Jim Kohlenberger recently released a paper outlining what the Internet’s third act might look like. He is a former White House policy advisor to two U.S. Presidents and is President of JK Strategies – a public policy consulting practice.

The report points out a now well understood concept by the geekiest amongst us, the “Internet of Things”. Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Location and Local Services, back in May 2010 started explaining in her presentation entitled: “The Physics of Data”, what the impact of the average person uploading 15 times moredata in 2009 than they did just three years ago, might do to the web as we know today.In his report, Jim Kohlenberger outlines that the internet has undergone three major revolutions in connecting: places then people and now on its way to connect things.  In it Jim Kohlenberger outlines a series societal benefits but also the risks that may stifle this coming revolution.  

Benefits

• Smarter transportation: mobile applications like Waze are already into that field, connecting cars to each other:

Fully utilizing smart traffic technology could cut fuel consumption on urban roadways by as much as 20 percent.

• Smarter energy and better environment: By 2020, the utility sector is expected to make up 62% of M2M connected devices
• Smarter business
• Smarter payments / POS: One especially powerful connected device application is new point-of-sale services that can create new business opportunities, give consumers more choices, and create new pay-as-you go business models. Smarter homes
• Smarter security
• Smarter cities
• Smarter healthcare and patient monitoring

All of this will be accelerated by technological advances; Moore’s Law making it that faster, smaller, smarter, and more capable devices are possible every 18 months. Higher resolution sensors can enable to us to connect to our world in ways beyond just our six senses. Steve Jobs was definitely on to something by democratizing access to touch devices; thin film technologies could soon turn almost any surface into a connected touchscreen display, and enable affordable intelligence to be implanted into almost anything. Near Field Communication (NFC) technologies can enable new forms of mobile commerce and better human computer interaction can unlock new applications. Google / Ipsos’ latest research report on Mobile Internet and Smartphone Adoption is already demonstrating a current trend in the 3.0 direction where people are now more often using phone-like devices than laptops or desktops to access the internet.

Stifling Risks

This coming digital device deluge will further accelerate mobile opportunity and exacerbate the looming spectrum crunch. But lack of available spectrum could stall, stifle, or even stop these benefits from coming to fruition.

Facilitating Steps

Five key steps are advocated by the report:

1. Catalyze Innovation Through a Wireless Innovation Fund (WIN)
2. Accelerate Smart infrastructure Development and Deployment
3. Advance a Smarter Electric Grid to Boost Efficiency And Cut Energy Costs
4. Speed Up The Medical Device Approval Processes For Wireless Connected Technologies.
5. Ensure That More Of These Connected Devices Are Made In America by Supporting American Leadership In Advanced Manufacturing

The full report can be accessed below. Privacy remains is of course a concern and plenty of conspiracy theories can be imagined from here. What’s the craziest one you can think of? Let us know in the comments below. The Internet’s Third Act: The Connected Device Decade

This Foursquare feature could be very tricky.

On my way to Fayetteville, Arkansas (Yes, Arkansas), I check-in on foursquare at the San Diego Airport. A rather busy airport from a social media junkies standpoint: 41 people were already checked in when I did.

The interesting thing that happened is that by sharing the check-in on Twitter, Foursquare automatically tagged me as being at airport with a certain @TylerJanderson.

We haven’t had the pleasure to meet yet, nevertheless if you look at the resulting tweet, it does look like I am purposefully mentioning him as in his company.

Good things for me is that, 1/ he’s male 2/ @HodaSpa, who just dropped me off, trusts me blindly… I hope at least. I wonder what she would say have I been tagged with a Jennifer, Maya or other Ginny.

I’ve seen my check-ins tagged with “XX others” but never with one named person.

Has this happened to you on 4sq before? What do you think of the potential implications?

Since a picture is worth a 1,000 words and even 1,000,000 Words according to Twitter, the screenshot below should give ample response to this question.

When I learned that foursquare had launched “business pages” where brands could sign up as check-in users, I initially had a chuckle about it myself and wondered why?

In looking through restaurants to spend a quiet family evening on Saturday, it all the sudden made total sense when I saw the tip The History Channel had left about a restaurant called El Fandango. In that tip, the channel was telling the originating story of the restaurant and what happened at its location in the 19th century; thus perfectly tracking with the mantra of a brand becoming media in the age of social media.

Why Is The History Channel On Foursquare?

For an entity such as The History Channel it does make perfect sense, but it might make less sense for Blackberry: it might want to spot places where BBM connects the best; or NASA who might want to check-in to spots where and when Venus can best be seen.

I have to admit it is a pretty smart move from foursquare to better engage brands without a physical location on its platform.

Let me know in the comment section, will foursquare pages take off? What kinds of spots do you think the white house write tips about?

You can find out more about 4sq business pages here

After making a strong push to its subscribers for casting images through its own net and dubbing it: “1,000,000 Words in 140 Characters“, Twitter now allows direct posting of images through its website.

Twitter Now Allows Direct Image Upload — FasTake

Twitter nevertheless keeps a tight fits on analytics and when you do share an image through Twitter you can say goodbye to the number of times your picture has been seen. This move will surely speak to the hurried folks and those not caring about analytics. Since many do care about numbers, Twitpic and consort may still have good days ahead of them. Twitpic has recently added a blog widget, which help it compel users to stick around, but that’s just a placebo against something which Twitter can whip out on a dime. What will you do for your pictures? Keep them on your favorite  platform or use the new Twitter feature?

But as @JayBaer put it recently, there’s a more important question:

“The reality is that we do not know how many impressions each Tweet generates.We can determine engagement rate via clicks and retweets (I use Convince & Convert sponsor Argyle Social for social communication because of their incredible metrics). But, we cannot determine impressions, because Twitter will not show them to us. Hmmm, I wonder why?”

Let us know in the comments area below, why do you think @Twitter is such a tight wad on analytics?

New move from Twitter today! With its most current valuation closing in on $8 billion,  Twitter is currently looking for $400 million in additional funding. With good chances to close the new funding round, an estimated $200 million in revenue and no apparent hurry to go public, it still needs to continue ramping up its revenue stream.

Through its blog (see post below), Twitter announced today that it would be moving tweets from select companies and promoted tweets (currently only appearing in the list of trends) higher up in our timelines. Twitter did make sure to remind its blog readers that either type of these “plugged” tweets  — it calls them “Timely Tweets” — could easily be dismissed, since:

“We put our users first and strive to create products that enrich the Twitter experience for every Twitter user. We’re excited about this next step and look forward to your feedback.”

I personally always appreciated Twitter’s efforts to imagine a new business model out of  the age old eyeballs advertising model. This move of prioritizing corporate tweets does make sense given the very short lifecycle of a tweet, short of serious engagement and retweeting from followers and the twittosphere. Companies should see more clicks and retweets as a result… or will they?

A few questions come to mind:

• Do the “select companies” risk losing followers as a result of them into their followers face in slightly more forceful manner?
• Will this push companies to better the quality of their tweet and engagement to avoid the above or at least prevent  the reader to dismiss the timely tweets?
• What might this move do to its brand image as an open and unfiltered and open network? Not only for its current users but for attracting more users.

With 200 million users “only” Twitter is still far behind Facebook’s 750 million, but with an average 350 billion tweets currently being delivered each day, Twitter is going strong (see infographic below)… and something must water whomever’s mouth is forking up an additional $400 million in funding.

What do you think the benefits or risks of the “Timely Tweets” move are for Twitter?

Twitter Blog: Timely Tweets: Now easier to seeShare and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.

via Twitter

Apple’s new OS X Lion hit the App Store today. This is a first, all previous OS updates were delivered through hard media and it is ushering as you’ll see here, the era of iDevices functionalities bleeding into laptops and desktops. My two year old daughter’s dream may come true after all; having already swiped iPads and iPhones screens, any screen to her is now touch sensitive including the TV. This twist of faith is all the more interesting that Apple’s challenge, less than 5 years back, was to find ways to make it as easy as possible to use Apple portable devices as laptops and desktops were. Apple pushed the envelop so far in overcoming and perfecting that now iPhones, iPads and iPods features are brought back into laptops and desktops through the combination of software and hardware: OS X Lion and multi-gesture trackpads.

credit: gizomodo.com

The 3.8GB file took about 2 hours to download and it was smooth sailing after that: 30 minutes to install, no need to restart the machine from a CD to install or need to migrate data back into the upgraded machine. OS installation has taken the form of any old software you would install on your computer.

SCROLLING: Down is the new Up

Then starts the main quirk I notice in this update, now remember he’s “the king of the desktop” so maybe he can make this change in scrolling. To be sure, dragging 2 fingers on a trackpad to scroll down a webpage is not new. What’s new is that you now have no other option; 1/scroll bars only appear when 2 fingers are placed on the trackpad and 2/instead of dragging down to go down the page you now have to push up the trackpad; and inversely.

Apple’s core approach is motivated by a smart goal in my view: exploit every last pixel of any screen by simply doing away with the scroll bars that allow navigating a screen page. This adds an additional neweness feel to its OS. It is done by taking advantage of trackpads allowing multi-gestures, each corresponding to a specific command.
I found this a bit confusing at first, but if you think about the way you navigate an iDevice screen it works the same new way. You move you finger up to go down the page and inversely. Makes sense but old habits die hard and it will certainly take me a bit of time to get used to this.

Apple seems to have anticipated this issue and starts off the first OS X Lion boot with an explanation of the “Up is now Down” process.

FULL SCREEN

Another way that Apple is intending to leverage every last pixel of any screen is through “full screen”, a function available for some applications, in particular the entire iLife suite, and which gets rid of all the applications frames and controls to only keep the most important… in full screen. May seem trivial but it does actually make a difference for very visual applications.

LAUNCH PAD

Another sign of the new converging era is LaunchPad, which brings the look and feel of iPhones and iPads to laptops as a way to manage and access applications.

NEW SYSTEM PREFERENCES ITEMS

Two new items and one significant changes have been added:

• Mission control: in effect a merge of the previous expose and spaces merged together. My initial take is that it does encourage the use of the spaces feature, probably too cumbersome thus far. This features allows to organize a computer into several desktops, maybe: a personal, a professional and photo/video editing one.
• A ‘mail, contacts, calendars’ icon taken right out of iOS that allows you to set up email, Caldav and contacts accounts in one place
• In the trackpad preferences, and for the scrolling reasons we know, things get a bit more complex than they used to be with an added flexibility allowing to choose the type of gesture associated with command.

NEW MAIL

Mail has seen significant changes with update, including:

• A 3-column lay out greatly facilitating email management, the traditional lay out is still
• Favorites, through icons pinned to the top bar for quick access
• A supposedly better flag management system that remains to be tested

Let’s also note that FaceTime now comes bundled into OS X Lion and it is no longer necessary to buy the app from the App Store. For anyone  that spends a number of ours daily on Safari and works  with tabs, you’ll be happy to know that ‘Command-clicked’ links now open in a tab next to the active one instead of as a last tab; thus making it easier to manage multiple tabs. Firefox and Chrome have had  this feature for a while.

Have you upgraded to Lion yet? What are your thoughts so far?

Please share  this article for others to benefit, if you find it of value.

Twitter

Remember When Twitter Was A Joke? No One Is Laughing Anymore.

http://techcrunch.com

I recall a time a few years ago when Twitter was scoffed at. It was the blogosphere’s punching-bag. It was the stupid little service that no one in their right mind would ever use. It was for people who wanted to share the mundane bits of their lives — that no one else wanted to read. It was for egomaniacs. Or losers. It would never catch on.

And then it did.

I was thinking about this today as I stood in the East Room of the White House (#humblebrag). Why was I there? To see Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey moderate a Q&A session with President Obama. Yes, the President of the United States was answering questions that were coming entirely from Twitter, the formerly stupid service that was a joke, remember?

Lire la suite »

It is with great fanfare that iOS 5 was unveiled at the WWDC 2011 in San Francisco today. One of the notable features announced today — among many others like iMessage which rings in more ways then one the end of the widely popular of Blackberry’s BBM — is the take over by Twitter of the email function in iOS 5.

So far, pretty much anywhere on iOS stock apps, a button to share a screen, link or photo via email was never far. Well as this fall, email will no longer be the lone iOS link to the outside world from your idevice… Make some room email, and say hello to my new little friend: Twitter!

If Facebook has conquered the web with its “like” button, Twitter not content at following suit with a mirroring “Tweet” button, is thus also conquering the very tools we all use to access the web. But iOS 5 is not Twitter’s first pass at flirting with and embedding itself in a tool.

Firefox has already said ‘yes’ to Twitter by adding a very neat add-on that allows to, not only simply type a @username in the search bar and get the corresponding Twitter profile automatically, but also allows to type a #hashtag in to automatically get all tweets tagged with that hashtag.

If you use Firefox, you can get Twitter’s official add-on here. Do note in passing, that this Twitter move will add to the long list of casualties it has already caused; take a look at Twitpic, Twitvid and other Firefox tweeting helper while they’re still alive. It not just for kicks that Twitter has taken advantage of the launch of its very own photo and video sharing service (in partnership with photobucket) to push the use of hashtags and going as far as suggesting that a hashtag is worth more words than a picture: 1,000,000 to be exact.

Firefox and Twitter: Just Married

All clear signs that Twitter is, in my mind, going about conquering the web a bit more smartly — some might say insidiously — than Facebook, who has yet to show such ‘physical’ integration with the tools we use to access the web everyday.

What do you think of Twitter’s approach? Why do you think Facebook has not adopted a similar tack?

… Not that it probably won’t soon now.

“I don’t think anybody out there in the media, UN, human rights organisations, has any moral right whatsoever to level any accusations against me or against Rwanda”

This is what Paul Kagame, long time Rwanda president, said during a recent interview with the Financial Times and it is what reportedly sparked the first ever tweet-fight between and a head of state and a journalist.

*****

Is this an example of rhetoric 2.0 that we’ll be witnessing in the future? Or will this serve as further deterrent to all public figures out there to — despite bowing to social media pressures to ”be public” and engaged — should “stay put” and not engage in confrontations?

Will we — with the U.S. 2012 presidential elections — witness unprecedented volumes of conversations and tweet-fights? I am pretty sure that the future promises to be very fun on socio-planet. What’s the craziest Twitter sparing you can imagine, featuring political figures among themselves, with journalists, supporters or constituents?

*****

Paul Kagame, aka @PaulKagame, FT interview had just been published the day before the tweet-fight occurred. Ian Birrell aka @IanBirrell — ex-deputy editor at The Independent and speechwriter for David Cameron, now

columnist and co-founder of Africa Express — apparently did not like Paul Kagame’s remark as he proceeded to include in his tweet sharing the article the descriptive: “despotic & deluted“.

To which Paul Kagame, or whomever is managing his account, quickly replied:

Not content with a measly 140 characters reply he proceeds to fire 5 more tweets:

Ian Birrell was most likely not at his first not so social tweet at a prominent public figure and, probably surprised at the rather lengthy and public reply from a head of state, seems to take advantage of the opportunity and make the windfall last:

Paul Kagame starts by “pouting”

And proceeds to answer Ian’s request by another question:

Ian Birrell reminds him of the, apparently, not so shiny Rwandan press freedom record

To which Paul Kagame deflects the chat to Ian’s own government handling of press freedom

Than putting his tweets where his mouth is, to exactly what he was engaging in at that moment:

Than goes on to continue exposing his rationale

While Ian Birrell never responded — at least publicly — beyond that last “underlines the point” tweet. Paul Kagame ended by seemingly softening his talk and clarifying his thoughts, maybe not wanting to further poison the relationship with the journalist.

The next tweet in Paul Kagame’s timeline only occurred the next day, in response to a certain Paul Hird aka paulhird9 who apparently “handles multi-million and multi billion dollar transactions worldwide” and “deals mainly with Governments and Royalty” at “Zero interest rates” (!)…

What’s the craziest Twitter sparing you can imagine featuring political figures among themselves, with journalists, supporters or constituents?

Ian Birrell also wrote about what he called “My twitterspat with Paul Kagame‘, his take on it has a more a political slant to it and if you are so inclined, you can read it here: “Returning home from a Saturday afternoon walk with the dog, I did what has become almost a reflex action and checked Twitter. Bizarrely, there was the president of Rwanda having a go at me over disparaging comments I had made about an interview he gave that morning…”

Today, Twitter unveiled its long awaited photo and video sharing, not only leaving the likes of Twitpic, Yfrog and Twitvid in the dust… with a twist: pushing hashtags. Watch Twitter’s new “Top pictures” and “Top Videos” soon becoming the latest buzz word in both social and mainstream media.

In watching the official unveiling video below, Twitter is smartly appealing to users’ love-hate relationship  with the ubiquitous 140 characters limit: too limiting to ramble but fantastic to consume and digest.

Upgrade

Twitter does this by upgrading the old age adage: “A picture is worth 1,000 words” by adding to it that “A hashtag is worth a 1,000 pictures”. Something a simple as a # and a word more meaningful than 1,000 pictures? Tall order you think? Maybe not so for those among us who dabbled with the use of hashtags on Twitter.

If you put the #perfectmoment hashtag side by side along with an actual picture of what someone decided it was the representation of a perfect moment; which do you think will be more powerfully meaningful? Your imagination or the visual representation of someone else’s judgment?

Make Business Relevant

From a strict platform business relevance, it seems obvious that Twitter is also taking advantage of the new sharing feature to encourage the use of hashtags.This in effects amounts to hire users in helping it crowdsource and make more searchable, the 50 million tweets it garners every day. This, as illustrated by hashtag linked photos and videos Twitter displays in its video. The more relevant its search results will be the more attractive the platform will become.

Reel In Users

Furthermore, and from a strict user experience, this move also helps it pragmatically explain to users, and especially potential new users, what hashtags are. In my experience, the Twitter hashtag concept is always a sticky point for new users to grasp and it is at same time, often a deterrent for would be users, as it makes Twitter look to them rather gibberish to comfortably approach.

Smart move, don’t you think?

What Are Hashtags Anyway?

By Twitter’s definition, a hashtag, represented by the symbol #, “is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages“. But overtime it has become much more than a categorization tool.

Given the 140 characters limit of a tweet — limit which in many ways turned out a blessing — , many Twitter and social networks users in general, use it to express an emotion, give context or clarification to a tweet. Imagine what this tweet would mean without the #scarcasm hashtag? And how many characters would it take to explain its true meaning?

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In the second tweet below and without ‘#sarcasm’, quickly grasping the intent of @Carcharius, may prove difficult, given other conversations @mrtuckbox and @helenzille may be in, without searching for the replied to tweet (shown in smaller font in the screenshot below). For added reference, the tweet author may also have also added: #SeaPoint or #Tickets or #Police.

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Many will also tell you that hashtags may soon become the new official URL to display… all the way to ornamenting business cards.

Do you use hashtags on Twitter? How about other places? What’s been your experience with it?