This perhaps goes against the grain of this blog somewhat, but... Good grief, I'm getting bored with tech / web stories lately!
It's not that there aren't new ones to read - quite the reverse. The sheer quantity never changes much. But somehow the content doesn't change much either, at base. Almost every new story I read could be one of any number of other stories I've read before - with nothing changed except the website / company / app involved, the conclusion to the new scientific study, or the version number of the product it's going on about. To paraphrase Yogi Berra: it's just déjà vu, all over again.
So to save everyone the bother of reading the 90%+ of it that's seemingly stuck on a loop, here, in no particular order, is the coming year's tech news:
And in other news: The Weekly Links Post will return soon. Because I'm a hypocrite.
*Not that real newspapers aren't sometimes guilty, too. Especially in pretty much any story that begins: "A new scientific study..."
It's not that there aren't new ones to read - quite the reverse. The sheer quantity never changes much. But somehow the content doesn't change much either, at base. Almost every new story I read could be one of any number of other stories I've read before - with nothing changed except the website / company / app involved, the conclusion to the new scientific study, or the version number of the product it's going on about. To paraphrase Yogi Berra: it's just déjà vu, all over again.
So to save everyone the bother of reading the 90%+ of it that's seemingly stuck on a loop, here, in no particular order, is the coming year's tech news:
200920102011 will be the year of hyper-local / the semantic web / Web 3.0- Apple / Microsoft to release new product / new version of old product
- New Apple / Microsoft product has minor / major fault
- Feverish, mainly groundless speculation about next new Apple product starts up again [see also: Microsoft, but much less feverish]
- Google wants to buy Company X
- Company X resists Google's overtures
- Google buys Company X
- New Google product, based on code from Company X, not the Facebook-killer / Apple-competitor analysts insist Google is definitely working on; Google shrugs, says that was never the intention
- X is the new y
- X isn't the new y
- X is brilliant, but what will happen when its venture capital runs out?
- X is overvalued
- Is the 'tech bubble' back?
- Video games / the internet / social networking bad for us, according to latest study / book
- Video games / the internet / social networking good for us, according to latest study / book
- Correlation is the new causation [the Daily Mail position on tech*, and anything else]
- Human behaviour / human nature never really changes, just the technology we invent to enact it [the Clay Shirky position on tech scares]
- Thing that wasn't in the cloud is now in the cloud
- Is our data safe in the cloud?
- Established website / company is losing popularity
- Established website / company does x in attempt to revive popularity
- Established website / company is still losing popularity, but even more so
- Facebook tweaks yet another thing / adds new service, causes outcry about compromised privacy [see also: Google, but less often]
- Google is evil
- Google isn't evil
- Suggestion is made that tech debate shouldn't be so reductively binary, no-one listens
- Social media makes political protest easier, more effective
- Social media's influence on politics and protests is overstated / counter-productive
- Important person at Apple / Google / Microsoft retires, leaves, or moves to Apple / Google / Microsoft
- Traditional media / music industry / publishing is dying
- Traditional media / music industry / publishing still isn't dead yet
- Satirical zombie movie to be made about traditional media / music industry / publishing
- Remark on Twitter / Facebook is mistaken for news
- Remark on Twitter / Facebook is mistaken for news
- Remark on Twitter / Facebook is mistaken for news
And in other news: The Weekly Links Post will return soon. Because I'm a hypocrite.
*Not that real newspapers aren't sometimes guilty, too. Especially in pretty much any story that begins: "A new scientific study..."
