have a chat. Now that millions are gathering their principal intelligence about the world and their place in it from the web, everything is going to change. And for the better.

Something that will change our lives

I always look forward to Simon Hoggart's column in the Saturday Guardian and today he turns his attention to some of the worst technology predictions ever made.

Here are three of the top one.

1.Alan Sugar predicting the I-Pod would necer catch on ( and that was in 2005)

2.A prediction that Tv would fail because people wouldn't like to stare at a plywood box in the corner of their room

and the best

3.In 1977 the boss of Digital Equipment said that nobody would need a computer in their home

That last one reminds me of school.It must have been about that time that the headmaster announced that the school was going to purchase a computer.There was uproar as people demanded that the money be better spent on books and other learning materials.

But I remember him giving a passionate speech at the time saying how this will one day change our lives and the school could not afford to turn its back on the opportunity.

Scoffed at the time,how correct he was

If you want to be a journalist-aim for doneness

An interesting post (Ht-Martin Stabe) from Yahoo News

News organizations are burning out reporters by demanding that they use more and more different types of technology to tell their stories, leading journalists said at a National Press Club forum at the University of Missouri Monday.

According to the piece,technology appears to be adding little to the economic model (except perhaps reducing staff numbers)of the newspaper.

This was one particular comment

You don't have a choice," she said. "If you want to be a journalist today, you just have to work harder and more efficiently. You aim for perfection until your deadline, and then you aim for doneness. You just gut it out."

Of course it is an argument that has been heard many times.

My take,it is not going to be uninvented,yes it can enhance a piece of information,greatly in some respects but the story is the main selling piece