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Tag: trends

Friday 5 — 2.28.2014
1. Pew released a report on the Web at 25 — and how Americans have adopted and are affected by the internet usage. A full 87% of us now use the internet, 90% have cell phones, and 58% have smartphones. And as you can see from the chart above, many report it would be very hard to give some of these behaviors up. Interesting to see that while 71% of Americans online report using Facebook, and 40% do so several times a day, only 11% reported social media would be hard to give up. Hmmm.
2. Here’s an unscientific yet thoroughly enjoyable analysis of what people have on their homescreens, as self-reported on Twitter. Lots of texting, news, and social apps win top spots on homescreens, compared to gaming and payment apps.
3. Self-confessed map geeks might enjoy browsing Google Maps’ new gallery. Google partners like National Geographic have provided maps and geospatial information which the gallery aims to make more visible and usable. Google sorts them into handy categories, like Historical and Infrastructure and Space.
4. Many who shake their heads at Google+ have a soft spot for Hangouts. Today Google released a redesign of Hangouts for iOS, with the ability to attach a map, add animated stickers, and record a short clip. It makes sense that Google would invest more in the product given Facebook’s aggressive move into social messaging with WhatsApp purchase.
5. If you think people smile a lots less in Moscow than Sao Paulo, you’d be right — at least according to their selfies. Selfiecity analyzed over 120,000 images from Instagram and found that only about 3-5% of pictures posted were selfies, and that women take far more than men. See the site for more interesting findings, and visualizations by city.
Weekend fun: Getting ready for your Oscar party on Sunday? Challenge your guests to identify every single Best Picture winner from these gorgeous and clever icons designed by Beutler Ink.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
February 28, 2014
Alone together, or shared space?

Pew Internet reports that 25% of married or partnered adults who text have texted their partner when they were both home together.

Is this a good or a bad development? The answer may well depend on the circumstance.

Social behaviors vary dramatically by age cohort. danah boyd’s new book focuses on social media behaviors of teens — and how they may differ from their parents’ habits and understanding. In one instance described here in the FT, parents are far more immersed (and isolated) by their use of mobile devices in a crowd. In stark contrast, teens are using their smartphones to locate others, share images, and connect.

So 25% of couples texting each other at home is a big number, but what it means depends on who is doing it, and how.

February 24, 2014
Friday 5 — 2.14.2014
1. Does it seem like you’re spending more time on your smartphone than you used to? If you’re anything like the U.S. digital consumers in this Nielsen survey, you’re spending 9 hours and 52 minutes more each month. Smartphone time spent on social media rose rapidly, with 37% year-over-year growth in use of social media apps. Download the report for useful updates on mobile, social, and streaming behaviors, as well as observations about Hispanic populations on the forefront of the digital curve.
2. Facebook is a strong driver of outbound clicks to news sites, and today drives 3.5 times more traffic to Buzzfeed than Google does. But what kind of news stories do Facebook users favor? The Atlantic took a close look, and concluded Facebook users are more likely to click on stories that are more geared toward entertainment, while Twitter or search users seek out breaking news.
3. If you create content in any form — words, graphics, photos, multimedia — where do you put it online? Is it your own blog, a social network, a semi-curated platform like Medium, or a full-on edited media site like Slate? As these outlets proliferate and the lines get blurry, it’s worth considering the broad continuum from open platform to publisher.
4. You’ve likely heard of bitcoin, an alternative currency created online (“mined” through complex algorithms) now being used as payment for goods and services at places as mainstream as Overstock.com. It got hacked yesterday, to the tune of several million dollars.
5. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Pew this week released a report on couples, the internet, and social media. 45% of younger couples acknowledge the internet’s impact on their relationship — good and bad. Something I never would have guessed: 27% of internet users in a marriage or committed relationship have an email account shared with their partner.
Weekend fun: Are you battling the cold this weekend? Then you might appreciate seeing the Durham Academy head of school announcing a closure with an equal parts painful and adorable cover of Ice, Ice, Baby.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
February 14, 2014
When does Sherlock start again?

Want a clunky way to figure out when the next season of Sherlock starts? Check out Google search trends for Benedict Cumberbatch.

January 12, 2014
Friday 5 — 1.10.2014
1. If you’re not shivering right now, perhaps you were at CES in Vegas this week. Among the loveliest of launches is Yahoo’s News Digest app, the fruit of its Summly acquisition a year ago. With this sleek app, Marissa Mayer is making good on her commitment to prioritize beautiful product. Yahoo is cleverly delivering not only well-designed mobile news, but the far more valuable editorial filtering via morning and evening digest editions (complete with a countdown clock to the next edition).
2. Is it OK to admit we’re all getting overwhelmed by the endless stream of information? This article makes the case for more filters and bridges, and summarizes recent attempts to staunch the flow like nuking your Twitter feed.
3. There’s been a saying for a while now — and Jonathan Zittrain takes a stab at its provenance here — that when something online is free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product. In a similar vein, this article asks if we will come to regret the myriad small decisions we make each day — opting into free products like social networks, email provider, file and photo storage in the cloud — where we don’t pay with money, but with our private data.
4. Here’s a compelling argument for building online systems with empathy and not disdain in civic tech. It’s a great example of how digital strategy and communications are inextricable. The best digital platforms with stellar experience design, flawless cross-device rendering, and optimal performance become useless when impeded by content and communications that obfuscate rather then enable.
5. How do African Americans have access to or use technology differently? Pew’s recent report finds that there’s a 12 percentage point gap in broadband adoption, but that African Americans are represented in roughly similar mobile numbers for cell phone and smartphone ownership. And the phenomenon referred to as “Black Twitter” may be backed up by these numbers: 22% of online African Americans use Twitter versus 16% of online whites.
Weekend fun: If you enjoy black humor, you may already have played Cards Against Humanity. If you’re concerned about the future of news and painful linkbait headlines, why not go play Headlines Against Humanity?

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
January 10, 2014
Search interest: Arsenal vs. Manchester Utd

Highly unscientific, correlation is not causation, etc., but fun to see search interest in Arsenal FC rising and predicted to rise more as they finished 2013 at the top of the Premier League.

January 2, 2014
Friday 5 — 9.27.2013
1. Kudos to the Boston GlobeLab team on the beta launch of 61 Fresh, which features the most popular local stories shared on Twitter. Great to see the Harvard Gazette make the top-tweeted, and I’m buying a drink for the genius who added the “mute sports” feature.
2. Maintaining a website requires constantly updating rapidly deprecating software, keeping up with new end-user hardware, and managing expiring links in the content. Law libraries have come together to create Perma.cc to mitigate link rot in academic scholarship.
3. Why do 15% of American adults report that they don’t use the internet or email? 32% of them cite reasons tied to their sense that the internet is not very easy to use. Non-users expressed both usability and security concerns.
4. WeChat is the multi-featured messaging app quietly taking over the world while U.S. based media outlets cover Snapchat. Recent enhancement include celebrity wake-up calls and vending machines, the latter being a quiet step toward a financial services offering.
5. Gaming company Valve has announced Steam OS and Steam Machines, and a third announcement is slated for today. Valve has been a case study in disruptive innovation as a lower-priced entrant that cleverly crept into the console market.
Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Please let me know what I’ve missed in the comments below.
September 27, 2013
The perils of context collapse

Social scientists call this “context collapse.” A joke that you make among friends would not be understood if you made the same joke among, well, everyone else. And even when you say things to a group of like-minded people — say, at an obscure conference where attendees might be tweeting or taking video — you can no longer assume that the thought will stay in that context.

— Mike Rosenwald in an interesting Washington Post opinion piece, Will the Twitter Police make Twitter boring? This article garnered some backlash as well as thoughtful dissent from Alex Howard on the value of Twitter as social media watchdog.

It can be easier to spot relevant context in the physical world

It’s worth pausing on this idea of context collapse, especially as we interact online in more decontextualized, default-public settings. It’s not only the distant nature of all internet interaction, but the way social networks have over the past decade have created quasi-intimate settings (Look! Another baby picture!) while simultaneously removing physical context of your current social sphere (I’m wearing a suit, in an office.). Today, social networks are places where you can interact from the palm of your hand with your boss, your brother, and your barista — all at once, 24 hours a day. It’s a new normal for both communications and context.

While Facebook privacy settings and Google+ circles exist, the reality is that few use them to a significant level of granularity, and Twitter defaults to public. As content creators we’re charged with figuring out the new social norms that apply — and as consumers we’re learning to strike the balance between appropriate call-outs for bad behavior and online vigilantism.

Photo credit: arbyreed

June 4, 2013
Friday 5 – 05.31.2013
Every Friday, find five quick links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas. Source: the internet.
1. If you click one link this week, let it be the Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends slides. It’s a terrific state of the internet summary, with insights into mobile upside (still!), wearables, and the hockeystick rise of digital, tagged content like photos, video, sound, and data.
2. Security’s not sexy, but it’s essential as we store more and more info online. Kudos to Evernote for their recent adds of two-step verification, authorized apps, and access history.
3. Speaking of verification, Facebook finally offers verified pages for brands so users know the pages are legitimate. It’s a gradual rollout — more info here.
4. If you manage a content management system as an admin, work as a content strategist, or just post information to the internet, check out Karen McGrane’s terrific DrupalCon keynote. It’s a great balance of evangelism and understanding the messy content world we live in.
5. Do women and men use social media differently? RWW reports on some Microsoft-sponsored research with some interesting observations about gender. Women report more social media use for collaboration on work products, and men report more use for professional networking.
May 31, 2013
Teens as mobile challenge to enterprise IT

Anyone who’s spent time in a high school or college campus recently won’t be wholly surprised by Pew Internet’s recent study on U.S. teens and technology. 78% of teens have a mobile phone, and 47% have smartphones — meaning that a whopping 37% of all teenagers have a smartphone.

More surprising may be the number of mobile-mostly users, people who access the internet mostly through their mobile device. About 15% of adults mostly use the internet via mobile, but there’s a big leap to 25% of mobile-mostly teens — and a full 50% of teens with smartphones.

What does this mean as older teens entering college campuses and the workforce? The communications and ecommerce worlds have been living mobile-first for a while. Jonah Peretti reminded us at SXSW that mobile used to be where content stopped, but today mobile is instrumental in content spread. Black Friday 2012 was a wake-up call for any remaining retailers who didn’t see the opportunity for mobile transactions.

The seismic shift will occur for enterprise IT when these teen mobile-everything users expect to be able to perform tasks from registering for class to entering time in PeopleSoft to submitting expense receipts. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has been an IT practice for a number of years, with non-trivial concerns about support and security. Make no mistake: this teen mobile usage data shows there’s a tsunami of application development work awaiting organizations for this rising generation of mobile internet users.

March 15, 2013