Imagining the technological future
Now Playing: NPR's Weekend Edition via KCRW's webcast
I've been trying to tie together some of the ideas about technology and the future that have been swirling around my head recently. More accurately, I want to see the future but not let current trends or hype affect that vision. Where is the strategic inflection point (SIP, from Grove's book, Only the Paranoid Survive) with mobile devices, wireless internet, RSS and consumer-driven communication. The difficulty is in distinguishing between signals and noise and that's where I am with the current landscape. Here's a SIP diagram:

Here are my technology observations that I want to combine into something new:

Hacks with Google Earth

Podtech.net's infoTalk Podcast with VCs Accel Partners: "Harnessing the users to generate the content or to help refine the content"-- That means having consumers help generate content and even assist with more relevant searching capabilities (we talked about harnessing the power of Wiki to create the next generation of search even more powerful than Google...maybe)

Reading Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Bible at Barnes & Noble's cafe and seeing two different groups of three pre-teens come to hang out and grab some Starbucks. What caught my eye was how quickly each group started playing with their mobile phones, whether is was chatting with someone on the phone while real life human beings were sitting right next to them or simply playing with them, checking call histories or text messages. The potential of talking with someone else, who might be more exciting than your present company, seemed to drive both of these pre-teen gatherings. I watched for 5 minutes with quiet interest, wondering what the future hold for mobile devices as pre-teens like this are using them so critically to their social lives.

Finally, thanks to NPR for further popularizing the Brazilian Girls by interviewing them on today's Weekend Edition. JK and I have been excited about Brazilian Girls for some time (yes, I mean the musical group too) thanks to the great radio station KCRW (which I've posted on many times before). So check out Brazilian Girls and KCRW.
It will be interesting to see how this story affects the number of "Brazilian Girls" references on the web and on the blogs. I wonder if Technorati can help us determine that impact...

As of 12:36 EST, 7/16/05:
"Brazilian Girls" had 4,812 posts. Here's the most recent number. Let's see what happens after a couple of hours and the NPR story has settled in.

Updated: Looks like Richard's Pig Sty blog at MSN Spaces beat me to it accoridng to Technorati.

Posted by cph19 at 12:40 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 13 August 2005 2:57 AM EDT

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