Bleeding edge
The race for the next big thing is on. Google has the edge on maps and search at the moment. Facebook is a novelty that has had its day. The novelty is wearing off and they do not know how to make money out of it. History shows that sites that do not know how to turn visits into revenue do not last the course. Twitter likewise offers little value but at least it now appears to be free. So again, how to make the money? Its days will be numbered and the fad will fade when people realize how little of interest is out there.
Humbug I hear you say. Yes I am always negative about these things because I think the world is lacking truly useful things on the web. Shopping is done. I buy my books online, my food shopping, my travel and my holidays. Useful because it reduces the human interaction overhead. It rarely saves me money (interesting how a visit to a travel agent is now the way to get cheaper travel). The middlemen fad will not last. I did my 'compare the market' the 'confused etc' and various money supermarkets. All produced quotes well over the price of the elephant.co.uk renewal price, including elephant.co.uk. Its not a surprise that the cost of such sites is paid for by, you guessed it, higher prices. But they will never gain control of the user experience enough to dominate a market.
What surprises me is because of this I am moving away from technology and not towards it except where it does truly add value to my life. So where are the real solutions out there. The ones that do not connect me to people I don't want to be connected to, the ones that do not show me who my friends used to be, the ones that ensure that I can write snippets of crap like school kids passing notes in class, these all do nothing for me except fill in a bit of space in my life that could be used doing something useful.
I wonder if the answer lies in consolidating our position. We have a lot of technology now. Take the bandwidth into the house. My bandwidth has increased almost in proportion to the amount my interest in what is delivered across it has dropped.
What I need is
1) A simple way to alarm my flat so I can see what is happening in a secure way while away.
2) Proper and easy video conf with people in high quality that does not require a degree in computing to operate. I have neither a beard or a tweed jacket with arm pads and do not want to learn anything about ports, bandwidth, add ins, dlls etc.
I want things integrated and easy to use.
The next revolution will be usability and that requires no new technology just the world to slow down and focus on quality rather than a quest for novelty.
Humbug I hear you say. Yes I am always negative about these things because I think the world is lacking truly useful things on the web. Shopping is done. I buy my books online, my food shopping, my travel and my holidays. Useful because it reduces the human interaction overhead. It rarely saves me money (interesting how a visit to a travel agent is now the way to get cheaper travel). The middlemen fad will not last. I did my 'compare the market' the 'confused etc' and various money supermarkets. All produced quotes well over the price of the elephant.co.uk renewal price, including elephant.co.uk. Its not a surprise that the cost of such sites is paid for by, you guessed it, higher prices. But they will never gain control of the user experience enough to dominate a market.
What surprises me is because of this I am moving away from technology and not towards it except where it does truly add value to my life. So where are the real solutions out there. The ones that do not connect me to people I don't want to be connected to, the ones that do not show me who my friends used to be, the ones that ensure that I can write snippets of crap like school kids passing notes in class, these all do nothing for me except fill in a bit of space in my life that could be used doing something useful.
I wonder if the answer lies in consolidating our position. We have a lot of technology now. Take the bandwidth into the house. My bandwidth has increased almost in proportion to the amount my interest in what is delivered across it has dropped.
What I need is
1) A simple way to alarm my flat so I can see what is happening in a secure way while away.
2) Proper and easy video conf with people in high quality that does not require a degree in computing to operate. I have neither a beard or a tweed jacket with arm pads and do not want to learn anything about ports, bandwidth, add ins, dlls etc.
I want things integrated and easy to use.
The next revolution will be usability and that requires no new technology just the world to slow down and focus on quality rather than a quest for novelty.
posted by So long and thanks for all the fish at
6:47 pm
3 Comments:
You occasionally have a beard…
have you checked this out
http://alertme.com/
I have to buy another gadget, install it and learn how to use it. I don't have to buy a microwave and then buy a separate clock and bolt it on myself.
We have all this technology and on the whole some advanced things can be done for very little money. So why not integrate it into new houses? Its not as if margin's are tight on new builds.
The car industry has it right. Leading edge products come as separate add-ons. I remember the auto window winder you could fit onto a car door to get electric windows. Now they all have it. Same for stereos, trip computers, mobile phones, GPS, reversing sensors. They take the leading edge stuff and integrate it, make it either invisible or simple to use.
Why don't they do that for houses? Why is everything still and add on?
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