MediaFuturist: Predictions

Entries categorized "Predictions"

January 06, 2010

Mobile Trends 2020: slideshow & wisdoms by some very smart people (must-read)

Fellow mobilist and DotOpen Founder Rudy de Waele has drummed up some great predictions, bottom-lines and other assorted wisdoms from 20+ really great people (including myself...for some odd reason; in any case I am really delighted to be asked to contribute - thanks Rudy!), asking us to provide input on out top 5 mobile trends for the next decade.

This effort produced a very nice slideshow that really packs a punch, see below. It includes some serious nuggets of wisdom from people such as Howard Rheingold, Douglas Rushkoff, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Gerd Leonhard, Timo Arnall, Carlo Longino, Katrin Verclas, Atau Tanaka, Alan Moore, Marek Pawloski, Ajit Jaokar, Nicolas Nova, Inma Martinez, Tony Fish, Jonathan MacDonald, Willem Boijens, Carlos Domingo, Russ McGuire, Raimo van der Klein, Michael Breidenbruecker, Robert Rice, Steve O’Hear, Ted Morgan, Martin Duval, Andreas Constantinou, Fabien Girardin, Matthäus Krzykowski, Rich Wong, Andy Abramson, Ilja Laurs, David Wood, Stefan Constantinescu, Henri Moissinac, Kevin C. Tofel, Enrique C. Ortiz, Felix Petersen, Tom Hume...

Here is my stuff, excerpted (from slide #9)

1. Mobile advertising will surpass the decidedly outmoded Web1.0 & computer-centric advertising - and ads will become content, almost entirely. Advertisers will, within 2-5 years, massively convert to mobile, location-aware, targeted, opt-ed-in, social and user-distributed 'ads'; from 1% of their their budgets to at least 1/3 of their total advertising budget. Advertising becomes 'ContVertising' - and Google's revenues will be 10x of what they are today, in 5 years, driven by mobile, and by video.

2. Tablet devices will become the way many of us will 'read' magazines, books, newspapers and even 'attend' live concerts, conferences and events. The much-speculated Apple iPad will kick this off but every major device maker will copy their new tablet within 18 months. In addition, tablets will kick off the era of mobile augmented reality. This will be a huge boon to the content industries, worldwide - but only if they can drop their mad content protection schemes, and slash the prices in return for a much larger user base.

3. Many makers of simple smart phones - probably starting with Nokia- will make their devices available for free - but will take a small cut (similar to the current credit-cards) from all transactions that are done through the devices, e.g. banking, small purchases, on-demand content etc. Mobile phones become wallets, banks and ATMs.

4. Quite a few mobile phones will not run on any particular networks, i.e. without [I mean unlocked] SIM cards. The likes of Google (Nexus), and maybe Skype, LG or Amazon will offer mobile phones that [may eventually] will work only on Wifi / WiMax, LTE or mashed-access networks, and will offer more or less free calls. This will finally wake up the mobile network operators, and force them to really move up the food-chain - into content and the provision of 'experiences'

5. Content will be bundled into mobile service contracts, starting with music, i.e. once your mobile phone / computer is online, much of the use of the content (downloaded or streamed) will be included. Bundles and flat-rates - many of them Advertising 2.0-supported - will become the primary way of consuming, and interacting with content. First music, then books, new and magazines, then film & TV.

Mobile Trends 2020

View more documents from rudydw.

Jan 6, 2010 7:54:55 PM | Bottom Lines, Consumer Insights, Content 2.0, Cool people, Crossmedia, Crowdsourcing, Devices, eBooks, Education, Emerging Markets, Enterprise 2.0, Future of Business, Future of Media, Future Watch, Good reads, Innovation, Inspiring, Link Economy, Marketing2.0, mCommerce, Mobile Advertising, Mobility, Must Reads, Open Is King, Other writers, People, Predictions, Print & Newspapers, Reading 2.0, Real-Time Web, Resources, Sharism

December 05, 2009

Announcing my new book on Lulu: "Friction is Fiction" - write a review and get the free PDF!

I have been very busy compiling my best essays, blog posts and other writings from the past 3 years, and have finally uploaded the most recent version to Lulu (my favorite print-on-demand book store). The new book is now called 'Friction is Fiction' and is available in 3 versions: 1) 158 pages, 6x9 inches / U.S. trade format, full-color, for $60.40, here (yes, it's quite pricey because of the cost of printing 4-color, on-demand) 2) the same dead-tree version, but in black & white only, for $19.98, here (much cheaper but a lot less cool;) 3) as a PDF, for a token price of $7.50, here.

I would be delighted if you would consider buying whatever works best for you - what better Christmas present could you possibly think of! Please note that this book will be updated every 3 months, to include my latest writings. If you want to share the book page please just send people to www.frictionisfiction.com - thanks.

As to giving away the free PDF, here is the deal: you can contact me anytime (via email, Facebook or Twitter) to request a free copy of the PDF if you just don't want to (or can't) spend the $7.50, and I will send you the download link. In return, what I ask from you is to pay me with attention, i.e. to write a review on Lulu, a blog-post, or a tweet about my book, with a link (all 3 is best;). Deal?

As to the title: I used to simply call this compilation 'The Best of Media Futurist' but while looking through all those posts - and spending a lot more time revising them - I found an important thread that goes through almost all of it and which therefore has become the new title: Friction is Fiction. So what does that mean? It means that if you are currently basing your success on maintaining or even constructing hurdles, difficulties or other bottlenecks somewhere in the system - i.e. if there is something that impedes the flow of information, or a transaction or purchase so that a higher price point or some other form of control over the can be obtained - then you are very likely to face diminishing revenues in the next few years. Building obstacles for users (fka consumers) used to work just fine but... no longer. Building walls is the fastest road to suicide in the digital economy.

The web has been utterly ruthless about finding these glaring points of friction, such as paying for eMail (remember that?), paying a ton of money for long-distance phone calls (remember those pre-skype days?), or consumers not having any access to travel booking systems, flight information or seating. These hurdles are being removed, one-by-one, and those 'people formerly known as consumers' are getting more powerful every single day. Banking on friction to increase your revenues has become like throwing matches into the river and asking it to stop - it's useless.

Friction was, of course, the main money-maker in the media, entertainment and content business, for a long time: certain CDs were only available in certain stores at certain times in certain countries, DVDs with those movies you really wanted were only available in certain countries and within certain 'windows', books had to be printed and shipped, and ring-tones could only be purchased from your operator. Basically, at every turn the consumer encountered have-to's and must's which essentially allowed a substantial level of control by the media and content companies - and thus, higher prices. In many cases, the more friction the higher the price you could ask for.

No longer. Read the book!

Related: my blog-book "The End of Control": download the first 6 chapters here. Also: My Music 2.0 book is available via Lulu, here

Dec 5, 2009 12:03:35 PM | 21st Century Content Ecology, Announcements, Attention Economy, Consumer Insights, Content 2.0, Control Fights, Copyright, Creative Rights, Digital Music, Disruption, eBooks, End of Control, Free!, Friction is Fiction, Future of Books, Future of Business, Future of Content, Future of Journalism, Future of Media, Future of Money, Future of Music, Future of PR & Communications, Good reads, Google, Inspiring, Lifestreaming, Link Economy, Marketing2.0, mCommerce, Me, MP3 blogs, Music Flat Rate, Music Like Water, Must Reads, My Books, My writings, Open Is King, Predictions, Print & Newspapers, Pure Fiction?, Real-Time Web, Realizations, Social Media, Social Networks, TeleMedia, Television, The Cloud, Trends, Trust, TV

November 03, 2009

The Future of Social Media: audio & video of my presentation at PICNIC09 in Amsterdam

PICNIC09 was a fantastic event and I really enjoyed being there; see my previous blogpost and PDF / Slideshare here. For those of you that regularly cruise on the Autobahn or spend a lot of time in the gym: the audio-only / MP3 version is here. If you prefer Youtube to Vimeo, the GerdTube.com i.e. Youtube versions are available now, too (yes... chopped up in those required 10 minute chunks): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

PICNIC '09: The Future of Social Media with Gerd Leonhard from PICNICCrossmediaweek on Vimeo.

The Blip.tv version (use the full-screen option!)

Nov 3, 2009 3:57:26 PM | 21st Century Content Ecology, Broadband Culture, Consumer Insights, Content 2.0, Future of Books, Future of Media, Future of Selling, Inspiring, MY PRESENTATIONS, My speaking engagements, Open Is King, Openness Issues, Predictions, Social Advertising, Social Media, Social Networks, Trends, Twitter, VIDEO BLOG, Videos I Like

September 21, 2009

There's hope: PWC: Global entertainment & media growth will leapfrog GDP during economic recovery

I have been digging through a lot of really great (and free;) reports from PWC (Price Waterhouse Coopers) today, including this one and most of these. 2 nuggets I want to share:

1) Entertainment and Media (E&M) spending will leap-frog the general economic recovery process and GDP growth

2) Most of the E&M growth is in Mobile and Digital

Sep 21, 2009 7:39:00 AM | 21st Century Content Ecology, Advertising Trends, Broadband Culture, Consumer Insights, Predictions, Print & Newspapers, Resources, Statistics, Trends

September 13, 2009

Nokia video on mixed reality: watch this and... think!

This video shows the future or shall I say 'almost reality' of mobile communications... mind-boggling opportunities, and vast cultural changes. And Digital Jet Lag, for sure.

Sep 13, 2009 4:10:21 PM | Nokia, Predictions, Pure Fiction?, Telecom2.0, Trends, Videos I Like

July 24, 2009

Great video by Don Tapscott: Rebuild the World

Don Tapscott - the Wikinomics guy - is just a great speaker, with seemingly endless knowledge, and one of the people that constantly inspire me in my own work (check out the new Futerati.com for all the others...) This video has so many great pieces of wisdom in it that you'll just need to watch the entire 62 minutes! Thanks to Sander Duivestein at VINT / SOGETI for sending this my way. From the Vimeo site:

"The global economic crisis is a wakeup call to the world: we need to rethink and rebuild many of the organizations and institutions that have served us well for decades, but now have come to the end of their life cycle. The financial services industry, for example, does not just need fresh infusion of capital or some new regulations; it needs a whole new operating model — one based on transparency, sharing of intellectual property and global governance.

As the crisis has spread to other sectors in the economy and even other sectors of society, it is exposing structural weaknesses and modes of operation that no longer nurture social and economic growth. The recent collapse of many newspapers is just one storm-warning of more to come: conventional wisdom isn’t going to cut it for success in this century. We need to reinvent our institutions..."

The new keynote "Rebuilding the World" by Don Tapscott from Sander Duivestein on Vimeo.

Jul 24, 2009 12:30:25 AM | Futurists, Openness Issues, Other writers, People, Predictions, Recession survival, Trends, Videos I Like

July 03, 2009

The price of freedom: Reinventing the online economy (RSA Journal July 2009)

I was delighted to be invited to make a contribution to the RSA Journal's July 2009 edition, the printed version of which was just send out I believe, and the online edition that just went up on their website.

The complete title of my piece is: "The price of freedom - reinventing the online economy: Gerd Leonhard explains why ‘free’ content can still pay in the long term" and I really enjoyed writing this for them.

Following my last presentation at the RSA, in April 2009, on 'The Future of Content and Creativity' I have had many good conversations about this topic. The audio track from this event is here, btw; and the video is embedded again, below. Enjoy. And RT;)

I definitely recommend that you check out the other great features in the Juy 09 RSA journal, as well, there's some great gems in there.

Update (January 10, 2010):

English Version as downloadable PDF: Download RSA Gerd Summer 2009

German Translation by Rainer Classen : RSA German Translation: Preis der Freiheit

Spanish Translation by Carlos Perez Vellila: Spanish Price of Free RSA

Italian Translation by Federico Ciappi: Download Il prezzo della libertà RC1

You can read the entire thing on the RSA page, so here is just an excerpt:

"Free information, free music, free content and free media have been the promises of the internet (r)evolution since the humble beginnings of the World Wide Web and the Netscape IPO on 9 August 1995. What started out as the cumbersome sharing of simple text, grainy images and seriously compressed MP3s via online bulletin boards has now spread out to every single segment of the content industry – and even into ‘meatspace’ (real-life) services such as car rentals. Without a doubt, ‘free’ has become the default expectation of the young web-empowered digital natives and now the older generations are jumping in, too.

On top of the already disruptive force of the good old computer-based Web1.0, we are witnessing a global shift to mobile internet – a WWW that is, finally, so easy to use that even my grandmother can do it. While five years ago, we needed a ‘real’ computer tethered to a bunch of wires to port ourselves to this other place called ‘online’ and partake in global content swapping, now we just need a simple smart phone and a basic data connection. With a single click of a button, we’re in business – or rather, in freeloading mode.

As users, we love ‘free’; as creators, many of us have come to hate the very thought. When access is de facto ownership, how can we still sell copies of our creations? Will we be stuck playing gigs while our music circles the globe on social networks, or blogging (now: tweeting) our heart out without even a hint of real money coming our way?

Daunting as it may seem, we can no longer stick with the pillars of Content1.0, such as the so-called fixed mechanical rate that US music publishers are currently getting ‘per copy’ of a song ($0.091). Nobody knows what really defines a copy any longer when the web’s equivalent of a copy (the on-demand play of that song on digital networks) may be occurring hundreds of millions of times per day. No advertiser, no ISP and not even Google has this kind of money to pay the composer (or rather, the publisher), at least not until the advertisers start bringing at least 30–50 per cent of their global US$1 trillion marketing and advertising budgets to the table.

Traditional expectations and pre-internet licensing agreements are exactly what are holding up YouTube’s deals with the music rights organisations such as PRS and GEMA: this is what the rights organisations used to get paid for the music that is being copied, and this is what they want to get paid now. This impasse is causing significant friction in our media industries worldwide. Yet, below the top-line issue of money, there lurks an even more significant paradigm shift: the excruciating switch from a centralised system of domination and control to a new ecosystem based on open and collaborative models. This is the shift from monopolies and cartels to interconnected platforms where partnership and revenue sharing are standard procedures. In most countries, copyright law gives creators complete and unfettered control to say yes or no to the use of their work. Rights-holders have been able to rule the ecosystem and, accordingly, ‘my way or the highway’ has been the quintessential operating paradigm of most large content companies for the past 50 years.

Enter the internet: now the highway has become the road of choice for 95 per cent of the population, the attitude of increasing the price by playing hard to get is rendered utterly fruitless. Like it or not, a refusal to give permission for our content to be legally used because we just don’t like the terms (or the entity asking for a licence) will just be treated as ‘damage’ on the digital networks, and the traffic will simply route around it. The internet and its millions of clever ‘prosumers’, inventors and armies of collaborators will find a way to use our creations, anyway. Yes, we can sue Napster, Kazaa or The PirateBay and we can whack ever more moles as we go along. We can pay hundreds of millions of dollars to our lawyers and industry lobbyists – but none of this will help us to monetise what we create. The solution is not a clever legal move, and it’s not a technical trick (witness the disastrous use and now total demise of Digital Rights Management in digital music). The solution is in the creation of new business models and the adoption of a new economic logic that works for everyone; a logic that is based on collaboration, on co-engagement and on, dare we mention it, mutual trust – an ecosystem not an egosystem. Once we accept this, we can start to discover the tremendous possibilities that a networked content economy can bring to us.

Free, feels-like-free and freemium

Much has been written on the persistent trend towards free content on the net. It is crucial that we distinguish between the different terms so that we can develop new revenue models around all of them. ‘Free’ means nobody gets paid in hard currency – content is given away in return for other considerations, such as a larger audience, viral marketing velocity or increased word of mouth (or mouse). I may be receiving payment in the form of attention, but that isn’t going to be very useful when it’s time to pay my rent or buy dinner for my kids. Free is... well, unpaid, in real-life terms.

‘Feels-like-free’, on the other hand, means that real money is being generated for the creators while their content is being consumed – but the user considers it free. The payment may be made (ie sponsored or facilitated) by a third party (such as Google’s recently launched free music offering in China, Top100.cn); it may be bundled (such as in Nokia’s innovative ‘Comes With Music’ offering, which bundles the music fee into the actual handsets) or the payment may be part of an existing social, technological or cultural infrastructure (such as cable TV or European broadcast licence fees) and therefore absorbed without much further thought. Feels-like-free could therefore be understood as a smart way to re-package what people will pay for, so that the pain of parting with their money is removed or somewhat lessened – everyone pays, somehow, but the consumption itself feels like a good deal...." Read on. PDF: Download RSA - The price of freedom Gerd Leonhard July 2009

Jul 3, 2009 5:57:59 PM | 21st Century Content Ecology, Advertising Trends, Attention Economy, Best Posts, Broadband Culture, Content 2.0, Copyright, Creative Commons, Crucial Stuff, Economic Egoism, End of Control, Free!, Future of Books, Future of Business, Future of Journalism, Future of Media, Future of Music, Future of PR & Communications, Gerd in the media, Music Like Water, MY PRESENTATIONS, My writings, Predictions, Print & Newspapers, Realizations, Trends, TV, Twitter, UGC, Web2.0

June 17, 2009

Told you so: eMail is now second to communicating via Social Networks

I just ran across some nice research from Nielsen called the Global Online Media Landscape - download their free PDF - (yes, I know, it's from April 2009... so I am a bit late to the party...sorry) shows that as of February 2009 the use of eMail is paralled by the use of social networks as far as the frequency of communication is concerned; so-called member communities and social networks are now an equally preferred method of conversation. This trend will continue and I predict that eMail will remain popular mostly for business communications but will otherwise decline drastically, within the next 3 years. I kind of pointed in this direction in a blog post in October 2008 "eMail is for old people'. Now just wait until the Google Wave hits!

Jun 17, 2009 2:12:00 AM | Broadband Culture, Future of PR & Communications, Marketing2.0, Predictions, Social Networks, Trends

April 07, 2009

8 key trends and some foresights for the next 5 years

Every now and then I get tempted into actually formulating some fore-sights. This time, the preparations for my upcoming speech on "New Media Futures" at the RSA in London have egged me on to share a few key points with you:

1) We will soon see the emergence of many different kinds of iPhone-influenced Netbook-like devices; some will be Apple-made but most will not. These devices may be 2-3 times the size of an iPhone and will connect to the Internet in every conceivable way, i.e. 3G/4G, LTE, Wimax, Wifi etc. They will be touchscreen, zoom-interface enabled, cloud-computing, speech-controlled, location-aware, mobile-money equipped, socially hyper-networked, always-everywhere-on, HD-camera equipped and possibly project images and audio or even support basic holography.

In addition to the high-end, fully-loaded and perhaps still rather expensive versions that many of us in the so-called developed countries will gobble up, low cost and more basic editions for the developing markets will be sold in the 100s of millions (think India, China, Indonesia...). These smart gadgets will have very low energy consumption and therefore extremely long battery life, may even sport basic solar-power options, and may ultimately cost less than 30 USD, or even be 'free' (why bother to sell the box if you can make a lot more $ with selling services.... Nokia?).

It is these mass-market yet very smart and networked devices, together with cheap or free wireless broadband that will really revolutionize reading, newspapers, books and education; not to mention our music, TV and film consumption habits. Content commerce will be completely redefined as a consequence. As BTO told us a loooong time ago: "You ain't seen nothin' yet"

2) Very cheap or free wireless broadband - at fairly high speeds, i.e. at least 2MB / sec - will be available in most places, particularly in the booming new economies of Asia, India, Russia and South-America, and a bit later, in Africa. Funded by the likes of Google and by the future 'telemedia' conglomerates, governments, cities and states, wireless broadband will probably reach 3-4 out of 5 people on the globe within 5-8 years. User-generated & derived content (UGDC for those of you that must have an acronym ;), virtual co-production, mobile editing and instant network sharing will explode by a factor of 1000, making control of distribution a very distant concept of the past. UGC or UGDC may make up to 50% of the global content consumption by 2015. Consumers will be (co)-creators, marketers, sellers and buyers, and come in a hundred variations, from totally passive to totally active. Then, indeed, filtering, culling and curation will be the key to success.

3) Collective blanket licenses that legalize and unlock legitimate access to basic content services via any digital network will emerge, and are likely to take over as the primary way of content consumption, around the world (but in Asia, first). Just like water or electricity which is readily available when moving into a new home, the basic access to content will be bundled into access to digital networks, i.e. via ISPs, operators, telecoms, portals etc. This shift is starting with music (as already done by TDC in Denmark, and Google in China), and will be quickly followed by films, TV, books and newspapers. Access may often - but in local variations - 'feel like free' to the user but will in fact generate 10s of Billions of $$ via blanket licensing fees (yes... those pools of money), next-generation advertising and branding, data-mining & sharing, up-selling, re-packaging and many other new generatives. This topic will, btw, be the gist of my RSA presentation tomorrow - if you can't be there in person, you may want to listen to the live audio, via this link.

I think that governments around the world will call for and / or support the implementation of collective content licenses that wil finally legalize content usage on the Internet, similar to how governments pushed for the radio and broadcasting licenses approx. 100 years ago. Whether these blanket licenses will be voluntary or compulsory remains to be seen - in any case the only alternative is to perpetuate a severely dysfunctional telemedia ecosystem that criminalizes almost all users and stifles innovation while generating virtually zero new revenues for the creators.

4) Fuel-cells and other next-generation mobile energy sources are a certainty. A serious increase in mobile device power (and therefore, its use) will be achieved by employing next-generation technologies such as fuel cells that could provide for up to 500x the usage time that we have today. This is likely to become a reality in 3-5 years and will revolutionize how we use - and how much we rely on - our mobile devices, especially in countries where there the fixed-line power infrastructure is much less developed or non-existent.

5) Completely targeted and personalized advertising, delivered largely on totally customized mobile computing & communication devices, will turn the the $ 1 Trillion USD advertising and marketing services economy upside down. Behavioral targeting and user-controlled advertising will, of course, become an even hotter potato and a much discussed challenge, but the good old deal of 'I give you attention & personal data and you give me value e.g. content' will be even more pronounced on the Net. In fact, advertising as we knew it is already more or less outmoded and will, during the next 2-3 years, be completely reinvented. Privacy and Trust are the #1 issues here.

The implication is that if your data (within your specific sets of permissions and opt-ins) is used to bring you perfectly synchronized advertising, than advertising really becomes more like content, too. Watch this play out in the mobile advertising space, starting this year, and quite possible boost the global value of advertising-content by more than 100% by 2015. Google will be the main driver here, plus Facebook, Nokia and yes... Twitter (soon to be = Google).

6) We will witness the more or less complete decline of most forms of physical media within 7-10 years. The very definition - and thus the core economic business models - of newspapers, magazines, CDs, DVDs and books will be completely re-written, and new forms of content packaging will rapidly emerge. We can already see a preview of how this may work in the current mobile applications boom: content as part of software packages; paying for the packaging, the curation, the bundling, the personalization - not just for the zeros and ones that are 'the copy'. This trend is important not just because it will reflect the users' (or better... followers') new consumption habits but also because because of the increasing need to save energy and material costs - and moving from content products to content services will certainly go a long way in this regard. The total decline of printing in people's homes, and for personal use, will commence, as well.

7) Paying for privacy will become a distinct option. Today we pay to go online and connect; in the future we may end up paying for the luxury to go offline, disconnect, enjoy the quiet, and give our brain some rest. Maybe if we don't want to share our click-trails and usage data, we will be able to make cash payments instead - and the more you pay, the more private you can be..?

8) Travel 2.0: alternatives to 'actually going there' will explode: immersive, 3D video, virtual rooms, holography. This is a key development that will nurture new forms of entrepreneurship, education and group working.

Please talk back!

Apr 7, 2009 8:15:46 PM | 21st Century Content Ecology, Advertising Trends, Best Posts, Consumer Insights, Emerging Markets, Future of Business, Future of Media, Predictions, Social Media, Telecom2.0, The Cloud, Travel, Trends, TV, Twitter, UGC

March 23, 2009

Some Internet companies are becoming more like Public Utilities and integral parts of our Social Infrastructure

I have observed a recent trend that I want to share and get your feedback on: some Internet companies and platforms such as Google / Youtube, Facebook, Nokia, Slideshare and Twitter are becoming so important to many of us that we would be severely challenged if they went away or materially changed their services. This makes them both very powerful but also very vulnerable - for if we chose to no longer trust them, they would quickly face their demise. Some examples:

Google already provides the digital toolbox and 'cloud computing' infrastructure for a 100s of Millions of people: free email, domain services, calendars, docs, widgets, blogging, videos, voice (soon!) - and of course: search and advertising services. Youtube has become the de-facto next-generation TV for a lot of people, already. My slightly futuristic view is that pretty soon Youtub
e and the many other video sites (and of course the 100s yet unlicensed video download services) may start replacing Cable TV as the prime source of entertainment for a lot of digital natives. A fast net connection + AppleTv + Boxee + Miro ...pretty soon, that should do it!
Facebook provides a key social platform that, for many users, has already substituted email or phone calls,
and is well on the way of becoming a cyberspace 'home' for many of us, a digital meeting place and key part of our social lives. My prediction is that Facebook will become as important as Google - and they will reinvent advertising in the process, just like Google did.
Nokia is heading in the same direction: Comes with Music is looking to provide a seamless, all-inclusive music experience
that is build-in or shall we say hard-wired into our mobile lifes, Nokia's OVI is gearing up to compete as the preferred destination for sharing things, and their handsets i.e. mobile computers are well on the way of becoming remote controls for our lives.
Flickr, Slideshare and Twitter - to a lesser degree, for now, compared to Google and Facebook - have become crucially important to Millions of people
already (I can attest to that) because they are great platforms to share stuff; and shar
ing s eems to be what gets a lot of people excited - not a surprise but certainly an important realization.

A bit like the good old BBC, these companies may soon face a double duty and somewhat of a conundrum: 100s of Million of people have grown accustomed to using them, and their services have become so crucial that they have become not only valuable businesses but also public utilities that we are increasingly depending on. My feeling is that once a company has reached this position, its value is much higher than the actual revenues could ever warrant, since it's no longer just about monetary value but also the social capital they have accrued, and the corresponding TRUST that we put into them. So this is, as a result, the most important mission for those companies that make it to this point: Earn and keep my trust, every single day, with everything you do. And then, I will keep paying attention to you, give you my data to use, send my friends to you. Don't mess with the terms of use without asking me (>Facebook), ask for permission to use my clickstreams and cookies (see Google's approach to behavioral targeting), and don't ask me for $ too early (see Twitter's yet to be defined revenue strategy).

Mar 23, 2009 12:17:07 PM | 21st Century Content Ecology, Attention Economy, Google, Predictions, Sharism, Social Media, Social Networks, The Cloud, Trends, Twitter, UGC, Weblogs, Youtube

March 20, 2009

Imagine an iPhone Netbook 2x the size - adios Kindle and Sony Reader. Publishers: get ready!

Thinking about the current Netbook craze I have a strong hunch that Apple may well jump in and roll out a new iPhone-inspired Netbook - let's call it the Apple iNet - that could be roughly 2-2.5 as large as an iPhone. A TOUCH-SCREEN device like this could easily become a major challenge to digital reading devices such as the Kindle (which I can't try here in Europe) and the Sony Reader (which I have but don't like a lot). I have found myself wanting an iPhone / iPod like device like this 100s of times already, especially while traveling.

If Apple does this - and I would certainly like that , let's just imagine:

We could finally, really read offline web-pages, PDFs, slideshows, white-papers, non-fiction books etc on a nice, full-color touch screen, using next-gen versions of existing apps such as Instapaper ****, Soonr, Stanza, Bookshelf, EReader (in fact, this may be why the new Kindle app for the iPhone is crucial for Amazon!)
We could review our RSS feeds much easier, including images and videos, using apps like Byline (my favorite) and Newsstand, or the Google Reader offline app (once they offer it)
We could cache i.e. record video and audio streams and play them on our 'Apple iNet' device - and actually have a really nice viewing experience
We could use the iNet device to do some simple image and video editing - but most likely this would be done 'in the cloud' not using local software
Image via Wikipedia

A smart, Apple-style device like this (which may have similar elements to OLPC's XO2 but would not compete in the low price markets, naturally) would give a huge boost to the mobile content ecosystem - and it would also usher in an era of rampant and wide-spread electronic book sharing that would make music file sharing look like child's play.

Publishers: you may want to get ready for this sometime soon. My 2 cents: radically lower the prices for ebooks, start looking at bundles, subscriptions and flat rates, figure out how to monetize sharing with new advertising-supported models, gear up to provide added values all the time (value is around the content!!), start planning for those New Generatives - you've got another 12 months if you're lucky. Go!!

Mar 20, 2009 11:03:27 AM | 21st Century Content Ecology, Apple, Books, Future of Media, iPhone, Library 2.0, Predictions, Print & Newspapers

January 30, 2009

How all content is going digital (Content Economy Trends): a new ecosystem is unfolding

These are some trends I have culled and then 'deducted' from my research over the past 3 months - if you have any better information or see errors here, please comment or ping me via Twitter. This certainly bodes well for anyone in the digital content ecosystem - we just need to get 'old' to 'new' now ;)

Jan 30, 2009 1:07:40 PM | 21st Century Content Ecology, End of Control, Predictions, Social Networks, Television, Trends

January 28, 2009

The Future: Cars become Social Objects

Image via WikipediaIn my work on the future of media, technology and content I often run across related areas such as tourism, banking, energy and transportation; and I have recently ventured into some of those sectors, as well (in particular, tourism - more on that, soon).

So here is a short burst I want to share from the world of transportation: I think the Cars of the Future will become more like Social Objects. Of course, this will vary drastically from country to country (and cultures) but I think that an increasingly large percentage of cars will cease to be owned, maintained, paid and used by one party only. Instead, groups of people will have fractional ownership (as the brilliant Kevin Kelly calls it), i.e. use, share or access the car when and where they need it, and thereby using motor vehicles much more efficiently.

This will be true for plain-old functional cars ('just get me from A to B') as well as for fun, sports and other special-purpose cars. The obvious advantage of enormous cost and energy savings will make this concept pretty much irresistible - the only thing that keeps most of us from doing this now, already, is our reliance on the car as a status symbol and (indeed) as some weird guarantor of 'personal freedom' (yes...I am guilty, too). I believe that this will turn around within the next 3-5 years: if you DO own a car, just for yourself and your own enjoyment, people may well consider you hopelessly old-fashioned; and not much admiration will come your way any longer.

I also reckon that within the next 2-3 years many Europeans will not really enjoy individual driving that much any more, with lower and lower speed limits becoming a constant headache, mega-traffic jams and congestion charges and significantly increased chances of delays. This will lead to a much increased demand for high-quality public and semi-public (i.e. first and luxury class) transportation, which will be even further boosted by the fact that people will of course be fully connected anywhere and anytime they travel - and since they won't be busy driving they can take full advantage of this.

We will see steep increases in car-sharing services of all kinds (e.g. Zipcar in the U.S.), and the concept of self-driving electric cars will probably become a reality much sooner than we think - just click the icon on your mobile and the next available car will show up on your doorstep; hop-in and be driven to your destination without lifting a finger.

Driving yourself will increasingly become an exception rather than the default. Talk about change: 100s of Billions of $$, and Trillions of brain-cycles freed up. Think about what we can do with all that time we used to spend on driving. Tele-learning, networking, co-creation, crowdsourcing... here we come!

Jan 28, 2009 12:30:19 PM | CHANGE, Companies to watch, Predictions, Travel, Trends

January 05, 2009

2009 predictions and trends: sharing some good links

Image by gleonhard via Flickr

I am using Twitter to share links pretty much on a daily basis. However, if you are not (yet) into Twitter and just want to follow what I write in my blog posts, here are a few links that I think are worth sharing as we move into the new year:

Steve Rosenbaum at AO: 2009 - 5 Trends That Will Change Media | AlwaysOn. Great stuff in here, and I like his summary: "2009 will be a year of gut wrenching, dramatic, roller-coast change. Big things will get smaller, or die. Little things will survive and start to grow. Consumers will become creators. Lurkers will become participants. The volume of voices will expand exponentially - and the need for clarity and trusted filters will go from being useful to being essential. Just as MP3s turned the music industry on its ear, and Craigs List turned newspapers upside-down, the emergence of personal publishing and new forms of both trusted and Community Curation will have an immediate and long-lasting impact on media, commerce, community and politics"

More gloomy but still with a dash of hope: EMarketer on Advertising Trends in 2009 (see some of their stats below)

Jan 5, 2009 7:45:33 PM | Advertising Trends, Consumer Insights, Future of Media, Good reads, Interesting, Predictions, Trends

December 17, 2008

eMarketer's Predictions for 2009 (good read & think)

Social Media Futures: media in the NETWORK