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References
- The Resurgence of Reading: There’s no doubt video has been the hot on-line medium for the past few years, but we think 2011 will see a resurgence of (gasp!) the written word.
- Amazon's recently announced fourth quarter results - Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than paperback books.
- The Association of American Publishers reported in February 2011 eBook sales have overtaken those of both paperback and hardback books, and enjoyed triple-digit growth compared with 2010 sales.
- Amazon’s top-100 lists for print and eBooks were very different suggesting different behaviours for buyers of books vs. eBooks - Email is Dead (NOT!): Rumours of email's death have been greatly exaggerated. Business communication is not really being conducted to any significant degree via social networks or SMS.
- Email may not be dying but spam volume is decreasing
- Thierry Breton @ Atos wants to get rid of email for internal communication
- What is needed is for people to use email properly - they now have multiple electronic communications tools; choose the correct tool for the job. Email is for deferred, non-urgent communication. - The Power (if not the Wisdom) of Crowds: Deal-of-the-day Web sites like Groupon.com turn the disintermediation model on its head. They sit between the customer and the supplier, but in a highly value-added way.
- Groupon’s IPO was the second-biggest in tech history ($700 million, behind Google’s $1.7 billion), but recently share price dropped from $20 to $17.
- One of the issues Groupon faces is that it’s easily imitated - dozens of deal-of-the-day sites have sprung up (a friend of Chris has created one “Cryki”) - Facebook is "the" Social Network: Facebook will continue to be the dominant social network during 2011, and other networks will have to settle for catering to niche demographics. However, there is much room for innovation in social networking so the door remains open.
- Google+ came out of nowhere - but is it running out of steam?
- A survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found that Facebook is cited in one in five divorces in the United States.
- Facebook amongst US’ “most hated” company - More Out of Office Workers: More and more organisations will start embracing different Out of Office workstyles for their people - it's feasible, desirable and inevitable.
- Telecommuters save time and money
- Half of Australian IT workers said they would consider taking a pay cut in exchange for more flexible working hours - Enterprise Cloud Computing: We’ll start to see more private, packaged cloud services aimed at enterprise customers.
- Amazon has just released its Elastic Beanstalk service
- Rackspace has extended its Cloud services to European data-centres
- Microsoft will release its Windows Intune service - a cloud-based PC management service for businesses.
- Amazon EC, one of the largest provider of Cloud/Utility Computing services to business customers, suffered a major outage in April - The Year of the Tablet: Kudos to Apple for breaking new ground with the iPad in 2010. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is hot on its heels, and both will face stiff competition from other manufacturers.
- The recommendation that all staff and students at Trinity College, University of Melbourne be given iPads
- Microsoft's global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie is unsure of whether tablet computers have much of a future - Mobile Trends: Android will dominate; smartphones will become even smarter; and smartphones will become the default for mobile phones.
- Android has become the top-selling operating system on mobile phones
- Smartphone ownership rose 60% in the US last year, according to figures released by comScore
- Nokia and Microsoft have announced an alliance whereby Nokia mobile phones will run Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system - Online Sales: E-commerce has been rising steadily over the last decade, but we have reached a tipping point, where on-line selling has gone mainstream.
- Aussie retailers facing stiff competition from on-line retailers
- Amazon crowned the most reputable company in the US - Politics: A Tangled Web: The Internet will increasingly become a political battlefield: governments around the world will attempt to censor, regulate and control the Internet; while political activists will create and use Internet tools as a platform from which to attract support for their respective causes.
- Egyptians have used Facebook and other Web 2.0 technologies to rally protests against their government
- How will this play out in Algeria?
- Another popular uprising is met with an Internet blackout - this time in Libya
- It’s not just authoritarian governments that are considering censoring the Internet
