Technology trends

From LLN

Technology trends

Contents

Gathered and summarized by Walt Crawford from various sources, with additional sections (as marked) by Leslie Dillon.

For earlier trends and predictions, see Technology trends 2007 and Technology trends 2008.

Technology trends in general

Information visualization: the next frontier?

Editor's note: Visualization was mentioned as a technology trend in 2007 and 2008. Is it hotter now? Is Wordle a toy or a sign? Does AquaBrowser enhance catalog use? Here's one take.
by Leslie Dillon from Leader's Digest May 2009

The tag clouds on Web sites—those jumbled words of varying sizes that indicate the relative frequency of words—are possibly the most common example of the field of information visualization, which is actually an offshoot of graphic design. Librarians are somewhat familiar with visualization, or at least with tag clouds, through products like AquaBrowser, but until just a few years ago, the field seemed very much on the distant horizon. Today, however, graphic designers are remapping the world. The web site Visual Complexity shows nearly 700 projects, including Senate voting patterns, geographic locations of cell phones, maps of subway systems, music preferences, and something called 3D Dewey Data Visualization, which is derived from “transaction data” at the Seattle Public Library.

According to Fast Company, information visualization will be able to help create efficient new forms of buildings, food distribution and transportation. For example, cities could have systems that monitor traffic patterns and manage its flow. Projects such as these could have considerable benefits. A system in Stockholm that can track cars’ movements has reduced carbon emissions by 25%. Smart grids will be able to monitor energy use in our homes and suggest ways to reduce costs.

Information visualization “reflects the complexity of the world in simple terms. It is a window onto the world, in all its digital complexity.” If you want to familiarize yourself with the technology, you can start by creating your own word clouds at Wordle. Then go on to explore Visual Complexity, but before you go, a word of warning: you may have trouble tearing yourself away!

(Michael Cannell, “Is information visualization the next frontier for design?” FastCompany, May 10, 2009.)

The Economist

by Leslie Dillon from Leader's Digest March 2009

Among the articles in The Economist’s most recent Technology Quarterly are some of particular relevance to library leaders: the popularity and usefulness of online product reviews; alternate reality games that mix puzzles and plot lines; and Brewster Kahle, “the Internet’s librarian” (which I’ve included not because it’s new to you—it’s not—but because The Economist deems it important enough to cover in its Technology Quarterly).

Fair comment

Books and other products sold by online vendors can attract thousands of reviews. Amazon.com, for example, lists 3,250 reviews of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Are they of any use? Apparently so. The “raw number of reviews or comments, and the proportion of positive and negative ones, send useful signals to other people, even if they do not trawl through all of them.” Once a product has about 20 reviews, the rate of comments starts to accelerate. And reviews do influence consumer behavior. Also, letting people rate reviews lets the most popular rise to the top; Amazon’s ranking system now takes helpfulness of reviews into account. Sheer numbers don’t work as well for comments on articles and blogs though; most people will avoid a discussion with over 350 comments.

Serious fun

Alternate reality games (ARGs) combine technology, advertising and unconventional storytelling. ARGs were orchestrated initially to market films and videogames. Now they’re becoming part of the mainstream; MacDonald’s and the Red Cross have both used them. They also fit into a “growing trend of using playful cross-media technologies to get people thinking.” The Institute for the Future, a California-based non-profit research organization, uses ARGs with thousands of players to evaluate future scenarios. Its most recent project, “’Superstruct’, uses blogs, videos and wikis to encourage people to imagine the world in 2019.” The goal of this large-scale brainstorming is “to build our ability to respond quickly, and in large-scale collaborative ways, to what might happen in the future.”

The internet’s librarian

Brewster Kahle wants to create a free online collection of all human knowledge with his Internet Archive. “Brewster is a visionary who looks at things differently,” says Carole Moore, chief librarian at the University of Toronto. “He is able to imagine doing things that everyone else thinks are impossible. But then he does them.” Kahle has recruited 135 libraries to openlibrary.org, whose goal is to catalog every book ever published, with links to the full text. The Internet Archive is digitizing over 1,000 books a day for those library partners, who pay about $30 each. The digital books may be made available by both parties. A “print on demand” system can produce print copies in minutes. The Internet Archive has a staff of about 200 and an annual budget of $10 million- $14 million. The Archive’s long-term goal of universal online access to all knowledge may not “be finished in our lifetime,” says Mr. Kahle. “But if you pick a goal far enough out, people can align to it. I am not interested in building an empire. Our idea is to build the future.”

(Technology Quarterly, The Economist, Mar. 7, 2009.)

Wired Magazine

Technically, a list of "top technology breakthroughs in 2008"--but 2008 breakthroughs should yield 2009 trends. At least, that's what the article implies:

Here's our countdown of what rocked our world in 2008 — and what will change yours in 2009 and beyond.

See whether you consider these to be either breakthroughs or so important that they qualify as top--and note that they're in order from least important to most! (Boldface: Actual developments. Regular: My quick commentary)

  • 10. Flexible displays: Still in the “plausible” stage, as it’s been for years. Don’t count on much in the marketplace this year.
  • 9. Edible chips: Silicon chips that is—”tiny chips…that, once swallowed activate in the stomach” and send signals to patches outside to monitor vitals (or, the piece suggests, “track when patients take their pills.” Not even in clinical trials yet. I wouldn’t hold my breath (bad for your vitals).
  • 8. Speedo LZR: This one’s reality—the swimsuits that revolutionized Olympic swimming competition last year. Maybe next year you’ll be able to swim in your very own girdle. This constitutes one of the ten most important technology breakthroughs for 2008? Fancy swimsuits?
  • 7. Flash memory: There’s a hot new trend! The hook for this item is that the “star power” behind flash drives, already commodity items, means “prices have nowhere to go but down,” unlike hard disk prices which, as you know, have been…well, declining even faster. The reality: Big flash drives use a lot less power than hard disk drives—but there’s still the limited-cycle issue, which isn’t mentioned here.
  • 6. GPS: Another commodity—but the Wired piece is about geoservices. Great—if they’re actually services and not new ad, spam and stalking systems. It’s not the technology, it’s the uses—and in 2009, I think we’re going to see that “free” only goes so far.
  • 5. Memristor: Ideally, a replacement for RAM that retains its memory when powered down—but even the article says it’s at least five years away.
  • 4. Video-capable SLRs: Interesting, here now, high-def.
  • 3. USB 3.0: Even higher-speed USB—but saying “users need the increased speed” is only true for some subset of users.
  • 2. Android: Google’s smart phone OS.
  • 1. Apple’s App Store: Apparently the most important "technology breakthrough" of 2008! Maybe so, since “we all” have iPhones, and since “we all” have unlimited funds to buy mobile applications and pay for data subscriptions.

Paula Hane

Excerpted from "Review of the year 2008 and trends watch--part 2," posted January 8, 2009 at ITI NewsLink.

Hane offers an informed look at many trends she plans to watch in 2009, including these and others--noting that she's saying the trends are worth watching, not that they'll necessarily be adopted widely:

  • Growth in the mobile web (increasingly location-aware services)
  • Open source solutions looking increasingly attractive…
  • Web apps…gaining traction over expensive software solutions
  • Increasing traction for open access journals
  • Increasing use of social networking services for communication (rather than email)
  • More innovative web mashups
  • Further developments in semantic technologies and applications, increasing the context of content
  • Increasing movement to enhanced library catalogs (reviews, ratings, tags, etc.)
  • Ongoing book digitization projects—some partnering with Google, others making it on their own (Hane doesn't mention the Open Content Alliance)
  • More options and improvements in ebook readers, increased adoption, and, hopefully, lower prices (Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, iRex suite, Foxit eSlick, Bookeen Cybook, etc.)
  • Security and privacy remaining major concerns [a permanent trend].
and these trends excerpted by Leslie Dillon in Leader's Digest January 2009:
  • Growth of technology in emerging markets
  • Growth in the international web
  • Increased data portability among systems
  • Enterprise search becoming increasingly more discovery-oriented, with easy browse and navigation powered by faceted metadata
  • Consumer technologies continuing to drive innovation and influence enterprise adoption
  • Publications moving to online only, dropping their print versions (unprofitable titles may simply disappear)
  • During the economic recession, vertical content sites having an advantage over general sites
  • New transparency in government with the Obama administration
  • More consolidation in many industries

Reid Goldsborough

Excerpted from Goldsborough's "Future trends in personal technology" in the January 2009 LinkUp Digital, these trends (excerpted here) are actually from a JWT (formerly J. Walter Thompson) report, so you're getting the views of an ad agency.
  • Use of email will decline. (A JWT executive calls it "an increasingly outdated medium" and manages to combine declining email use with "people...fed up with overflowing inboxes." This is like those nightclubs that nobody goes to because they're too popular. Casey Stengel lives! The item also labels email as a "serious productivity drain" and seems to prefer texting and social networks--which aren't serious productivity drains?)
  • Computing will become increasingly untethered. (That is, more cloud computing.)
  • Use of mobile devices will continue to increase.
  • Netbooks will increase in popularity. (And the definition of "netbook" will get fuzzier as more companies try to relabel thin notebooks.)
  • Personal computers and TV will "continue to converge."

Library technology trends

Eric Lease Morgan

Excerpted and paraphrased from Eric Lease Morgan's Midwinter 2009 LITA Top Tech Trends list, posted January 10, 2009 on the LITA blog.
  • Indexing with Solr/Lucene works well.
  • Linked data is a new name for the Semantic Web.
  • Blogging is peaking. “There is no doubt about it.” (Compare and contrast Morgan's enthusiasm in 2008.)
  • Word/tag clouds abound.
  • "Next Generation” library catalogs seem to be defined, but the definition may not go far enough.
  • The Digital Dark Age continues. That is, digital preservation of internet resources stinks. Morgan also says “Somebody is going to want to do research on the use of blogs and email.”
Editor's note: "Somebody," namely me, has been doing research on the use of blogs--but may have to give it up for lack of resources--and, apparently, anyone noticing.

Walt Crawford

Extracted from Cites & Insights 9:3, February 2009

In the Midwinter 2009 issue, I quoted from my 2004 mini-essay on the “top technology trend,” quoting Cory Doctorow and Boing Boing. Repeating part of the beginning of Doctorow’s entry:

The last twenty years were about technology. The next twenty years are about policy...

I believe that’s still true—and maybe the economic reality that emerged last year and will be with us for some time to come demonstrates that better than everything. Technology helped get us into this mess; I don’t see any way that technology will get us out of it.

Beyond that, I see these trends as vital for thinking about libraries, technology and life:

  • Limits: They exist. Your financial resources are limited; you can’t keep borrowing against tomorrow indefinitely. Deny them as we might, limits—natural resources, time, attention—don’t simply disappear. Denying limits and hiding them under various odd assumptions can lead to disasters of various sorts.
  • Business models: They matter. When you’re considering how various services for your own work and your library’s work will work, think about business models. To what extent are you relying on free services that don’t appear to have any source of revenue? What happens to your service if those services disappear? Do you have any rational basis to believe that they’ll continue to exist, grow and be developed without clear revenue sources? Your library has a business model, typically that of a community service: People pay in advance in order to fund a common good.
  • Trusting the cloud: Set aside the jargon—the cloud’s just software and services on someone else’s servers. “Trusting the cloud” has three key aspects, one particularly important where library functions are concerned: Trusting that the services will remain (see “business models”); trusting that your data will be safe; and trusting that confidentiality will be preserved. I’m not arguing that you shouldn’t use the cloud; I am arguing that you should think several times before relying entirely on the cloud.
  • Valuing existing users and services: Yes, you need to see how you can serve emerging needs of your community (your community)—but times of limits make your existing services more valuable than ever. Don’t ignore your existing users in order to court a minority of people living the digital lifestyle; find some balance...
  • Real communities: What technologies and balances serve your users in your community? The answer’s considerably different for a town in which 99% of residents are wealthy and have high-speed broadband and smart phones (if such a town exists) than it is for a city where many people aren’t online at all (except at the library), many more have only dialup at home, and $100 a month for a smart phone data service is an outrageous expense. Where’s your community—and how does your library serve your users effectively?
  • Taking back the language: That’s a group heading for a number of language-related issues. It means understanding that “Essentially free” means somebody somewhere is paying a lot of money. It means thinking to yourself “what you mean we?” when someone pronounces something that “we” or “we all” do or think... It means flagging “inevitable” as a typically nonsensical substitute for argument. It means honoring skepticism while trying to avoid cynicism.

Steve Lawson

Excerpts from "My top tech trend: Social software deathwatch," posted February 4, 2009 at See also...

Here is my TTT for 2009: Social software deathwatch. (Note that Jason Scott got me thinking about this with some recent posts on his ASCII blog...and do be aware that Scott, a self-made digital archivist, uses profanity like a Thai chef uses chiles.)

AOL Hometown shut down with very little notice to the people who still had their sites hosted there. Google is closing, stopping development or otherwise 86’ing Google Video, Notebook, Catalog Search, Jaiku, and Dodgeball. LiveJournal laid off a bunch of people and sorta forgot to comment on it publicly for a while, leading people to suspect that they have something to hide and may not be long for this World Wide Web. Social bookmarking site Ma.gnolia had “data corruption and loss” on Friday, and at the moment they still haven’t recovered... Thomas Hawk has been blogging occasions...where Flickr permanently deleted users accounts with little notice or negotiation. (Please note that Hawk is CEO and Chief Evangelist of Zooomr, a Flickr competitor.)...

I’m conflating some not-entirely-related phenomena: sites where the owning company pulls the plug; sites that have one-time serious, possibly irrevocable losses; and sites that are too eager to not just suspend users’ accounts, but to delete everything they have posted.

But it goes back to something I wrote about two years ago in a post called "When good sites go bad." It’s great to put stuff on these sites to increase your media’s visibility or to find a more convenient way to share documents or something. But what happens if your free hosted wiki site suddenly goes bankrupt or your document sharing site’s servers are accidentally sold for scrap, or the video hosting site you use objects to the hot book-on-book action you have posted?...

Libraries and librarians and archivists who care about preserving the world’s cultural output: where are we now? Do we have anything to add to an effort to help keep online culture from going down the drain? I fear that most libraries can barely deal with the digital content we are directly responsible for, leaving the wilds of the internet to people like Jason Scott and Brewster Kahle to deal with, but I’d love to hear examples of libraries taking on [some] responsibility [for rescuing disappearing web content]...

There’s a reason it’s called “cloud” computing. It looks beautiful now, but could be gone in a moment.

Sarah Houghton-Jan

Brief excerpts from a January 24, 2009 post at the LITA blog.
  1. The art of web presence maintenance: With libraries extending their web presences out beyond the borders of their own websites proper, the coordination and successful maintenance of these presences has become a skill in its own right… Managing a library’s extended web presence truly has become an art, and an art that each library needs to (and seems to want to) learn about. I see the future bringing more and more libraries focusing on this aspect, and the real skills that these tasks require, such as customer service, web skills and knowledge, writing skills, etc.
  2. Plug-ins, widgets and hacks, oh my! Websites are no longer stand-alone entities. They are segmented bits of code…all grouped together to make dynamic and interactive pages. The number of plug-ins, widgets, and hacks in the last year that can be used effectively on library websites has increased dramatically compared to previous years…The number of libraries taking advantage of these will continue to grow, especially in times of difficult budgets when “free” is the only choice.
  3. My kumpyootur kan has a kloud: Cloud computing as been discussed a lot in the information community in the last few years. Libraries have taken advantage of this already by using services such as Google Docs to offer services or enhance communication. When cloud computing becomes the norm (which I and others think it will in the next few years), this will be a boon for library users…
  4. Online training has its debutante ball: To date, most libraries (and by libraries I mean library managers and supervisors) treat online learning like it isn’t valid… Most libraries that I have visited (a mix of public and academic) have little time for staff to go to training, and little funding at that. However, they will happily pay for an in-person class that also involves an hour of travel time for the attendee, but not give the same person time to watch a webcast on the same topic from his/her desk. It’s almost as though there is an unwritten rule: “If you’re at your desk, it’s not real training.” While as a trainer I completely agree that some topics require in-person classes, most topics can be covered through online screencasts, webcasts, written tutorials, and the like. Fortunately, in the last year I have seen more libraries opening up to online training as a valid training delivery method…
  5. Less $ = Less eResources (a disturbing trend): It seems that eResources (databases and eBooks) budgets are being cut more than the traditional collection budgets are… Times are tough—which is precisely why eResources make more sense. They have a higher return on investment, examining cost vs. use, (up to 5 times as much in my studies)… Especially for periodicals, eResources make more sense than physical ones. And yet, this year, periodical budgets aren’t being cut but periodical database budgets are…

Karen Coombs

Brief excerpts from a January 25, 2009 post at the LITA blog:
  • My personal A-HA trend: Web applications that are extremely flexible, versatile and extendable… (Specific example: Drupal.)
  • The everyone’s going to say it but it needs to be said trend: Mobile technologies are changing society. They are here to stay, they are only going to get better with time, and we need to expect mobile devices to be a significant portion of our usage.
  • The one that scares the sh!t out of me: The waking digital preservation nightmare. Whether it is books digitized by Google, videos posted on the web, or Flickr photos the explosion of digital content for which there isn’t a clear curation plan has created a void which few libraries seem to be willing to step up and fill…
  • The trend I think may empower smaller libraries the most: Hosted supported open source software There are an increasing number of companies both in the library and non-library world providing hosting and support for open source software…

Michael Stephens

Brief excerpts from a January 12, 2009 post at Tame the web.

Stephens sees these ten trends as the top ten, offering extensive commentary (7,800 words worth) in the post.

  • The ubiquity of the cloud
  • The changing role of IT
  • The value of the commons
  • The promise of micro-interactions ("the everyday exchanges we have with a product, brand and service")
  • The care & nurturing of the tribe
  • The triumph of the portable device
  • The importance of personalization
  • The impact of localization (location-based computer services, that is--not community-specific library services)
  • The evolution of the digital lifestyle
  • The shift toward open thinking

Five related things we just can’t ignore in libraries

Since these are brief, they appear here almost in full.
  1. Privacy: We need to rethink our privacy concerns, offer varying levels of opt-in and educate all of our users about what it means to participate in the networked world where our lifestreams are saved throughout the cloud.
  2. The environment: Saving money is important but also saving resources. As you plan your new buildings and new services, how can we lessen the impact on the world?
  3. The nature of information: It’s very different than it was 10 years ago. People are finding stuff ”on the fly” and “just in time.” How can we still play a role?
  4. Generation C: Young people are growing up to be creators. Our spaces and policies as well as offerings should appeal to that mindset. Let them create along with you.
  5. Telling our story well to funding bodies: Tough economic times spell disaster for library funding. Make sure you are telling your story well in various marketing and communication channels...

Technology forecasts

These are more than just trends; they're specific forecasts.

ReadWriteWeb

This massive set of predictions actually appeared on December 30, 2008. I count 56 predictions in all from various writers on this megablog, some of which contradict one another. Here are just a few interesting ones:

  • iTunes will add social networking features.
  • Yahoo will get bought by some big media company, not Microsoft.
  • Microsoft will release a “cool online version of Office” and Google will release an “amazing new version” of Google Docs.
  • Twitter and Technorati won’t get acquired but FriendFeed will be (probably by Google).
  • Twitter will be acquired. (OK, one of these has to be right…)
  • Lifestreams will continue to evolve. (Alternatively, “lifestreaming” products—this person mentions FriendFeed—will remain niche products serving early adopters.)
  • Twitter will figure out a way to make money.
  • An iPhone will appear with video recording capabilities.
  • “Google backlash begins, Apple backlash does not.”
  • Yahoo gains goodwill (and Google loses it).
  • Twitter will start to embed ads into user streams.
  • “Pro Twitterer” will be a real job.
  • Microsoft buys Netflix and resurrects WebTV.
  • Facebook Connect will become the de facto universal logon—or Gmail will be, once Google makes Gmail logons OpenID-compatible.
  • eBay will be acquired by Amazon.

Ian Douglas

Douglas is head of digital production for The Telegraph and these projections may reflect a UK that is vastly different from the U.S. Excerpted from "Next year in technology," posted December 23, 2008. (Thanks to Library stuff for the pointer.) Occasional snark in [brackets].

  • Computer sales will be down, but "the few computers sold will be higher quality items, intended to last a couple of years at least. Think Sony and Apple rather than Dell or Packard Bell." ["Few" computers? And when did Sony become much higher quality than Dell?]
  • Microsoft will suffer as people skip the "ridiculously overpriced Office suite" and turn instead to free online word processors. [Perhaps the $130-or-less-for-three-users MS Office 2007 Home & Student isn't available in the UK--or maybe Douglas considers $43 "ridiculously overpriced"?]
  • Sales of “larger but essentially useless items” will dwindle, but “small but life-affirming purchases” will rise. [What’s fascinating here: Douglas calls HD camcorders and netbooks “larger but essentially useless” items and iPhone apps, Wiis, iTune songs, DVDs and digital film downloads “small but life-affirming.” So a $250 netbook or $160 camcorder is “larger and essentially useless” and a $300 Wii is small and life-affirming? Not to mention that to buy an iPhone app you have to have an iPhone, costing more than most netbooks or low-end HD camcorders, and a data plan…]
  • Blu-ray will die as HD downloads and super-fast broadband spread. [Maybe the UK really is different.]
  • Battery life will take over from processor speed as the big number on billboards.
  • Electric cars will begin to replace hybrids as the environmentalists' choice. [In 2009? Again, maybe in the UK?]

Freedom to Tinker

Ed Felten and others at this blog post quite a few predictions--but they also post scorecards. Here are just nine of the 38 interesting predictions for 2009, from "Predictions for 2009" posted January 7, 2009:

  • 1. DRM technology will still fail to prevent widespread infringement. In a related development, pigs will still fail to fly. [They predict this every year. So far, 100% correct.]
  • 3. As lawful downloading of music and movies continues to grow, consumer satisfaction with lossy formats will decline, and higher-priced options that offer higher fidelity will begin to predominate.
  • 6. Questions over the enforceability of free / open source software licenses will move closer to resolution.
  • 13. There will be lots of talk about net neutrality but no new legislation, as everyone waits to see how the Comcast/BitTorrent issue plays out in the courts.
  • 24. Shortly after the start of the new administration, the TSA will quietly phase out the ban on flying with liquids or stop enforcing it in practice. [As a commenter notes, TSA’s already announced this for fall 2009.]
  • 27. An embarrassing leak of personal data will emerge from one or more of the social networking firms (e.g., Facebook), leading Congress to consider legislation that probably won't solve the problem and will never actually reach the floor for a vote.
  • 30. The Blu-ray format will increasingly be seen as a failure as customers rely more on online streaming. [I think Blu-ray will do just fine in 2009, but not become dominant by a long shot. A lot depends on your definition of “seen as a failure.”]
  • 33. A hot Christmas item will be a cheap set-top box that allows normal people to download, organize, and view video and audio podcasts in their own living rooms.
  • 34. Internet Explorer's usage share will fall below 50 percent for the first time in a decade, spurred by continued growth of Firefox and Safari and deals with OEMs to pre-load Google Chrome. [Possibly—but are either Safari or Chrome major players? At PLN, where Firefox registers at 33% over a recent month, Safari looks like about 1%-2% and Chrome doesn’t even register.]

Track record for 2008

Excerpts from this January 6, 2009 post, omitting the #1 prediction--always the same, always right, noted above. (Comments are from the comments in the post itself.):

  • 2. Copyright issues will still be gridlocked in Congress. We could predict this every year, and it would almost always be right…
  • 4. DRM-free sales will become standard in the music business. The movie studios will flirt with the idea of DRM-free sales but won't take the plunge, yet. This was basically right. DRM-free music sales are much more common than before. Whether they're “standard” is a matter for debate.
  • 7. Second Life will jump the shark and the cool kids will start moving elsewhere; but virtual worlds generally will lumber on. Second Life seems to have lost its cool factor, but then so have virtual worlds generally. Still, they're lumbering on.
  • 11. A Facebook application will cause a big privacy to-do. There were Facebook privacy issues, but mostly about non-application issues. Overall, interest in Facebook apps declined during the year. Verdict: mostly wrong.
  • 13. An epidemic of news stories about teenage webcam exhibitionism will lead to calls for regulation. Verdict: wrong.

Related articles

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