"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
Definitely worth reading…and then reading again.
Following are emails between a high school student in Jeju, Korea and Steve Wozniak. I could only find the korean version of the student’s email, which I’ve translated into English.
Mr. Wozniak! I’m a high school student in Korea. I am in second year of Se-Hwa high school in Jeju. My…
Weekend reading.
Being cooped up makes me kind of silly. Miss the MTA so I made this.
Rain rain, go away
Come again another day
Friends and I would like to play
So we’ll need some dry subwaysRebu1ld.
I love Pocket. It has changed a lot of my daily routine. In the past, when I saw an article I wanted to read later on Twitter, I used to email the tweet to myself, this made my inbox a mess. When browsing the web, or going through the my Twitter feed on my computer, if there was an article I wanted to read later, I would either bookmark it, or keep an absurd amount of tabs open, and get to them when I could…with Google chrome this would often crash my browser, or bring my computer to a painfully slow crawl. Pocket changed everything instantly. I now add everything to Pocket, I can do this directly from my browser, or the Twitter app on my iPhone. I can also download the articles and read them offline on my phone, this has made subway rides incredibly more productive. Pocket has also focused my online reading routine. If I want to take a break from doing work, I can tell myself I will read four articles on Pocket, and be done. When I was emailing links to myself, I was in a constant battle to clear out the inbox, often distracting myself for long periods of time. Ok, so clearly I am a fan of Pocket, but I still think it could get a lot better. Here are three of my wishes for the product.
Pocket Paper: I consume a ton of online content- articles, videos, blog posts, quotes, pictures, etc. A lot of the content I discover through Twitter, then save to pocket, consume it, and then often want to share it with my close friends. I email my close friends multiple times throughout the day with interesting stuff I discover on the web, and many friends email me things that they find. There has to be a better way, and I think Pocket is in the unique position to improve on sharing content. What if each user could create a Pocket Paper, a page where they can select content from their own Pocket queue, that will then be available for any of their friends to visit, and see the content that you have reccomended. When selecting a specific article to put on your Pocket page, you could even tag certain people whom you think would have a particular interest in that piece of content, guaranteeing that they receive a notification to visit your page. I think Pocket Paper would not only give people a reason to save more stuff to Pocket, but also would help them attract new users, by having their already existing user base invite their friends to engage with content on Pocket. This would also open the door to allowing friends to converse about pieces of content on someone’s Pocket paper. Facebook is not really the space to have those conversations, and Twitter still struggles with conversations, especially among multiple people. I think Pocket Paper would be awesome!
Social Sharing: This one seems more obvious, and I’m sure the team will soon introduce this to the product, but some social sharing buttons on Pocket would be a huge help. Often after reading an article I might feel compelled to share it to Twitter or Facebook, let me do that with a click of a button, with the ability to add a comment if I want to. Once again, sharing through Pocket will increase awareness of the product, and hopefully bring new users to the service.
Popular Pockets: Create a dashboard where you can see what other users have “Pocketed.” This can be private, by not identifying specific users, but be based on the aggregate user base. Have trending articles, and you could even organize them by areas of interest: sports, technology, entertainment, etc. This would be a great discovery tool for people who want new ways to find content beyond their social graphs.
I love Pocket, and I look forward to seeing how the product will continue to evolve in the future.
We are creating more data than ever before. With high-speed internet we can visit more sites, in a shorter period of time. We are making an increasing number of our purchases online, for digital, and physical products. Many people are going to school online. In fact, with the widespread adoption of smartphones, many of us are always online. What we watch, where we go, who we are with, what we are doing, and what we care about is always being recorded. Many of our real life activities are now fusing with our digital worlds. This development has allowed us to create more data than at any point before in history. With data being created by essentially everything people do, at every moment of the day, it is only natural to surmise that the greatest opportunities of the future lie in our ability to make sense of these oceans of data that are being created every second.
There is more accessible data available today than in the past on people’s sleep habits, exercise habits, food intake, location, likes/dislikes, interests, relationships, purchase history, and countless other things. For science, and business purposes it is important that we are able to make sense of all this incoming information, to form new insights, that can work towards improving our own lives, and various interactions we have with one another in real life. If the access that websites often have to our interest graph, was made available to brick and mortar retailers, wouldn’t that drastically improve/change the shopping experience? If people could make sense of their own exercise, sleep, and eating habits, couldn’t that encourage healthier living, and maybe even make diagnoses of illnesses easier for doctors? The possibilities are truly endless, I think we are just in the first inning for a lot of this stuff, but is is incredibly exciting to think about a data-filled future, and how it could reshape, and improve our lives.
I have a Foursquare feature request. I think it is great when you are looking at a venue page, that on the side it shows you which of your friends have visited that location before. The next natural step for many people is to ask one, or all of those friends what they thought about that establishment. Wouldn’t it be better if you could do that directly through Foursquare? The Foursquare experience becomes better for everyone, if every venue has a lot of tips, that can provide information for potential visitors. What if users could ask their friends to leave a tip for venue they visited, to not only get an opinion for themselves, but to also add to the total number of tips. This would a win-win for everyone! Maybe a person could even get points for leaving a tip, after being requested to do so by a friend, do it enough times and you get a badge! Badges are awesome, you know you want one!
I was originally going to separate my thoughts for the future of TV into three posts, but I think I can combine the remaining points into a single post.
I currently have a MacBook Pro, and an iPhone. I had an iPad, but I gave it to my Mom, I couldn’t really find a use for it in my life. I read articles, and emails on the go using my iPhone. I blog, browse the web, and do heavier computing on my laptop, I still prefer physical books, so I have not been able to find a real compelling use for a tablet. When thinking about my next computer purchase I think it is going to be a combination of an iMac and a tablet, likely an iPad. Let me explain my thought process behind this switch. Up until now, I have preferred owning a laptop because of the flexibility it allows me to access everything I need at anytime, in any place. When traveling I can have all my documents, a machine with all my settings/preferences, and I don’t have to worry about forgetting anything, since I have my entire machine with me at all times. When I am home, I can sit anywhere in the house, often in my own bed, and browse the web, online shop, chat with friends, all from the same machine. The idea of having all my stuff on one machine is no longer a compelling argument when choosing a computer. With the arrival of Google Docs, Dropbox, Spotify, Snapjoy, and other cloud services I can access my stuff anywhere, and on any device. I am no longer chained to my laptop, or my future desktop. I simply have to login to a browser, all my bookmarks, and browsing history will be loaded, I can have any documents I need to access available on Dropbox or Google Docs, my entire photo library is accessible through Snapjoy, and I can stream an incredible amount of music for free through Spotify. By simply logging in, a new, shared, or borrowed machine quickly becomes my own. This got me thinking, why don’t we have a similar experience with television?
Imagine if you could access the experience you have with your TV at home, anywhere you went. By simply allowing viewers to create login id, we could re-imagine the way TV works everywhere. If I logged into my TV at home, a service could keep track of what I watch, what channels I don’t visit, what ads I’ve interacted with (see my previous post), what content I’ve purchased, etc. Now imagine I was traveling to SF, and checked into my hotel. I could go through the process of finding what channel HBO is, hope that I made it to the room in time to catch the latest episode of Game of Thrones…but wouldn’t it be magical if I could just login, and have access to all my content from home. Coming from NYC, I already DVR-ed Game of Thrones hours earlier, so why not allow me to stream it to the TV in my hotel. When watching a network with ads, why not show me local ads for places in SF based on my interest graph that has been built, and improved over the years through my viewing behavior, and history of interacting with content. This allows advertisers to more effectively target me. They know about me, and now they know I’m in a new city, and might be looking for different things to do, and place to visit. This technology exists, we need to work to implement it into the television experience. TV has been a huge part of our society for decades, but if it fails to innovate, and move forward into the future, it could very well be left in the past, then we don’t have to worry about developing a second screen experience, because we will have ditched our first screen.
I wish my TV could do more. The ever increasing connection between my computer, and mobile devices, has left my TV on the outside looking in, and I have noticed. From the perspective of a TV watcher (user), an advertiser, and a content creator all the parties involved should hope for, and push towards a more innovative future for our TV. I wish the television experience was more interactive, and that I could do more with the content that I am watching. For example, it would be excellent if while watching an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives that I could save locations to my Foursquare to-do list. The same idea in terms of seeing an advertisement for any location, if I am able to save the information to an app like Foursquare which I use daily, I am much more likely to visit that business. Imagine the same ability to bookmark items that you see advertisements for, by adding them to Pinterest, Fancy, Svpply, Amazon Wishlist, etc. Think about the ability to “Like” a show, or purchase the song playing in the background directly from iTunes on your TV. The amount transactional opportunities for merchants would increase dramatically if viewers were able to interact more with the content that they are already viewing. The amount of data, and the increased strength of the feedback loop for merchants/advertisers would be incredible. Imagine if I “Liked” The Wire while I watched an episode on HBO, and then an advertisement to download Breaking Bad, The Shield, or Sons of Anarchy popped up, a network could even offer me a free taste of an episode from each series…that would be a tactic very in line with some of the characters from The Wire. By allowing a viewer to indicate that she is a fan of specific show, you have captured some data on her interests, and created the opportunity to complete a new purchase transaction. The future lies in companies’ ability to garner data, and then make sense of it. Americans spend hours every week in front of the television, and we are currently squandering a tremendous opportunity to capture valuable data, and capitalize on countless sales opportunities. I could offer countless examples of how to improve the experience, just think about everything you turn to your computer, or mobile device for while you watch TV. Going to IMDB to look up an actress, Shazaming a song to purchase on iTunes, adding a restaurant to Foursquare, going to Amazon to check the price/purchase an item you just saw on a show, or advertisement, the possibilities are seemingly endless.
My next post will explore how to personalize the TV experience for viewers.
In my next three posts I want to explore how I would like to see TV innovate in the near term.
Watch the video here.
Great interview featuring Jack Dorsey. I cannot help but think of Steve Jobs when I hear Jack speak. He has a very clear perspective on how he views the future, and is ultimately working to shape that future. Dorsey has already helped to fundamentally change the way the world communicates, and is now quickly changing the way we interact with money. At 35 years young, I anxiously await to see what other areas Dorsey will disrupt in his lifetime.
