Social Media in 2013

Selena Larson in ReadWrite compiled a short retrospective (ten items) of notable uses of social media during 2013: 

1. Vine and Instagram short video
2. Twitter (more than any other social medium) and the Boston Marathon bombing 
3. From space! Including astronauts and the Mars rover tweeting 
4. Companies publicizing government data requests 
5. Twitter going public 
6. Typhoon Haiyan (and Google's Crisis Map) 
7. #BatKid for the Make-A-Wish Foundation 
8. "Selfie" is Oxford's Word of the Year 
9. Beyonce's album 
10. Doge 

Each item comprises a brief narrative description and links to examples. 

The Biggest Social Media Moments That Got People Talking In 2013

We’re taking a look at the most prominent hits on social media in 2013, and how they shaped the global conversation.

December 31, 2013

ReadWriteReflect offers a look back at major technology trends, products and companies of the past year.

Astronaut selfies, national tragedies, invasions of privacy and heartwarming events all made our list for the most notable social media moments this year. 

Social media is more prevalent now than ever before. Pew Internet reports that 73 percent of all U.S. adult Internet users have at least one social media account and while Facebook still remains the ubiquitous platform, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram play a large part in launching viral content and communicating and documenting stories around world.

Article (and list) continues at link above.

Apple Design

It's amusing, Fast Company's use of the term, "longread" -- something long to read. Apparently, on a screen, something is "long" when you have to scroll down. 

Max Chafkin in Fast Company's Co. DESIGN writes an excellent longread  survey of Apple's journey to design excellence. Videos, and a great slide show. 

An Oral History Of Apple Design: 1992–2013

THE GREATEST BUSINESS STORY OF THIS GENERATION IS A DESIGN TALE.

Most efforts to explain design at Apple end up reducing a complex 37-year history to bromides about simplicity, quality, and perfection--as if those were ambitions unique to Apple alone. So Fast Company set out to remedy that deficiency through an oral history of Apple's design, a decoding of the signature as told by the people who helped create it. A longer version of the story that includes material not published elsewhere is available in the Byliner original ebook, Design Crazy.

The Good

****

"This is our signature," Apple's gauzy television ads proclaim, referring to the familiar words that the company stamps on the undersides of its products: designed by Apple in California. The ads fall in the grand Apple tradition--beginning with the "1984" Super Bowl spot--of seeming to say a great deal while revealing little. The singular Cupertino computer company is one of the most intensely competitive, pathologically secretive organizations in the world.

The Bad

If there is one thing that CEO Tim Cook doesn't want people to know, it's what dwells behind his company's "signature." As a result, most efforts to explain design at Apple end up reducing a complex 37-year history to bromides about simplicity, quality, and perfection--as if those were ambitions unique to Apple alone.

So Fast Company set out to remedy that deficiency. It wasn't easy. Precious few designers have left Sir Jonathan Ive's industrial design group since he took over in 1996: Two quit; three died. (We talked to the two who quit, among dozens of other longtime Apple veterans.) What we found is that the greatest business story of the past two decades--how Apple used design to rise from near bankruptcy to become the most valuable company in the world--is completely misunderstood.

Article continues at link above. 

The REALLY Bad

Trends in 2014: Tim Bajarin

 This list of predictions is more eclectic than most in terms of the topics covered. See here for more lists. 

Tech Predictions for 2014

by Tim Bajarin   |   December 16th, 2013

For the last 27 years I have written an annual industry prediction column where I try to forecast what I see happening in the PC and CE markets in the New Year. To be fair, I spend thousands of hours each year researching these industries and their products and get to see inside the labs of many companies as well as peek into start-ups and garage shops all over the world. So what I predict has more to do with taking an intelligent guess about what I see happening in 2014 and less an actual prediction. So as I look into my crystal research ball, here is what I believe will happen in tech’s New Year.

1. Google spins out Motorola 
2. Large tablets for people to share. I don't see people getting a large tablet exclusively to share; we all already pass our tablets back and forth to each other.
3. Dual-OS laptops and desktops. I agree; these are just about to come to market. 
4. Apple will release an awesome productivity device. It's probably always a safe statement that Apple will do ____ that is arguably awesome. 
5. Smartphones and beacon-based sensors take off. iBeacon is Apple's branding of Bluetooth Low Energy, and would send notifications over a short distance (< 50 m) to smartphones. 
6. Smartwatches are dead in 2014. I differ; see here. 
7. PC market could grow in 2014. 
8. Internet of Everything goes mainstream. I don't know about "mainstream," but it's coming. See here. 
9. More acceptance of Chromebooks. 
10. Digital health will be big in 2014. 
11. 3-D cameras and printers will become more popular. 

Full list at link above. 

Windows 8: Ambitious Failure

Mark Wilson in Fast Company's Co.DESIGN writes about Windows 8's schizophrenia: notionally, it is a superb OS, but no one likes it. 

Microsoft's Windows 8 Is The Perfect OS That Nobody Wants

WINDOWS 8 LOOKS PERFECT. BUT NEW UPDATES MAY REVERT ITS DESIGN TO APPEASE CONSUMERS. WHAT IS GOING ON?

With Windows 8, Microsoft did the unthinkable: The company designed a groundbreaking interface of boxes called Metro that could scale from laptops, to tablets, to phones, to Xboxes--meaning any Microsoft device in any context would always be equally familiar. Not even Apple has been bold enough to merge Mac OS and iOS, which is why it seemed that with Windows 8, the nerds at Microsoft had somehow won the design war.

But the Metro interface hasn’t brought a new golden age for Microsoft. Adoption of Windows 8 PCs has been slow, while Microsoft's Surface tablets have proven a $900 million-plus flop. And nowhere is consumer response more apparent than in how Microsoft has backpedaled, reinstating the Start button in Windows 8.1. This one button drove the Windows interface for almost 20 years. Removing it in Windows 8 marked a paradigm shift of the company's UI. And bringing the Start button back signifies that consumers never wanted something new in the first place.

Adding fuel to the flames, new rumors suggest that Microsoft will revert its design even further, adding more options to run Windows 8 far more like a traditional Windows machine, complete with a full Start Menu and Metro apps that happily run on an old school desktop.

What is going on?

Wilson nails the issues from my perspective: 1) people don't actually want the same interface on different devices, and 2) multitasking in Windows 8 is poorly executed. I'd also add 3), swiping is an unnatural act on a lap- or desk-top, as opposed to a phone or tablet (but this may be the same as 2)).

See link above for full article. 

Consumerization

There are certainly parallels for libraries in the consumerization of IT, which is the notion that, nowadays, innovation in information technology is generated by the consumer market, rather than by what corporate IT shops might develop, distribute, and support, as had been the case up through the mid-1990s. The parallels for libraries are grounded in that, the same way employees aren't solely dependent on corporate IT organization for their IT, people aren't solely dependent on their library organization for their library and information resources and services. 

Two articles by Brien Posey in Redmond Magazine describe the "fundamental truths" underpining IT consumerization. (See also the tag, Consumerization.)

The Real Consumerization of IT, Part 1

Rising user tech IQ, easier-to-use gadgets and the transformation of users into consumers is changing the landscape of IT.

By Brien Posey, 12/12/2013

Lately I have been writing quite a few columns on the future of Microsoft, its various products and the IT industry as a whole. The reason for all of these posts is simple. I have worked in IT for over 20 years and I cannot think of another period of time in which I have seen the potential for such radical transformation. That's a big statement when you consider that less than 15 years ago most households did not even have Internet access.

For this blog post I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about how I see IT jobs changing in the future. Contrary to what some people have predicted, I do not believe that corporate IT is going away any time soon. However, I think that the role of corporate IT is about to change as a result of the consumerization of IT.

When most people talk about the consumerization of IT, the discussion typically centers around end users who want to use their iPad to access corporate resources. Even though the BYOD trend is an undeniable part of the consumerization of IT, I think that most people overlook the big picture. There are three fundamental truths related to the consumerization of IT that I believe will shape IT over the next few years. These truths are:

• Consumers have become far more tech savvy.
• The technology industry tries to appeal to a broader range of consumers by dumbing down tech products.
• Corporate IT is turning users into consumers.

Article continues at link.

The second article discusses what these truths mean for IT professionals and the new (constant) roles for IT organizations (i.e., responsible for infrastructure management, capacity management, policy creation and enforcement).