As the world becomes more and more connected, the number of ways we connect increases. Not only will computers talk to other computers, we now have phones, tablets and other devices that will be all connected. But we’re just getting started. Imagine everything from alarm clocks to cars to kitchens knowing how to respond based on what’s going on in your life, real time. This is just the beginning of the semantic web.
It’s early days for social analytics, but ever since the term “viral” was coined, there have been many attempts to determine how and why content gets rapidly disseminated across the social sphere. While there probably isn’t a single formula that works for all, understanding social amplification is a bit of art and science. The NY Times’ R&D group has taken an analytical approach through Project Cascade, a beautiful visualization of how some of their content spreads over time, seeking patterns and trends.
Photo credit: Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
It’s pretty clear that mobile devices have become the de facto platform for digital innovation. The sheer number of mobile-centric startups that are quickly gaining traction is astounding. From Path to Instagram, from IntoNow to Color, entrepreneurs are tapping into possibilities that didn’t seem likely even a year ago.
One area that I expected to explode is the field of mobile payments. Unlike many new mobile trends, like location-services, the payment field is very mature with serious competitors who have been at it for decades. In order to successfully disrupt the market, contenders will need to overcome the following issues/barriers, all of which are critical to commercial success.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then there isn’t much else to say about the music industry. I will say that the industry had a good run. But over the last decade, they have favored lawsuits over innovation, and insisted on clinging on to a business model that forced consumers to buy a full album when they wanted a la carte songs. I’d say the industry is ripe for change and for new businesses to come in to reap the rewards.
Last summer, I came across a blog post by LukeW about a design philosophy that put mobile considerations first. For the past several years, mobile interfaces were treated somewhat like second-class webizens, often as after-thoughts to the primary traditional desktop web site. However, as mobile continues to grow in popularity and consumers’ attention shifts to mobile devices, consumers will demand a mobile web experience that is just as satisfying as the desktop experience. Does that mean a drastic reduction in features and content? Not necessarily. What seems like a bit counter-intuitive at first is actually quite helpful as it enforces design discipline and focus. Fast forward to 2011 and we have another example of mobile leading design language.
Hitpost is an interesting new web experience for sports fans. Instead of using a traditional web interface, it appears to have been heavily influenced by a mobile app, Flipboard. This strikes me as bold and noteworthy because as digital designers, we often have to “dumb down” web interfaces for mobile but here we have the opposite, where a mobile interface is scaled up for the desktop. I laud their approach and can’t wait to get my hands on the beta.
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