Physics By Momentum

Twitopocalypse

// August 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends, Social Media

For those of you that do not use Twitter, it was predominantly unavailable last week due to several DoS (denial of service) attacks which resulted in a few interesting outcomes:

1. Many unfortunate users became victim to a plot by the attackers to become distributors of spam and other socially damaging things.

3. Twitter users were unable to express their frustration via… Twitter.

2. More power was given to an organization called OMB (OpenMicroBlogging) which acts as an open source platform for microblogging. In layman’s terms an alternative to Twitter where users can create their own microblogging social networks.

You can read more about the full story regarding the attacks and OMB on Wired.com’s site.

The truly interesting issue that has surfaced as a result of these findings is in how Twitter is surfacing as a pure channel of communication and is shedding its former skin of being a “Social Networking Site”.

In other words, Twitter is not a social network in the capacity that you want to add all of your friends to your list. Twitter is a two-way feed that allows you to absorb and spread all of the thoughts, trends, links, pictures and video that you provide and request access to.

When Twitter goes down we lose the ability to broadcast important news, keep peers up to date on trending habits and otherwise listen in on what’s going through each others heads on a minute by minute basis. In a sense it’s the same as losing your ability to listen to, or read, the news.

When Facebook goes down we lose the ability to view vacation pictures, receive invitations to events that we probably don’t want to go to in the first place and otherwise “browse” and/or “troll” through other profiles.

Windows 7 Pre-Beta “Leak”

// October 27th, 2008 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends

Every couple of years our friends at Microsoft launch a new operating system (or as the folks on the floor at Momentum call it “OS”). Three years ago it was Vista, during the bubble boom it was XP (my personal favourite) before that we had ME (Millenium Edition), 98, 95… but I digress. In fact contrary to the publicly heralded rumour that I’m an Apple fanatic, I’m more at home some days behind the warm fuzzy glow of a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD - Floor term).

Mary Jo Foley of ZdNet published a post early yester-morning regarding the feature set from the upcoming Windows 7 OS. Most of the updates seem to be reminiscent of the “updates” that Vista brought to the table such as UI enhancements, “Device Centers” and of course a better version of “Support Center” now dubbed “Action Center”. If it doesn’t play highlights from last night and/or nothing blows up, you’re going to leave Michael Bay and John Madden quite disappointed.

All kidding aside I’m hoping that Windows 7 will lend a hand to overall greater User Experience than Vista. We don’t need more gadgets, just make it run as fast as it can without putting a bunch of warnings in my way or requiring me to buy a new machine altogether.

Check out the Mary Jo’s full post here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1667

Canada’s In Poor Shape for the Future of Web

// September 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends

According to an article posted on CBC News, Oxford has published a report of the world’s best and worst positioned countries for upcoming bandwidth needs… With Canada ranking 27th out of the 42 surveyed. Ouch.

Read the full story here: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/09/15/tech-broadband.html

Step 5 to Global Dominance: Google Chrome

// September 4th, 2008 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends

So, a few days back Google releases “Chrome”; their very own browser. A week ago or so they release (or leaked) several videos featuring their mobile operating system “Android”. I smell market dominance in the air. Not in the immediate future though, as they’re competing with Internet Explorer and FireFox, who currently offer a greater breadth of functionality. But if you think about the combined power of Mobile, Search, and Desktop Apps, you have a formula for success… If all goes according to plan. I personally haven’t been able to test drive Chrome too much as I’m a Mac guy, but the Developers here are pretty happy with what they’ve seen so far… Particularly the “Incognito” mode.

See it in action here:

FCC Approves the First Android Enabled Phone

// August 19th, 2008 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends

It’s official, HTC (they make smartphones) has been approved by the FCC for using Android; Google’s answer to the iPhone. What does this mean for Mobile Web? Hopefully a lot of fun stuff… Provided Apple and Google can convince Adobe to get a proper version of Flash to work on mobile devices without blowing them up or burning the battery out in 10 minutes.

Here’s the demo:

<!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -->

Google Launches New Virtual World

// July 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends, Social Media

Google has released their “Virtual World”, dubbed “Lively,” into beta. I took some time to play with it today and figure it out. Essentially it functions as a series of chat rooms with 3D engagement. Not unlike Second Life, Meebo or Habbo Hotel. You can chat with friends, make new ones, etc.
The key differentiator between Lively and the others is in its ability to live within a webpage. You can embed a room within a blog like so:

Lively currently won’t work on non-Windows platforms, and like many other betas, it is lacking certain elements like a more robust list of furniture, clothes, etc. But there’s good news. It’s completely free… So far.

Cisco Plots Out Predictions of Bandwidth Consumption Worldwide From ‘08 to ‘09

// June 17th, 2008 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends

For the full article, check out http://gigaom.com/2008/06/16/big-growth-for-internet-to-continue-cisco-p…

Guitar Hero - An Unlikely Saviour of the Music Industry

// April 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends

I was listening to Alan Cross this morning on the radio talk about Guitar Hero and he made some very interesting points about the game’s impact on the music industry. Apparently since the game’s widespread adoption a year or so ago, guitar teachers have reported a 75% increase in enrollment by students who love playing the game so much, they want to know how to use guitars in real life.
The more lucrative element (at least for those who live in interactive) is in the actual game itself, (More after the jump…)

Looking for What’s NeXT

// April 4th, 2008 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends

While searching for something completely unrelated, I ran across this screenshot of TIFFany, a photo editing application that runs on NeXTSTEP:

Click for larger image

Thoughts after the jump…

TIFFany looks like a stripped-down Photoshop clone. In these days of CS3, it’s nothing to blog about. Of course, this screenshot is from 1995, when Photoshop wasn’t quite what it is today. Over the years, Adobe has drawn inspiration from TIFFany and some of the functionality shown here wasn’t available in Photoshop 13 years ago. The UI seems scattered at first glance, but when you really take a good look it becomes quite functional.

But since we’re talking about inspiration, take a look at the right side of the screen. Years before OS X had Widgets and Vista had Gadgets, NeXT was building ‘em right into the launch bar. Date and time? Check. Memory usage? Check. With the right feeds, it looks like they could have throw the ubiquitous weather widget in there as well. It may not be as pretty, but the structure is there. So how much do companies like Apple, Microsoft, and even Adobe innovate? Or does innovation mean buying or “borrowing” concepts from the little guys? Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser, for example, began life as Spyglass Mosaic. Adobe Flash? That’s FutureSplash Animator. These are more obvious examples, but it’s often unclear who the true innovators really are.

Trendwatching

// April 2nd, 2008 // No Comments » // Emerging Trends

So what exactly is trendwatching? trendwatching.com defines it as:

“trendwatching.com is an independent and opinionated consumer trends firm, relying on a global network of 8,000 spotters. Our trends, examples and insights are delivered to business professionals in more than 120 countries.”