Wired Mag gets naked - 6 Trends in the Techspace, and 2 they didn't talk about.

April Edition of Wired Mag talks about 6 trends impacting the Tech sphere today:

1. Desktop Rest In Peace

This charts the move from email to webmail, noting that a McKinsey study says 61% of co’s plan to use Software OAS in 2007, up from 37%, and there is a rapid increase in different Net connected devices (the Digital Mess). It also notes the huge amount of user analytics possible in webservices.

Our take - yes, it is on the up and is the "outsourcing endgame" - but in our view infrastructure is still not at a point where a CIO should hand over business critical functions to SOAS without an ability to operate stand alone, and controllable backup

2. Two Way Talk

This is essentially that shocking idea of listening to customer all the way throughout the process, mostly used today by online co’s Benefits incude "network lockin" driving higher loyalty, and lower sensitivity to price - but has a much larger flipside if you piss off highly networked customers. In addition this is driving "feedback engines", typically as recommendations, and increasing the need for storefront interactivity.

Our take - In the 80's this was known as capturing the "moments of truth" of the customer experience, so nothing new - its just that its a lot easier to do with broadband internet - which is also making it easier to find alternatives and churn
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3. Merge with care

The assertion- Formal marriage (aka JV’s etc) is passé – temporary hookups are the thing now between big players, with early acquisition rather than risky internal "diy" of new stuff.

Our take - its timing....everyone is experimentig right now as the whole area is new - when things become clearer then mergers etc will be back on the menu. Also teh article doesn't talk about the amazing prices that have been payed for a few buys, well in excess of the cost of build.

4. Fat pipes (Bandwidth is Destiny)

Apparently traffic on Level 3's broadband network was up 75% in 2006, video and audio sites (Youtube et al) are causing growth. 90% of Korean 20 somethings have a Cyworld avatar

This is really the main driver of the New Media....many things that are now occurring were conceptualised in Web 1.0, if not before - but fell down on low and expensive bandwidth with low penetration.

5. Green power

The US is starting to understand the endgame of no oil security, and is now seriously seeking alternatives - leading to volume production and thus economies of scale in alternative energy sources kicking in (e.g. solar energy). There is also an interesting trend that Nuclear popularity is rising - among politicians anyway.

Our take - undoubtedly a trend, and the 'Net can help here - but it is worrying that big business, green fundamentalists and the governments are all on one side here - beware the little people!

6. Getting Naked with The "See through CEO"

This is essentially a long piece about the rise of openness in businesses as a way of increasing customer trust (a New PR play in essence)....the ClueTrain manifesto in Case Studies.

Though they also claim hiring bloggers is Tired and firing ‘em is Wired......

Two trends in techspace we think they missed:

One is the rise of the opportunities and issues around User Identity - the risks from fraud, the emerging distrust that people are feeling towards the amount of analytics the large players are using (Ie the loss of privacy) and yet the high potential benefit to the user.

Second is the evolution of the way business can organise itself - globalisation of knowledge work (aka cheap knowledge workers), the rise of webworking, project based models, the start of lean / agile thinking using new tools - all promises to be an "interesting" time in the way we work.