Beyond blogging and next markets
“If blogging is on the verge of ‘tipping/crossing’ (and it looks close), I’m wondering…what’s next? What comes after blogging? Where are the innovators and early adopters heading once blogs jump into the fat part of the curve?”
What comes next?
It’s an important question, and I’ve noticed that Al asks it all the time. “Where are we going from here?” “What’s the next problem we can solve?” Cultivating the curious mindset is a key to surviving in a world that changes as fast as ours does.
“It’s all about thriving in markets that are smarter and faster than you are. It’s all about being utterly fucked if you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
You have to target the early adopters. Get the bleeding edge of the curve to snap up your products and don’t target the middle. The middle takes too long to act. Be in it for the quick cash, not the long hull. Long term cons are dangerous, long term markets are nonexistent. Get your product out now, and then get your next product out as quickly as possible.
“For every hundred ideas you have, you’re going to be lucky if one of them hits, but you’ve got have the hundred before you can get to the one.”
So on those notes, what’s next with blogging? Personally, I think we’re going to see more and more podcasting and moblogging. As cell phones and other handheld devices go wireless (with big colorful screens) and drop in price it’s going to open that market more and more. Especially as they start getting high resolution cameras and microphones in there as well.
Then again, the early adopters have already taken up that multimedia blogging market. So what’s going to come after it?
Ubiquitous computing seems to be the paradigm shift in the hardware market, and social software coupled with aggregation seems to be the next trend in the software world. Both merged together means we’re going to see lots of personal devices / applications sharing their data.
Blogging’s not just going to limit itself to text any more. Everything’s going to go online and then it’s all going to link itself to everything else. Your cell phone will know when you’re low on salad dressing and which grocery store has the best prices.
The world’s going to change here soon, and it’s going to happen fast. I think the Jetson’s might just be the NeXT market.
Side notes
For the curious, Kathy Sierra keeps her own blog as well.