Is Privacy Sustainable?

Vint Cerf, acknowledged as one of (perhaps the) father of the Internet, spoke about privacy last week and made some very good points. He was speaking in the context of the Internet of Things, a developing phenomenon under which the coverage of the internet is growing to include the tracking and management of many objects, such as inventories and refrigerator contents.

He pointed out that as internet usage expands, privacy is going to take a beating. More importantly, he pointed out that privacy is a product of urbanization and the industrial revolution; that in small towns, privacy does not exist. A good point. It exists to some extent, but anyone who lives in a small town can tell you that it is much more limited than it is in big cities. Your neighbours know much more about you and what you are doing.

The internet is changing the nature of big city life by making it, in a sociological sense, more like a small town. That's because people willingly put so much of their life out there on social media. That will expand as the internet of things grows.

That means a maintenance of privacy will require a change in behaviour, not stronger laws. Another point that Mr. Cerf made. Here's a write-up on his talk.

It's quite possible that no amount of behaviour change will preserve the post industrial level of privacy. Welcome to the technological small town, or as Marshall McLuhan would have put it - The Global Village.

Why Bitcoin is Going to Fail

There have been numerous attempts to establish a currency that will work on the internet - eCash, eCheque, cashU - You name it. Most of them have failed, usually because they did not have the active support of the governments and/or of the banking system. Some might say Paypal is an exception, but it is not a currency, but rather a bridge to the conventional cash and credit card system.

Bitcoin is really an old idea that has been tried many times before and has most of the characteristics of those that have failed. Check out this article that goes into more detail.

Businesses Continue to Find New Uses for Tablets

Tablets are selling well for consumer purposes, but they are used by business in new and innovative ways. Most common is usage by field staff, who need to move between customers frequently or constantly. They offer the kind of convenience and functionality that business needs. In the example from this linked article, Reliance Home Comfort distributed tablets to their field staff with functions that enabled them to access the programs on the main system that they need to service customers. Previously it was a case of entering data in several different software packages from paper based source documents, which took a lot of clicks and time to complete. With the tablets, interfaces were designed that enabled touch entry to all of them from the same app, which not only reduced the number of clicks, but made it all faster to process. In effect they achieved a simple form of systems integration, that in conventional terms would have cost huge dollars to achieve. Check the article here.

The Coming Era of Mobile Payments

Numerous companies are offering or planning to offer apps that allow payments to be made with smartphones. It may signal the end of plastic. Check out this excellent article on the subject.

Tablets vs Laptops - Who will Win?

Check out these ruminations on the topic.

Social Business Gradually Growing

The use of social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogs for business purposes, generally labelled Social Business is achieving growing attention in the business community, but most businesses report that they are really at a very preliminary stage in developing it. This according to a study released by Deloitte and MIT Sloan Management Review. Barriers have been lack of a proven business model, lack of a strategy and other priorities.

Nevertheless, this is destined to change quickly. Social media is a very powerful tool, not only for communicating with stakeholders, but also for interacting with customers and others. In addition, and this is a big factor, social media is a critical source of big data, a phenomenon that is in process of revolutionizing the business landscape. Use of bog data for customer relationship management and strategic analytics is rapidly becoming a competitive necessity.

See the Deloitte/MIT study here.

Speaking in Tweets

How twitter is affecting our language. See this article.

Big Data governance Gains in Urgency

Big data is being collected in growing volumes, and becoming more important to a variety of corporate strategic initiatives. But yet, companies are encountering difficulties in making use of the data because it is coming in on different platforms and in different forms. The old classic problem written large.

New forms of data standardization are needed to make them available and consumable across divergent platforms. We've seen progress in the financial world with XBRL, and in various other arenas with XML, but more needs to be done. Here's a take on the issue.

Electronic Publishing - Here and Now

Electronic publishing is now the dominant form of publishing in many fields. It is soon to eclipse the print form in all fields. Check it out in my article here.

New Concerns About Data Privacy

The past couple of years have seen a tremendous emphasis on big data, with all its potential for business applications and for change. But has some of this come at the expense of privacy concerns? While privacy has been a concern for over a decade, since the internet really got started, there has not been as much space devoted to the implications of big data on privacy. Are people getting complacent about privacy, perhaps thinking that the laws now in place have resolved the issue for ever?

In a recent survey of data scientists, 88% of them said that people should indeed be concerned about the data being collected about them and the uses to which it is put. Moreover, they suggest that laws are not enough - that their nascent profession needs a code of ethics. We should hope that happens soon. For more on this, check this article.

The Time is Right for Standardized Data

See this article on Money.ca.

Facebook Launches a New Payment System

Facebook has announced a new payment system which involves shoppers registering their credit card with Facebook and then using their Facebook login to make purchases without having to enter the additional data required my most vendors. It's not likely to be a serious contender, however. Wait for Isis, coming later this year.  

The Internet of Things - Opportunity and Risk

Check out this article on the opportunities and risks involved with having more appliances and devices connected to the internet. http://money.ca/you_and_your_money/2013/08/14/the-internet-of-things-opportunity-and-risk/

Big Data in Perspective

With all the hype over big data lately, it's good to sit back and look at it in a balanced way, to try to see it in perspective. That's why this article is refreshing. It looks at some common myths about big data, and deals with them decisively. Have a read.

How Organic Search Terms Can Save in Online Advertising Costs

Many organizations purchase their online advertising at costs that are growing rapidly. This company, helped by Deloitte, did extensive data analysis on sales and their customers, demographics, etc and determined that the use of organic or natural search terms would yield results as good as the paid advertising at much less cost.  A valuable lesson for all. Check it out here.

Why Tablets are Outpacing Laptops

Here's a great article on why tablets are so successful. Some of it is obvious, but the world of tablets is changing fast. They are becoming more powerful and are successfully integrating business solutions which will mean a rapid increase in their dominance. Here's the article.

Online Grocery Shopping May be Taking Off

New uses of mobile technology by Peapod and others have triggered an increased interest in online grocery shopping. Certainly there are segments of the population, large ones, who are just waiting for such a service on a large scale. Here's more on this topic.

WiFi Cars are a Reality

Recently GM announced that some of its new cars will roll out with WiFi capability. That raises the possibility of numerous new applications for connecting to the onboard computer systems as well as outside. And yesterday Telus announced a new smartphone app that connects to the onboard computer, making it possible to lock and unlock the doors remotely, start the engine remotely and perform many other activities.

It raises many issues - driver distraction, loss of privacy (because of tracking features), hackers disrupting or disabling cars for fun or profit. And soon. But it's a new wave that is here to stay, and we had better get used to it.

Here's an interesting article on the subject.

Book Publishers are Embracing the Digital Age

While digital books are outpacing paper books in sales, it doesn't mean the age of paper books is over. In fact, the two worlds can work together, particularly in the marketing stage, and in fact that is what's happening. Here's a good article on how that is working.

Why Technology is Forcing Radical Change in Society

Check out this article I wrote for my blog on Money.ca.