TheWayoftheWeb

'Letter to Santa Clos' by The Jamoker on Flickr (CC Licence)

Normally the list of what I’d like for Christmas would be a 50-50 split between technology and entertainment, but the responsibility of being a new homeowner and a new parent in the current financial climate means the end of the gadget list.

Instead, I want to list some of the things I’d like to see happen - some of which I could actually play a part in catalyzing. (Although, if you do want to gift me a gadget, I’ll accept: smartphones,laptops,netbooks, a flip mino, digital slrs, or digital video cameras!).

• Health and financial security for my family - One most parents would subscribe to, and why I’m quitting smoking right now.
• Increased speed and data limits for UK broadband without raised costs - Everyone loves the BBC iPlayer until they realise going over their limit cost them £200 last month. And everyone would love to download a good film quickly. But unless you’re with a decent ISP (I’m with Zen Broadband - 20GB limit per month), you end up with enough to watch one video. Slowly. If the Government wants technology and innovation to help get us out of a recession, superfast broadband is an essential resource.
• More innovation in the media and entertainment industry - It’s starting to happen, but only in isolation. If not, the music industry might as well bow to Steve Jobs now, whilst text, image and movies will be the toys of Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
• Successfully quitting smoking: After about 14 years, I think it’s long enough - at least until the child has left home and I’m too old to worry about impotence or my breath smelling. (Can’t wait to see the ad google places next to this post!)
• More success for my friends and people I respect: My social networks really have made true the idea that the success of my friends benefits me in some way - better quality back links if nothing else!
• Twitter monetisation: We’ve talked about it for long enough, and all I want to know is how the plans will affect my usage of Twitter.
• Developers who have spare time/desire to do new things: Like most people in digital, I have various ideas for services and applications which may be successful. Also like most people in digital, I’m not in a position to pay for development work, and although I know that a developer working for a revenue share shoulders most of the work and risk if it fails, I’d love Santa to find me one or two who fancy risking some time and effort.

There’s probably more, but that will do for now! I’m quite intrigued to see what some other people would wish for, so I’m asking Dave Cushman, Chris Brogan, Jonathan MacDonald,  and Neil Perkin.

Now here’s a nice boost on a Tuesday morning. I’d just spotted a post on Wikio’s top 20 influential UK tech blogs by Neville Hobson and thought I’d check out the full list.

The December rankings will be released tomorrow, December 3rd, on the Wikio site. Neville has a sneak preview of the Top 20, but I thought I’d take a quick look at the current rankings, as they actually list the top 100 on the site.

Scanning through the list for November, I spotted NevilleHobson.com at 33, and kept looking to see if there were any names I didn’t recognise and wanted to check out.

And then I spotted The Way of the Web at 70 (apparently down 3 places from October, but still!). I’m still getting used to the idea that I could legimately claim to be the 70th most influential technology blog in the UK, at least by one source!

There are details on how the rankings are calculated if you’re still finding it hard to believe!

With some time to kill before a meeting, I took the chance to browse round the Oxford Street branch of HMV, looking for inspiration for what to buy with a gift voucher I’ve had kicking around, and also to get ideas for Christmas presents.

Aside from reminding me how difficult it can be to find unusual items in even the largest stores (in fact it’s usually easier in the small secondhand record shops I spent much of my music budget in), I also felt something a bit different about the experience. I’m not sure whether it’s the credit crunch, the success of online retailers or the rise of the MP3 but the shop felt slightly emptier than I’d have expected - and the average age seemed slightly older than usual.

The only major exception was the ever-expanding videogames section. Could this be the fact full console games are still viable as a physical product? (Not many options to download a full game, and the filesize would be bigger than the monthly data allowance for a lot of people!) Certainly I got the anecdotal impression that without the videogame section, the average age of the shoppers would be 10 years higher than I’ve ever seen - or maybe I’m just noticing more…

Coincidentally, via PaidContent and Media Guardian comes the news that 32.1 million MP3 players were sold in the UK last year. Jemima Kiss points out, quite rightly, that the title is a bit misleading - 75% of the sales included were MP3 capable mobile phones - but the important point is that 90% of mobiles sold last year were MP3 capable. Whether or not they’re actually being used for MP3 consumption is almost secondary - the point is that a huge mass of people now have the opportunity to be converted at any moment.

I’m not sure that CD player sales dropping to 8 million last year is necessarily related - after all, CD players have been around long enough to have reached saturation point - but if the money drops out of manufacturing CD players, and sales are growing in those little devices that make phonecalls, take pictures and video, surf the web and play MP3s, it’s another challenge to providers and retailers of physical content.

Why would I pust through a packed Oxford Street to experience agoraphobia in a massive store populated by those 10+ years older than me, and then fail to find my ideal purchase without ordering it - particularly when its so closely linked to lifestyle?

Funnily enough, I have seen a packed record shop recently - in Malmo in Sweden. And I wish I’d grabbed a picture, because it wasn’t just records - it was the 50’s style in store cafe.

I realise this has been a bit of a meandering post, but perhaps the takeaway conclusion is this:

Mobile phones are a triumph of convergence to provide value. Convergence is also increasingly happening with living room technology and online applications. Perhaps in a time-starved culture, more retailers need to look at how they could use convergence to build engagement and loyalty in the real world, as much as online? After all, it’s a reason why supermarkets and department stores have continued to have cafes instore. So why can’t record stores look at food and drink, live events, introducing art, photography, specific genre nights, or other ways to hook into the tribes who don’t have a reason to support them anymore?

In an example of timely thinking, Accenture has released a report which tallies with my recent revisit to how the IT departments of most companies need to radically change to meet the needs of a very different and constantly changing environment. My original post ‘IT could lead the revolution‘ and ‘Still waiting for the IT revolution‘ both talked about how users, particularly in a creative environment, need to find ways to implement new technology quickly and efficiently - often in the face of restrictive IT policies.

And then ReadWriteWeb covered the Accenture report  with ‘Millennials Will Route Around IT Departments‘.

Some key points:

• More than a third of Millennials also indicated that they were dissatisfied with the technologies their employers currently provide.
• Over a quarter of the employees surveyed by Accenture to use technology that is unsupported and unsanctioned by their corporate IT departments.
• Almost half of all Millennials who use social networks, blogs, vlogs, or Twitter do so without support from their IT departments (and often against the IT policies of their companies).
• A quarter of those who use online collaboration tools and open-source software also do so without support.
• 60% of the employees surveyed by Accenture argue that they are unaware of their companies’ IT policies or that they are simply not interested in following them.
• Over half of the respondents in this study (52%) said that a company’s use of technology was a major factor when they select an employer.

Add in the fact the survey also reinforces the shift away from email as the primary form of electronic communication, and it’s clear that the revolution is happening. It’s just that in most cases, companies aren’t listening, and are investing in the wrong areas.