Mashable's Four Trend Mish-mash

I tried posting a comment on Mashable's post about 4 "Major Trends in Technology" but its one of those sites where you have to log in to comment, so I took my comment and posted it here instead

Anyway, the article posits 4 trends. But, while these look like "no brainer" trends, I'm afraid that they are falling into the classic trap of just assuming that what has happened in the immediate past will thus predict the future. I can think of a number of forces pushing against them - in brief, per trend these are:

1. Web accessible everywhere - requires infrastructure buildout, that's not cheap, and ROI is a diminishing returns game. Ignores developing world economic issues.

2. Web access not in the computer - in reality, you need computer power to make the Web more than barely usable (see Mobile phones, failure of till iPhone), and you keep on needing more - it's more accurate to say the computer will not always be in the computer anymore?

3. Web being Mediacentric - well, in the sense that it is all media, sure. But if you mean video as opposed to text I think that is less likely - for so many applications, text can be parsed far faster. And Time is the non renewable resource. In many ways time spent consuming video media is what we do with our "junk" - ie low value time. Follow the money.

4. Social Media will be its largest component - bah humbug - the "killer app" of the internet - apart from Porn - is that people just want to talk to each other. The current bottle this old wine is in is called "Social Media", in a few years time it will have morphed as the technology shifts. And of course email is dead, not

And then there are the "known" and "unknown" unknowns, where:

- "known" equal predictable surprise shifts that you can see coming, eg what happens when today's smartphone power is a $5 commodity and the size of a peppermint (Moore's law redux); and

-"unknown are, well, unknown, But try this one - in the last c 150 years, a totally revolutionary comms medium has been invented about every 30 years (Telegraph, Radio, Cinema, TV, Internet). The 'Net is 40 years old, the Web is 20.

What's Next?

The error here is a common one in pop-punditry - look at the last 10 years or so and assume the next 10 will be the same, just more so - the trick is to look at the last 100 years or so and see the patterns and waveforms. As Santayana said, those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it.