jindivik

The cyclical nature of rapid growth leading to dominance, then plateaux followed by death can be seen throughout nature and commerce. If you don’t believe me then check out this TED talk by Geoffrey West.

Applying this model to Google means that at some stage the rampaging key holders of the internet will eventually see their growth slowdown and maybe they will eventually be replaced. Writing this it even seems impossible that one day we will use an alternative service provider to find a hotel room rate, pictures of the new spielberg movie or get the low-down on the a potential employee. But as incredulous as this may sound the demise of Google could be just be around the corner.

For all of Googles altruistic investments: Google Earth, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Scholar, is it not possible that all of these services could become threatened if Google.com is not the Search engine of choice the world over. No Search, No PPC, No Revenue, No Google?

But what could ever replace this tent-pole of the web? Well, what Google does brilliantly is to give quick results in a clean interface. Allowing the user to scan the top 10 hits for ‘Qantas Air Strike’ information. Then hand control straight back to the user to decide which resuly best fits their search terms. The results returned from Google are at best awesome and at worst frustrating as hell. But yet we still refuse to look past the page 1 results, mostly because we cassume that the ‘search terms’ that we put in, must have been wrong if the result we are looking for does is not returned in the top 10 form 600 billion web pages. We just try rephrasing the search terms. Good but not a perfect solution.

Today I see Google being replaced by a better interface or interaction. Not that you could get a better visual displat of the results. But what if interaction was not visual but by using speech. Surely, if science fiction has taught us anything it is that we will need to talk to computers. See the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Knight Rider and 2001: A space odyssey. Having this relationship with the internet is surely where the magic is? When we are used to ‘asking the computer a question’ why would we want to go back to keying stuff in? And if it isn’t Google that brings us this service then Googles crown will surely be Jilted.

The future interactions with the computer won’t just about the search through. It goes deeper into functionality. ‘Show me the photos of Jack on holiday last year’, ‘What were todays headlines in the New York times’, ‘read out my unread emails’, ‘what time is my first meeting?’, ‘ Super pursuit mode please KITT’. All this drills a bit deeper into the OS rather than sitting on the internet browser which I am guessing where services like Siri come in . Totally integrated into your machine and yet can give you current web delivered content.

Despite the eye catching title, I suspect Google are a kerzillion times brighter than this article and have been working on a voice activated method of delivering content for the last 10 years. I cannot wait

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a Digital Surrey event in Farnham.  Ade Oshineye talked about ‘What happens after social networking?’. The talk explored areas that I believe most of us have already been aware of albeit not specifically identified and labelled. However, Ade’s opening question of the presentation ‘What is Social Networking’ really intrigued me and one I have thought about quite a bit since.

I have not reached any specific conclusions but it has made me widen my previous definition of the phrase. My vague answer to the question was loosely based on the term being a band to wrap tidily around the usage of Social Network sites and applications. Defining what makes a site or application part of the ‘Social Network’  is a lot of harder, the key characteristics would be ‘membership’, ‘contribution’ and ultimately the linking up with other ‘members’ to make a ‘Network’. Each individuals contribution leads to a shared experience. I was not entirely happy with that definition and preferred one of the audiences definition of ‘What is Social Networking?’ being ‘Knackering’ as much more accurate.

Having mulled, cogitated, ummed and erred the reason why I wasn’t happy with any previous definition is that there is no way that I think Social Networking should be restricted to be a wholly online experience. I was standing in a room before the talk enjoying a glass of wine talking to a few colleagues and clients, which I now consider to be both social and networking. Why is the buzzword surrounding a breed of technology tools specific to the web given such a generic term. ‘Email’ was a great term and works well, everyone knew that it was strongly related to what we were already doing with ‘mail’ but with the electronic bit stuck on the front and then shortened to ‘e’ for that user friendly touch, nice. ‘Texting’, works perfectly too. No room for confusion as the verb to ‘text’ was descriptive and did not leave any room for confusion.

Surely social networking is nothing more than what we and the rest of the animal kingdom have been doing since the beginning of time. Hanging out, chatting, learning stuff, sharing stuff, bitching about stuff, flirting and generally interacting.

Last week Mark Zuckerberg (him off Facebook) announced a new way of sending a message that isn’t email and isn’t instant messaging. I have been thinking about the lines I have personally drawn up to try and use the most effective method of communication for each circumstance.

Texting. I only use this to send the briefest statement, like ‘Sorry, I am running late’. I do not send questions in texts and get a feeling of dread when I receive a text that reads ‘how are you?’ or ‘what is you address?’. Texts are not discrete either, sitting in a room with someone click, click, clicking  is way more annoying than if they were just making a short call. At least that way it lets others earwig too.

Instant Messaging. Maybe it is a generation thing, but I find IM the most ineffective, distracting and pointless way of communicating. I have had IM chats with friends I find after the initial excitement of getting an instant response there isn’t a natural flow or rhythm to the conversation. In fact that is what it feels like a, sitting opposite someone and instead of speaking you are writing a message and handing it to them. Why not pick up the phone? There is the added craziness factor that you can get into a situation of having 5 IM conversations at the same time, which is a bit like standing in the middle of a party trying to have personal chats with 5 different people at the same time. I am not a fan. There is however one place where I think IM rocks. Technical support, those fantastic websites that have a IM window where you can type questions to a tech or sales representative and get really helpful responses without having to dial a premium phone number only to bamboozled by the response and agreeing to any response just to end the call.

Email. I use email a lot, I mean a lot. I can quite happily stay in touch with friends and family and try to keep as much of my work communication in emails. I find it discrete, convenient and is effective when you want to say something to one person or fifty. Great for making an announcement, saying thank you, arranging a meet up and sending documents. It is communication that you can pick up and put down when you want, unlike a phone or IM you decide when you are ready to look at messages.

Telephone. As part of my account manager role I find the telephone as indispensable as email. The two really compliment each other. There are definitely occasions where I would prefer to send an email, but to really gauge the reactions of a client and to really understand their point of the view a call is the only solution when a face to face meeting is not possible. I do not use the telephone a lot outside of work except to catch up with friends and family.

I really cannot fathom what Facebook has got planned, maybe it will be a hybrid of existing methods. Perhaps I am missing the point but I don’t use Facebook as method of communication at the moment because I have telephone and email.

Although there was an initial disappointment that yesterdays big announcement was nothing more than the resolution of a legal case. I wonder how many fans of the The Beatles have been waiting for this news and finally be able to download the fab four on iTunes? I would guess not many haven’t already loaded up their CD’s? But hats off to apple for selecting such a brilliant picture to put on their home page. I am not sure why I like it so much, but it just works so well. Great hype for a small bit of news that was executed perfectly.

Incase this leads to a 30 year legal wrangle, I would just like to say the awesomeness of this snap was by Bruce McBroom/© Apple Corps Ltd.

Here is a snap taken of a fridge at the Eden project in Cornwall earlier this year.
Smug factor 3 at being able to find the letters to spell helvetica although reduced
to -17 for not recognising that the font was probably futura. What do you think?