target is new

This week a very interesting presentation by Paul Adams of Google was published on Slideshare called The Real Life Social Network. He nailed some trends in social media on real behavior. It was all over the blogosphere already. It reminds me of my presentation on virtual gated communities at Reboot 11 in 2008. One of the things I was thinking about back then was the way we would create groups with different levels of privacy. It will be very interesting if the presented visions of Adams are translated into a new social approach by Google, just like the rumor that was spread this week by former CTO of Google. Interesting to see how Google are trying to use another angle to confront facebook, with a differentiation in groups. Another thought I had is still valid: can we have interoperability in these groups between different providers?

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Why are those Apple keynotes of new products always that big fun. Of course it is the excitement of the new great products that are introduced. But even more the knowing there are some serious steps ahead which we cannot think of yet. These steps are in a way hidden in the talk.

The real surprises are not anymore the product that is introduced. The secrets are not kept anymore, deliberately or not. The interesting guessing starts only after the speech: what are the real consequences of this new product.

So we have a new iPhone and it is beautiful. But what are the hidden developments this time? Some thoughts.

• rebranding iPhone OS to iOS is expected to be the sign of making this OS a carrier of a lot of new devices that will be connected: of course the iPad and the expected new AppleTV. But maybe even a small desktop. As Steve put it: “we will be connecting ten million of devices this year”
• especially on the AppleTV the expectations are high. Will it be just an upgrade of the current concept with the new iOS or will Apple make real TV’s as an intelligent screen. I think the last is not so logic, but there is a chance that the new AppleTV will turn every screen in an internet connected TV by adding live TV capabilities.
• with the introduction of an open standard for FaceTime the are going for videochat domination in the device world. Well maybe, but it is of course crucial that as many people as possible are FaceTime enabled, you have to obey Metcalfe’s Law.
• creating a new gesture interface experience with the glass back. Adding tickling-on-the-back features in coming releases will be interesting. Or just adding new sensing possibilities for light our devices will be more an more sensors to our environment.
• the introduction of iBooks, iMovie, unified inbox and later as expected also iWork shows the cloud computing focus where the device is just the remote control of the mobile life service Apple is providing. Seamless syncing will be a central feature.

Overall I think the new iPhone contributes a lot to the strategy of Apple to keep and expand there share of the market by put real focus on the best device experience and above of all the most balanced ecosystem that will be the key to success. In that manner they will keep there differentiation of other players as Google that never can meet up with this product and service quality. There will be room for both in the market but Apple will prove to make the best profit and lock-in.

Location is hot again. And a lot of speculations are made on the position Facebook will take. Will Facebook be the One Ring of Location gives a good overview. I think there will be a smooth integration of location in your Facebook profile and new targeting options will be connected to it.

For me the concept of location in Facebook can have three elements:
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In my report of This Happened #5 I stated that the there was no excitement in connecting gaming as theme to interaction design. (…) “game principles are part of every good interaction, so that would be not fair and just confirmation of the quality of the designs” to quote myself.
But yesterday I saw the presentation of Jesse Schell on the future of persuasive gaming in our daily context. A great presentation that shows us that it can go even further. I think Jesse also wants to warn us on the effects and call to all of us to do good when implementing. And I think his future scenario will be far more subtle. You can think of this example as the new deeper principle in the economy where money is replaced with whuffie reputation currency.
Or is that to far fetched?…
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With the iPad and also the rumours of Google going tablet, you can predict this new way of interacting with devices is taking off this year. What I find interesting in the videos is the way the interaction become more and more tactile, much more than the touchphones we use now. Where on an iPhone or Android you have a more finger interaction, the iPad and Google demo really does something more: gesture moving. The Minority Report feel.

You feel the gesture interaction on two interaction principles:

• interacting a touchscreen with two hands the same time with ten fingers will feel different. You will make bigger movements with, not only with the fingers but also with the whole arm.
• using the movement of the whole screen as extra input gives a lot of new possibilities. Like the e-mail program on the iPad where the avalailable functions follows the orientation of the screen

Of course we should not forget the stuff Microsoft develops in this field. With Surface they have made a gesture interface come true. And the promise of the new Natal game experience of Microsoft is also promising. This is the most literally translation of the gesture interface. But both have less impact because it limits to the specific uses (professional and gaming).

It looks like that we will have some serious steps to a new tactile experience in the use of our digital media. This can be also an extra driver for the developing of the Internet of Things.

Just read this column on the future of Augmented Reality (AR) in relation to the marketing thingys made with it right now.

Now, I’ll grant that all of these are marketing gimmicks. They’re probably not meant to be anything more. But let’s just step back and call a spade a spade–and recognize that whatever “augmented reality” becomes, these projects probably won’t have much to do with it.

And of course Cliff is completely right.
I think this is also a recurrent pattern you see with a lot of new technologies that are a-claimed as promising. The first uses are based on what you can, not what you need. This was already the case with DTP years ago. It turned out to be a useful thing.

In AR there are two separate uses now. The marketing gimmicks as mentioned in the column, and the functional uses where adding information to the reality serves a purpose. Like the heads up manual for car mechanics, or the Layar-apps that add non-existing buildings to the city.

The sign that AR will be mature will be when we are not designing AR solutions, but we are integrating AR in holistic services when this adds a necessary function. When an AR service does not equals AR anymore.
We will definitely see those emerge the coming year, but can expect that real integration will take even much longer. At the end we will see that the current uses has a strong function in making AR understandable.

It is a tradition on my blog to give some predictions on the coming year. See these for 2009 and 2008 (both in Dutch). I will not look back in detail to see if the predictions came true, in the end it is more a residu of my thinking of that moment, than a serious hitting for the trends to come true. Broader trends are more interesting than one hot wonders, in my opinion, and I’m glad that the predictions of the last two year has started and/or are still developing. As I said last year: the short term developments are always slower, but looking back in a couple of years we will be surprised by the changes.

This said, I will share some thoughts for the coming year; I think this will be a year as a start of a new focus and service attitude.
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In this post by Robert Scoble, he coined some interesting thoughts ont the developments of SEO and SEM. I especially found the ideas on the evolution of search engines like Google and Bing to search results that are relevant by heart and not by design interesting. It is an evolution to a semantic web in another way than mostly is promoted.

Most of the time the idea of the semantic web is linked to a better understanding of the question, of a smart determination of the question. Do you look for a bank to collect money, or to sit on. In the example of Scoble the semantic part is found in the search results itself. What results do really fit, apart from any influencing designing elements. It may look like just another accent but it is a world of difference.

So this will mean that the current services for search will evolve to semantic systems. Fed by the conversational realtime search and cloud based sensors to the real relevance. Services like Twine will be obsolete. We won’t call them semantic by the way, they are just intuitive and authentic.

Is SEO therefor also obsolete. Not completely. It will stay for some time, and it will be more and more a hygienic factor. A basic requirement you cannot avoid. It is just like the development of usability. Usability is not the discriminator, the experience and persuasion aspects of an interface are. SEO will be part of the basic toolset. The real behavior makes the difference.

Location based services were always about the wet dreams of advertisers where you come in contact with relevant advertisements right on the spot. We see however a different development on the same principle emerge, much more likely to occur. A come2me economy you could call it. Based on a really consumer centric approach.

Maybe it is not the best term. It has to do with permission based thinking, with VRM instead of CRM (Vendor Relation Management), that all start with the idea that the future success for a company will not be in the one that convince the most consumers to come to them and buy their products. Instead the brand has to find the customer and service them with real value.
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Right. Today I ran into this example of a concept of Living Magazines. I agree on the vision in the post that this is not likely to happen fast. But I even think it is not likely to happen at all in this way. It is another example of ‘thinking in the box’. Try to connect new technologies to current concepts.

You can watch the movie here below. They create very expensive video material to use as moving photography in their living magazine. It has to be sad the execution is great and it look cool. But the whole distribution concept is unlikely.
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