Words About Things

Twitter have recently announced that they will soon offer the ability to include location data with tweets. Users will be able to have their approximate location shown alongside each tweet and have this data mapped. The feature will be entirely opt-in so users need not worry that their whereabouts will be broadcast without their knowledge.

One the data about tweet locations is collected users will presumably be able to see new tweets on interactive maps as well as browse by location. Being able to see what people in specific places are saying will be useful for keeping up to date with unfolding news events. It might also help us to become more involved in local events and see what is actually going on in our neighborhoods rather than online.

A possible negative aspect (or positive depending on your point of view) would be the ability of small businesses to reach out to those nearby. This could be a problem as marketers seem to be all over Twitter at the moment, although if this becomes a problem opting out is always an option.

Read about the changes on the Twitter blog here.

There are five big mobile broadband operators in the UK and a lot of potential customers. The mobile broadband industry has been growing rapidly over the last few years and as consumers become more savvy they expect more for their money. Initially mobile broadband dongles were aimed at the business market and the main benefits focused upon were portability and ease of use. Now that mobile broadband has become a mainstream choice price is much more of an issue. People are much more conscious of monthly costs during a recession and all outgoing must justify themselves.

It has been reported that Orange and Vodafone are both interested in buying T-Mobile. If either are successful the resulting company will be the largest in the industry. Getting new customers signed up is more important than ever for the main providers. As new customers who have previously been offline choose to connect with mobile broadband there is a rush to provide the most eye-catching deal to tempt them into a contract. There is lots of debate about what is the best mobile broadband deal but the best deal for one person may not be the best deal for everyone.

Some companies have been offering free laptops in exchange for a monthly connection fee. Others are offering short term contracts aimed at those not keen on committing to 12 or 18 months of payments. Pay as you go mobile broadband is a popular choice as well. Costs are coming down and monthly download allocations are going up. Coverage continues to improve although ‘notspots‘ are still present (or should that be not present?). As far as I can see the consumer is benefiting from the increased competition. Those of us already in a long term contract wont be feeling the benefit just yet but at least it’s on its way!

Tennis star Maria Sharapova became a live mannequin recently in London in order to model creations by students from the London College of Fashion. She became a temporary window display at Liberty in Carnaby Street. The clothes on display were inspired by the intersection between fashion and high tech design.

The event was the result of a design competition sponsored by Sony Ericsson. The winning entry, created by Georgie Davies, was a cocktail dress which lights up when the wearers phone rings.

“The open and creative brief allowed our students free reign to develop design ideas that are forward thinking,”

It has become the norm for us to digitize our lives and this is having a profound effect on our lifestyles. Those of us who grew up during the transitional period and more aware of this than most. I actually remember a time before mobile phones, digital cameras/music storage and the Internet. I also remember a time before mobile broadband when being on the internet meant a huge phone bill and the phone line being engaged for hours at a time. For the next generation this may be unthinkable but we were there and we saw phones the size of bricks and dial-up connections.

Previously photographs, videos and racks of CDs where found cluttering up living rooms around the country but digital storage is now taking over. Some hard drive companies are referring to “terabyte lifestyles” in an attempt to define the need for storage (You can just picture the look on the little Marketing types face’s when they came up with that one can’t you?).

All this constant collecting and documenting is The Fear. Anyone who has lost a year’s worth of photos or a great collection of obscure hard to find albums will understand that moment of panic when your computer will not turn on (hint: plug). The Fear leads us to backup, backup our backups and use online file storage and backup software.

The result of all this technological development is that physical copies are becoming less popular. This is affecting record companies in a big way as we know. Netflix has recently said that they only expect their mail-order DVD rental service to be needed for the next 5 years after which time downloads will take over. Does this mean that Ikea will have to sell digital storage rather then CD racks? Will archaeologists in the distant future be able to learn all about us by digging up a USB stick, or will they not have the necessary drivers?

Jack Schofield wrote an article about ‘Lifecaching’ in 2004 which seems to become more relevant as the years pass. He described the four ways in which recording our lives were (and are) becoming easier and easier.

First, new devices such as camera phones and digital recorders have made it much easier to record your life. Second, the use of digital media has allowed all the different types of record to be combined instead of stored separately. Third, the cost of disk storage has fallen to the point where many PC users can afford the terabyte or two of storage needed to keep everything. Finally, the internet has made it easy to share the results.

The advances in technology which Scholfield noted have lead to ‘Lifecaching’ or ‘Lifecasting’ becoming a real phenomena. Internet celebrities/attention seekers such as IJustine record their lives via blogs, live video streams and services such as Flickr and Twitte. Pay as you go mobile broadband makes it much easier for people to get connected, particularly those without a phone line. Advances in mobile connections have lead to the rest of us become more likely to record our everyday lives via photography and video.

The increased ease of blogging allows us to become more comfortable with sharing our offline life with our online ‘friends’. All the information we release is stored for posterity, to be viewed by whoever wishes (in the case of public blogs at least). Imagine if you could read your parents blog from when they were young, would you want to?