Re-Thinking

A few thoughts from recent conversations:

• Google is a biometric inventory company with a "search" frontend and a marketing company backend, but the main "product" is YOU.
• Google cares what you're searching for, but doesn't care about the quality of its search results. There's no penalty for not giving you what you're looking for - quite the opposite: additional queries mean higher resolution biometrics and ad placements. The incentive is to keep asking you to clarify what you're searching for.
• Google is more interested in being an intermediary for commerce. This is why Android always-on location awareness is here to stay. In the future, if you're looking for a local taco stand, Google will give you the option of placing an order (for a fee!) from your phone. It will cue the restaurant to start prep when you're (X) minutes away from pickup.
• This means the search market is wide open again. Look for search to fracture to specific portals/aggregators (we already see this). Examples: Wolfram Alpha for science queries, JSTOR for research, etc. Google has already cast its tombstone re: search for Smart People.
• Google rolled out Plus in a hurry for ONE REASON: Facebook's "Check Ins" *That's* what Google was missing, and they figured a look-alike would get them that data. Instead, people kept right on using FB, and never really started using Plus. (anecdotal from a former Googler: the percentage of FourSquare users who xPost to Plus? .01%. )
• We need a guild for professional bloggers. Some kind of ongoing certification that gives some indication as to how trustworthy an individual's output is. Even a crest that says "Not Completely Full Of Shit" would be a start. Credibility with your own audience is a starter, but people who don't know you need signs they can trust you. Marketing/PR used to solve this problem, but they can't be trusted either. Who can step up to this role?
• Racism has moved from the mostly-visible public square to the mostly invisible biases of institutions. How else do you explain the ongoing incarceration rates of black males in a nation where nobody's a racist?
• Money is divided between the Have's and the Have Nots, but tech is between the Knows and the Know Nots.
• If you have any sense about you right now, you're learning to build robots. You don't have to be Tony Stark on a solo project - just get good at solving a problem or doing one or two things. Like hydraulics. Or motor controllers.
• Unless you're already a developer, starting anew in code is probably not the best choice. I can think of all kinds of reasons to learn the concepts, but IMHO, better to start with something physical (robotics), versus say, game programming. (not a judgement of either endeavor, btw, just analyzing the logistics.)
• Device convergence has reached a plateau. Look for development of connectivity standards. Devices that are most "open" will win. (Example: cell phones with LED projectors. Probably not going to happen widely, instead, a connector standard that opens a 3rd party market of projectors will be the most successful.)
• 3D photography will be commonplace in mobile devices in less than two years. But not video.
• There are audiences everywhere now. TV, YouTube, etc. "The Problem" remains the same: people who would be fans don't know/care about you, and you don't know where/how to find them.
• Globally, the food supply is in dire straits. Global warming, corporate domination of research, etc, are making the production of food dicey. Massive under-education about the complexity of national (US) food supply makes conversations impossible. Same for GM food discussions. Knows vs Know Nots.
• Your average home-gardener has produced a 1-2 days supply of food.

What are you talking about today?