Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson

It was the year of tablets, social, local, mobile, hacks, and the Arab spring

If 2010 was the year of the tablet, 2011 was the year of the Battle of the Tablets. Tablets played a major role in technology in 2011. So did mobile, social and local. Input like touch became the norm, and gesture and natural language recognition took off for real. Social games became mature and started the second wave, and gamification got entered into the dictionary. This is my view of the year 2011 in technology.

Let’s start with tablets. When the iPad came out, there were signs that we would be entering a new era of computing. The market embraced the device and people discovered new needs for computing. 68% of tablet owners use the device at least one hour a day and 2/3 of people use it while watching TV. On conferences, I see most people with tablets or small computers. In fact, 76% of people bought a tablet in addition to a laptop. We have entered the multidevice era where people have many devices. The laptop for work, tablet for work while travelling or couch browsing while watching TV, and smartphone anytime your not using the others.

Having multiple devices means that the cloud became more important. Basically, what you want is to have seamless access to all your data on any device. Apple has iCloud, Microsoft has SkyDrive, Amazon has Cloud Drive. Then there is Dropbox, Carbonite, SugarSync and others. Syncing content between devices is becoming a mature business in this multidevice era. Your profile and data in on online servers is an ongoing trend.

2011 is the year the PC model died. In Steve Jobs’ last keynote early 2011, he introduced Apple’s service iCloud. The interesting thing was that he demoted the PC as the center of the digital universe to be replaced by the cloud. Ten years earlier Jobs had placed the PC in the center, the digital hub. The year 2011 was the end of the PC era that took off commercially with IBM PC in 1981.

Apple continued in 2011 to lead on may fronts. iPad is still dominant with more that 60% market share. However, companies like Google and Samsung are gaining market share, and eReaders like Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook are also gaining ground. There is one distinguishing factor between these players: content. Apple has iTunes with music, movies and books. Amazon and Barnes and Nobel have books and much more. Amazon can afford to sell the Kindle Fire with a loss as long as people consume their content. The question in 2012 will be this: will tablet-only makers like Samsung survive?

In the smartphone market, the iPhone 4S proved to be successful update, although many were disappointed not to see iPhone 5. Even if Apple dominated the technology attention in 2011, Google is still the winner in smartphone category. Google actives 700.000 Android devices every day and 3.7 million over Christmas 2011.

With iPhone 4S the era of voice recognition is starting. Voice is not new as input, we have seen voice controlled devices before but with Siri Apple is taking this to a new level. Siri is an engine to understand spoken language. This is a notoriously hard problem to solve. We are now at a point where complex software like this can run on small handheld web connected devices, using web services to construct answers in real-time.

The smartphone losers of the year are Microsoft, Nokia and RIM. Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 but adoption is slow. It took them too long to go from an old and outdated OS to a new industrial strengt OS capable of being a software platform. Nokia was in the same position with Symbian. In February, Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia made the famous burning platform memo, and joined forces with Microsoft. 2011 was a horrible year for the Blackberry maker. The service was down for days. The timing was even worse since the iPhone 4S was released at the same time. The joke was, what do the people waiting in line to buy 4S have in common? A Blackberry. RIM has secured their place on the Technology Death List.

In social, Facebook reacted to Google’s onslaught with Google+. Google introduced Circles as a way to group your connections with people. The most interesting thing about Google+ was the growth. This was not steady or even exponential growth, more like rocket growth. Some estimates talk about Google plus has over 60 million users at the end of the year. Google’s plan is to integrate this service into all its products like google docs, youtube, pictures, etc. For example, Picasa, the photo album web has been transformed into Google Photos and is now part of the Google plus universe, just like Facebook Photos are just part of Facebook.

One theme of 2011 was streaming. We saw music streamed, movies streamed, and activities stream to name few. Music sites like Pandora, Spotify, last.fm and may others  grew in popularity. The model that seems to be emerging is offering tons of music and provide personal and shared playlists to stream music. If you don’t like playlists, just let the service pick the songs based on your listening history or searches. For example, if you like The Horrors, you might like (according to Last.fm) S.C.U.M, Cat’s Eyes, TOY, Spider & The Flies and July. This is the local part of the Solomo buzzword.

Another type of content to stream is movies. Netflix has been growing pretty rapidly until they changed the pricing model. That was too much for many users. Still, Netflix is responsible for 30% of internet traffic during peak times in the US. The interesting lesson from Netflix is the recommendation engine that selects 60% of the titles watched by users. Another example of local.

2011 in technology is an testament of where we are going with the online digital world. We are seeing multiple devices, PC being one of them. These devices are small, light, (relatively) affordable and fast. Cloud services with apps for functionality. New input methods are making the mouse obsolete and new UI designs are making the desktop office metaphor of files and folders obsolete. We have stopped collecting copies and started using algorithms to select our content. Welcome to 2012.

Comments to: @olandri

At any given time it is easy to look back to see how technology has changed over time. At the same time it is difficult to see what transformations are taking place in current times, and even more difficult to see where things are going.

In the late 19th century a revolution in science took off. It was easy to see the vast number of inventions and entrepreneurial sprit of the time. At the turn of the century it seems that everything had been invented. But with the rate of invention at the time, it was difficult to image what more could be invented. Yet, in the 20th century we saw more innovations and more technological advanced than in all history of mankind before that. Never in history have we seen such dramatic changes in the way people live and work.

How can we understand what is happening? What is technology anyways? In this lecture we explore what to make of technology. We define the term we will use in the course. Terms defined are technology, product performance, and innovation to name few. These will be used in the context of the next chapters. Several examples are provided.

In this first lecture we set the tone for the course and define the themes that we will be looking at. Technology is one of the major factors in change. There are other factors that transform societies but this is the one we will be focusing on. History has many examples of how companies fail to recognize new technology and find ways to dismiss it, only to find their market share drop and eventually they loose out. Why do executives of these companies fail?

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My course, New Technology is starting this week.  The goal of this course is to provide insight in to how technology evolves, how to track technology trends and create a framework for understanding and even predicting technology changes.

The course will be open and available online. Podcasts will be available on iTunes.

This is the description of the course:

The Outlook of Local in 2012

Location-based services became a new type of service with the emergence of the smartphone. Maps and navigation software are all about location. Foursqure has become the most popular “check-in” location-based service with 15 million users in December 2011 and over billion check-ins (https://foursquare.com/about/). Other services are Forcast, which allows you to tell your friends where you will be at some time, and Facebook has Places (after buying Gowalla, the Foursquare rival). But location is not the only thing about local. It‘s also about the person itself and the context.

Location apps seem to work. According to JiWire Mobile Insights Report, 78% of smartphone users use location-based apps and 29% use them multiple times a day. While this sounds great there are those who believe that the novelty will run out. Checking in is not enough, there has to be value.

As location service mature, they will give more value to the users. Eric Schmidt of Google said in his James MacTaggart lecture 2011: „If content is king, context is its crown.“ It turns out that with multiple of devices, people are in a different situation when using web sites. According to the JiWire report, 17% have made a purchase in response to a location-based advertisement.

This is however not limited to a specific place. Mobile apps can also factor in the time of day, what type of day (workday, weekend, or holiday), your surrounding (are you in a mall, or at a football game, or in a casino). It can also be based on data about you – your digital profile. This profile determines who you are, it is based on data you leave behind, your digital trail, your searches, the pages you visit, the pages you share, your recommendations, comments, your tweets, your Facebook information, and so on. With services based on your profile, apps can utilize a context that is local to you.

This is what we call context, and the technical term is Context Aware Computing or CAC. When one user is sitting at home with their laptops, taking time to find some content on the Internet, another one is looking for answers relative to the place he or she is in. As an example consider a sport betting solution. When accessing the solution on a laptop the player can be given multiple of choices. The player could be looking for content to watch or statistics to look up. If the same player accesses the solution via mobile we might want to give him or her fewer but more focused choices. It is likely that the player just wants to bet on the favourite team or look up the latest scores. The context of the player determines the content and to do so we have to use machine learning.

Machine learning is a method that uses algorithms to analyse empirical data to discover patterns and make decisions based on the data. Popular example uses of this are Amazon‘s recommendation engine and NetFlix movie recommendations. Machine learning is the next step after search. When searching gives you too many outcomes and becomes irrelevant, using data based on the user’s behaviour is the next logical step.

Location is just beginning. Software like Apple’s Siri are emerging and are in the early stages. In 2012 and beyond we will see more applications that use data analysis to find out more about us as users, track our behaviors, our views, comments, ratings and so on. Like it or not, your personal assistant is coming.

The picture above is on the remains of the Berlin wall, part of the East Side Gallery. Taken in summer 2011.

The Outlook of Social in 2012

The buzzword of the year 2011 has to be Solomo which stands for social, local and mobile. Although it is a bit limiting to lump these terms together, the term will clearly continue up the hype cycle in 2012. In terms of social there are few key ideas that will be important in 2012. They can be describe with these words: saturated, dedicated and promoted.

The main driver is that social networks are saturated and getting meaningless for many users. Facebook has now (December 2011) over 800 million users. After doing mindless stuff for some time now, users will leave if they don’t get more sophisticated, more-value-for-the-time experience. People need more serendipity.

Social will of course continue but we will see new ways to do social online, for example smaller and closer networks and maybe more dedicated networks. We could call this the Groucho Marx Paradox, as he is quoted saying: I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. One way to determine a value of a network is by who is not there. Facebook has become an gigantic address book where people can communicate with other people and groups when needed, but hanging out socially is done in other places. Wikipedia list of social networks contains over 200 networks, including ClassMates, CouchSurfing, hi5, LibraryThink, Linkedin, Tumblr, Habbo Hotel, and WeeWorld, just to name few.

Still, Facebook will continue to be the most important platform, at least in the western world. For most Facebook developers, the social network is important to them and made them what they are. But they also fear Facebook as they have no control and the terms can change any time. Mobile is one escape route from being locked into Facebook. This is why the term cross-platform will be key in 2012.

Corporations will further use social media as their main form of communications. We are now just beginning to see the rise of social business. Social media is where products and brands will be promoted. According to 2011 IBM Tech Trend Report, 43% of surveyed businesses are already deploying internal social media products and some 41% are deploying social platforms to promote their brands.

Social games are changing also. In 2012 we will see divergence of social and casual games. Some vendors will continue to provide short game experience like Zynga. In the Zynga games the goal is to create an experience where people can play for very short time. You can check-in often, just to check the status or to play a few moves. These games exploit the Checking Habit, where people have the urge to check multiple times over the day. Other games will be longer and deeper. Gamers tend to like games that last and provide rich and deep context. Causal games, like the typical Facebook game, are usually not that deep. In 2012 we will see more games with deeper game play. This is sometimes referred to as second wave of social games. Cross-platform strategies are also crucial to social games. Well designed game can allow for game play using Facebook, tablet and a smartphone.

Social networks and social media in general will continue explosive growth in 2012 and new services emerge. There are more people using social networks today than used the Internet in 2006. Global social network ad revenues already make up about 10% of worldwide online ad spending, or about $8 billion. There is big money in social and we are still in the early stages.  Facebook will continue to dominate social networking in 2012 but faces competition from other players, of which Google seems to be the most threat. Facebook will fight to keep the users logged into their platform. Perhaps the biggest threat to Facebook is from an unknown power very fundamental to the Internet, decoupling. This concept is the key to why the Internet works. There is no reason to limit users to one web site. The power of the web comes from multiple services, many of them available programmatically though APIs.

Someone will come up with a killer app where users can use their social graph from Facebook and manage all social media without using the Facebook website or other social media websites. It might even exist in some form already.

I recently participated in an interesting and illuminating experiment. Having carried a smartphone on me for some two years, what would life be without a phone? Not only without a smartphone but just without a phone altogether. The results were quite interesting and not what I expected. I actually experienced a feeling of freedom.

The reason I participated in this experiment was not entirely voluntary. On a recent business trip my phone and myself got separated. While I travelled back home to Iceland, the phone went south, all the way to Africa. It was located using Find my iPhone service from Apple in the town of Nabor in Marocco. I could even see the street and the house. And given these circumstances I considered the phone gone.

Then how do you live without a phone? Since I was in this situation, might as well find out. So, here is the experience.

Let’s start with the bad things first. I think the most annoying thing was not to be able to contact my family. This is very natural since the phone is a security tool, a survival mechanism. One few occasions, my wife needed to get hold on me. In all cases, for trivial issues such as picking up some missing ingredants from the dinner recepy. For us to communicate over the workday was easy since we both work on computers and messaging is just a click away.

I missed being able to call when I was at the grocery store. Even if I carefully created a list, I still had the urge to call. Just to check. Then again, this is what we do, we check all the time.

This checking also happens with information. We are always checking mail and for news. I experienced few times early in the experiment that I wanted to grab the phone and do something. Having done that, I noted down why I would do this. In most cases it was because I was bored. Just waiting and with nothing to do. The phone is indeed, a time-killer device.  In two occasions it was because of insecurity. I was worried and not sure if I was doing the right thing so I tried to grab the non-existing phone for confort, just to look like I’m in control – just checking my mail or something. The phone seems to be an escape from insecurity. We feel we look less out place if we appear to be doing something. In one case I needed the phone because I wanted to know where I was and in few I felt it would be good to look up some some information.

I just realized I was suffering from the Checking Habit. This is described by scientists as brief, repetitive inspection of dynamic content quickly accessible on the device (Paper by Oulasvirta et. al: Habits make smartphone use more pervasive). We are checking all the time!

Now for the good parts. Being without the phone actually improved my life in this way. Instead of check email before going out of bed in the morning and numerous times during the day, I committed on working on email fewer times, but much more effective. Also, if you read your email on the phone it is quite common, if not a rule, that you do not respond on the device, but decide to wait until you are at the computer. Reason is that writing email messages is easier using a keyboard than a small device. Then, at the office with the computer you have no new emails and might fail to respond to read-only message.

The most surprising experience I got was when I was just going to work on some preparation. I needed to work for few hours. I got the feeling that I was free – nobody could interrupt me. I was in total control of my life.

With the phone we are actually open for interruption 24/7. We accept this and are not surprised when the phone rings. Somehow this is part of modern life. Always-on. Always checking. And as I write this, my new iPhone on the table beside the laptop.

I’m back on the chain gang.

One interesting field of study that has emerged is the field of biomimicry. This field looks to nature for solution of human problems. Nature has been working on many problems for a very long time and provided solutions that just work – otherwise they simply would not exist.

Pétur Örn Arnarson, student in my 2011 class of New Technology, researched the concept of biomimicry. His paper provides this information:

The purpose of the report is to introduce and create interest by the reader in the ideology of biomimicry that refers to sustainability by looking to Nature for solutions. In this report the basics of biomimicry are introduced to the reader as well as the history of biomimicry. There will be explanation of biomimicry and examples of how biomimicry can be used to create more sustainable world by looking at Nature as a model, mentor and measure. There is an introduction of the largest institutions in this field and there is an explication of the creator of biomimicry, Janine M. Benyus and her work.

My course on technology trends, New Technology starts in January. The purpose of the course is to understand how technology evolves and how it disrupts society. More information can be found here: www.olafurandri.com/newtechnology

This course will be open. It will be made available online.

To give a preview, here is a trailer. This is the People’s Trailer.

Image that you are looking for a restaurant and you go on the Internet to find a good place to eat. Go to any restaurant website and you will get restaurants categorized by food type, prices, ratings and location. You can browse though some reviews by customers and see menus and wine lists. You can view pictures of the interior and see video interviews with the hosts. This sounds just fine, but then add another factor. Image that you are actually downtown (your favorite city) and you want to eat now. Furthermore, you are using your mobile and you’re really not ready to browse all night. What you really need is a place close by that sells pizza or burgers and has decent wines. You need local results that fits the context you are in at this very moment. Localization is all about the meaning of context.

It turns out that with multiple of devices, people are in different situation when using web sites. This is what we call context, and the technical term is Context Aware Computing or CAC. When one user is sitting at home with their laptops, taking time to find some content on the Internet, another one is looking for answers relative to the place he or she is in. This is however not limited to a specific place. Mobile apps can also factor in the time of day, what type of day (workday, weekend, or holiday), your surrounding (are you in a mall, or at a football game, or in a casino). It can also be based on data about you – your digital profile. This profile determines who you are, it is based on data you leave behind, your digital trail, your searches, the pages you visit, the pages you share, your recommendations, comments, your tweets, your Facebook information, and so on. With services based on your profile, apps can utilize a context that is local to you.

With this local personal context, the restaurant app might even suggest 2-3 places that you might like. All you need to do is to ask it to find a place. If it is early in the day, it might suggest some cafés, while in the afternoon a bar might be a better choice. And of course it knows that you never go to fast food joints or a place that does not have wireless Internet.

You see this type of localization on the web also. When searching for restaurants Google will come back with local restaurants and a map to find them. Google knows where your IP address comes from and can pinpoint your city. Mobiles are much more precise. With GPS, the mobile can pinpoint the street you are standing on. This is where the context becomes relevant. A person with a mobile is, in most cases, probably looking for different things that a person using a laptop. Instead of every restaurant in town, you only want the ones near. For choices, like price and food type,  you want them simple and clear, without any clutter. Instead of customer reviews you just want the rating.

Another example is sports betting. Let’s say you open a sports betting site. If browsing on a computer, you might be interested in statistics about soccer teams, videos of goals and all the gossip about the players. On a Saturday, with a mobile, the sports betting app knows you are going to place a bet on some games in the English Premier League. It knows what team you follow and the bet types you like. First choice is to place a bet on your favorite team. If you are actually at a soccer stadium somewhere, that game might also be a choice. Placing a bet is relevant and easy and over in few seconds.

For the last few years, one of the trends in web design is the concept of responsive web design. With this design idea, the web site displays nicely in different sizes of screen. Web site might be 4 columns in a typical desktop web browser, while a horizontal tablet uses 3 and vertical tablet 2, and mobile 1. The same web page in all cases, no need for a specific mobile version or specific tablet version. While this maybe the greatest idea ever, it totally ignores the context of the user.

In the coming years we will see more focus on Local (the Lo part of SoLoMo). We will see more apps that use information from the environment, from the user, and from social media and information sites, to create experience for the user. We will see trials with successes and failures, with some companies finding something that works while others cause privacy concerns and even anger. As we move on, solutions will appear that actually works for users. So, when I’m standing on a street corner downtown Reykjavík in the afternoon on Thursday, and I need a place with WiFi to write an article about technology trends, my phone knows where I want to go. And it has already checked that I will like the glass of wine they have.