Rather like this picture, it was created for a very interesting and detailed feature about the 3rd industrial revolution in The Economist. (Illustrator http://www.brettryder.co.uk/)
The Rise and Rise of the Niche
In the same way that niche websites and interests became mainstream, Mashable and Huff Post being too of the most obvious examples, in the next decade hobbyists will have much richer apps and sites that bring new innovations to their pleasure and understanding of their passion.
The beauty of this is that at the moment there is no money in playing to these small crowds(though the exponential growth of the tablet market means there soon will be), this means that it is love that will drive the exploration of these niches to begin with, the very best kind of inspiration.
In terms of creative hardware for enthusiasts, this too is about to get a lot more accessible and a lot more functional.
One of the most unfortunate effects of the speed of innovation is seen on the factory floors that are becoming increasingly quiet and automated. But the rise of the 3D Printer, it is roughly 5 years away from being an affordable consumer item and is already a booming mini industry now, will bring huge advantages to amateur inventors and bedroom industrialists. Before long, it will cost young entrepreneurs in the low hundreds rather than the low tens of thousands to get their idea to prototype stage.
No doubt it will create far more homogeny than individuality, these things almost always do in the end, but that isn’t really the point because like with every other technological breakthrough where imaginations are given a whole new tool kit, whole industries, both large scale and cottage, will be given another breath to compete in a world that is now increasingly indebted to the creative breakthroughs of the younger generation. It’s always been more about environments than necessarily hardware or software, and the gift of easy physical prototyping to this generation, that of the printing of almost anything you can imagine, is an environment that takes the persistent and sometimes brilliant inventors closer to realising their vision.
What’s so exciting is that on one hand we have a digital tablet capable of almost anything you can imagine and more importantly, build, and on the other a canvas equally amorphous but one that the non technologically minded can have as much fun with and indeed build to their hearts content with. The pool from where good ideas come is twice as big and growing by the day.
This is one of the most inspiring 3D printing projects that you might come across, the Rep Rap printer can reproduce itself! The potential is damn near infinite as is it’s reach.
Well worth a watch, a talk all about how old ways of trading/bartering are being reinvented for the 21st Century.
Recession and Joy
Art has always been a mirror to society, either in the convoluted deliberate sense that centuries of religious and monarchical patronage encouraged or in the accidental sense that decades of the more symbiotic relationship between tv bosses and hungry audiences has cultivated.
It is no coincidence that the surprise hit of last year on British television was The Great British Bake Off on BBC 2, nor that the all together more kindly The Voice has triumphed over Cowell’s angrier formats in countries around the globe. Nor is it a coincidence that the services of Instagram proved a wildly popular bait for today’s feverish smart phone users. The addition of warm, idealised filters give people a sometimes literally rose tinted prism through which to see and record their lives. When times are good we are cynical and disdainful of nostalgia but when times take a darker turn we reach for the comfortable old favourites for emotional nourishment and security.
In regards to apps then, while the world economy teeters and the average user isn’t seeing a penny of the billions of pounds of investment being rained upon us lucky technologists, I would argue that what the core user wants at the moment is joy. They want to feel warm inside, they want to share and discover things that make them smile and make them laugh. The huge popularity of social gaming is another profound indicator of this need as is the complete overhaul of the demographics of people who actually game now, which is basically everyone.
Pinterest is the hottest social network right now and with good reason, it is almost the epitome of a service that delivers little nuggets of joy. By far the most pinned types of item are food and home interiors, obvious paeans to nostalgia. Pinterest didn’t set itself up to become top heavy in terms of this subject matter but has succeeded brilliantly in creating a positive environment where the mirroring that we have seen so clearly with art and modern media cuts out the middle man and becomes just that, a pure varnished mirror with millions of reflections a day looking back at us.
It goes without saying that the tone and nature of these environments will sway with the mood of the audience but my advice is to develop Joy in 2012 and it will make you a very happy founder/investor indeed.
The Future of Touch Computing?
Right now, my laptop sits idle beside me, old, decaying and rather sad, caked in the dust characteristic of an owner who long ago lost respect for a machine that now crashes two or three times a day.
I am typing on a bluetooth keyboard using my ipad as a screen for the first time. The relationship between what I am writing and what I am seeing on the screen becomes altogether more intuitive. I can, for the first time, touch the prose that I am writing entirely by itself. The relationship between keyboard and screen becomes like that of a pen to paper, rather than keyboard to screen. That the keyboard takes up so much space on an iPad has always dissuaded me from typing anything but short emails etc but the devotion of the screen entirely to content rather than function, even when you are creating, is something rather awesome to behold.
It could be a good bet that Apple will release the next generation of iMacs and Macbook Pros and Air’s as keyboard and touch combinations. The separation between typing and touch are massively important in regards to the efficacy of the experience. Yes, of course the iPad is incredible as a content device, that’s why it’s on course to sell easily 300m units in the next 5 years, but it’s also an amazing content creation device and you really do need hardware to use it to it’s full potential.
Think about it, do you really want have half your screen devoted to a keyboard? Is that really going to give you the rhythm required to help you write great content?
1. Buy the Apple bluetooth keyboard for your iPad, it will change your experience.
2. Start thinking about the implications of a touch screen desktop computer. When Apple releases it in it’s desktop and laptop incarnations, it will usher in a whole new era of interpretations of apps that improve your experience. The touch screen mobile interface isn’t replacing the desktop, rather it is exapting itself into the UX(User Experience). It is more a marriage made in heaven than a fight to the death and we will all enjoy this coming revolution in desktop computing, it is excitingly just around the corner and for anyone with an iPad and a wireless keyboard, it is already here.
The Future of Social TV?
The way we watch TV has changed hugely over the last few years. The revolution really began with iPlayer, the £300m brainchild of Ashley Highfield and Anthony Rose at the BBC. As with all triumphs of design and function, it spurred major change in it’s industry and every other major terrestrial competitor soon made sure you could watch whatever you wanted to watch, whenever you wanted to watch it.
What Anthony Rose did next may well also soon deserve a place in the pantheon of television history.
Zeebox aims to be the centre of your television universe, it is fully integrated into Facebook and Twitter and gives you real time discussion and buzz, or lack of it, that gets viewers talking. It has a really easy simple interface and it really comes to life when you have you have a community of your friends online with you. Millions of people tweet and share their tv musings on Facebook and this app both takes advantage of this but also gives it a centre of gravity with brilliant features that create the ideal environment for this kind of sharing. It’s also just as fun even if you don’t have loads of friends on the app as it provides the ideal place for a tv junkie to see what thousands of other people are thinking about exactly the same thing you are watching.
It can even make you a ‘starwatcher’ and trend setter. If you tweet regularly about tv shows, Zeebox will feature you as an armchair critic and promote your every utterance about tv through the app and site. It is a beautiful idea that truly crowdsources good amateur tv critics and thinkers.
Imagine it as the biggest living room you can imagine with a comfy sofa for its army of users. It’s basically a live database of what’s hot and what’s not on tv and I highly recommend you get involved in what is a brilliant companion to your tv viewing. You can get it on all Android devices, iPhone and iPad and through your laptop/PC.
A fascinating article by Today legend John Humphrys. A very good example of the things that we can learn from the nature of design and it’s implications.
