Where we are now and where we are heading.
Many readers would relate when I say that only a few years ago, we had to get up off from the sofa if we wanted to change the channel on the television and even then, we had only three channels to chose from. We had to watch what was aired and make sure we abided by the Radio Times as if we missed something we wanted to see, it may not be repeated for years unless we was one of the very few households to have a video recorder.
As a child during these times, your main access to worldwide information was that you had the Britannica encyclopedia set which you spent many a time flicking through aimlessly looking for something interesting to read or look at photos which would grab your attention. The local library would be your place to find information for your homework or a place to quietly sit and study when exams were approaching.
The telephone at home would be no doubt standard pulse dialling with a dial you had to spin round with your finger and the only variation would be in colours, you most certainly didn’t have musical ring tones to chose from and you may have had one of those households where ‘have you got 50p for the meter’ was always a question being asked. The daily newspaper would be how you’d first hear about the majority of news from around the country and if you were after finding a local business you’d no doubt possess a Yellow Pages or Thomson Local somewhere in the house which would be the bible for finding who you were after, though of course if it was a builder or brickie you were in need of, the local paper and A A A A A Builders was likely to be the name you’d choose in the business directory section
If you would have told anyone back then that in around 25 years time you’d be able to carry a mini mobile device (and nowadays on a watch round your wrist) on you that not only would contain all the information contained in your library, every fact on every page within every book, but would also be a mini television with access to thousands of channels from around the world to include live broadcasting from anyone at practically any place. That you’d be able to take high quality photographs and edit them, record videos and share them in a way that anyone can view them internationally within seconds. That you could order your indian takeaway and pay with this device, latest news would be delivered to you as it happens, that you could ask your favourite celebrities and sport stars questions and have a chance that they’d reply to you (without the need of seeing them or having their telephone numbers) and that the device would also act as a telephone… Back then, if you had a calculator on your watch you were doing well and if you were one of the very few that had Mario Bros or Donkey Kong on your wrist watch you were at another level altogether in mind blowing technology status.
If this is how 25 years has evolved in the way we receive and record news and information in varied media formats, what can we expect in the next 25 years? We can not doubt what ever crazy ideas and thoughts people have, even if they say we’ll be living on the moon and beyond.
Looking at business especially, I certainly see more and more business being done via mobile devices, those who control large audiences on social media will sit at the top of their industry and be able to forward work on to their network of contacts and gain high value sponsorship opportunities – early 1990’s may have seen the launch of the internet which happened without too much notice and maybe those who were first on board now have their very own islands in the sun to show for it, this I believe is and will continue to be repeated with social media. I speak to and see many people, especially from Twitter, who have 500,000+ following and their day to day work activities revolves around social media. Most of these people have a sponsorship in place for several thousand monthly and a simple Tweet out at the right time sees an enormous spike in their online sales and web traffic (some have no website and rely on Twitter solely and maybe an Amazon selling page). Social media will out do search engine stats as it surely will, being number one on Google will be insignificant compared to 10 million following you on Twitter or subscribed to your Youtube Channel (owned wisely by Google) as you’ll have the audience ‘already found’ in front of you rather than waiting for them to find you on Google. The way we do business may still very much stay the same with many styles of marketing still being present from magazines to television advertising, but we will all be mobile and think nothing of purchasing high valued goods this way over traditional styles dismissing the need for many ‘middle man’ businesses.
I watched the new television series ‘HUMANS’ (sorry, can not do an upside down A) and I see this very much as a standard way of life in a few short years to come. Robots/androids being able to do everyday chores and produce better results on a consistency level to human beings – we surely have similar in place already with the likes of robots building cars on factory floors having replaced the need for 1,000’s of jobs. My imagination is fairly far fetched so I will not go in to cars traveling as per ‘Back to the Future or seeing the likes of drones / vehicles roaming our closest planets where live video will be available to include satellites with a mission to visit other planet rich solar systems also feeding us live video footage competing against Britain’s got Talent for viewing figures…
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