I’d like to continue on the theme of mass connectivity from my previous post, Connectivity equals productivity, a powerful reminder. I also want to pick up on some points Tim Flannery raised about our increasingly global civilisation in his recent keynote address, Innovation in a Changing Climate.

Firstly, let me summarise and paraphrase some of Flannery’s thinking. Flannery maintains that around ten thousand years ago, the first human beings came to settle in a village. At that time, humans lived as clans or families in eternal conflict with each other. Over time we have built larger and larger political and social units. Every step of the way we have been giving away a little more of our earlier autonomy; until today, where we have given birth to a civilisation at the heart of which lies many enormous cities.

Flannery asserts that this process has produced a species in which our interdependence is so great that hardly any of us can now live outside “the great hive”. Flannery points out that if we were cast out of our civilisation today, the great majority of us would perish within weeks. We would be like domestic rabbits in the wild.

Internet map image from The Opte Project

In that sense, we have forged a “power in common”, at the expense of us as individuals. He asserts that this sense of us as a group, as a global civilisation, has become the most precious thing in the world to us. In this way, we have changed ourselves. The only possible future we have is in common, at some level.

And what about that collective future? Flannery asserts that we have run most of the marathon already and the finishing line is now just a few steps ahead of us. The finishing line will consist of the creation of a global human civilisation. We are on the brink of that now. He asks, “do we have it within us to take the few extra steps?”. On a side note, for all you conspiracy theorists out there, no, that doesn’t mean a one world government, but rather some sort of collective global consciousness.

Of course, he is talking about this global civilisation in relation to collectively acting on climate change, which he says is a major roadblock in our way. He maintains that unless we address the issue of climate change this decade, it’s likely we will lose the opportunity to forge that global civilisation. He says that incompetent political systems may well have such an impact on us that we will be unable to proceed, and there will be increasing conflict over diminishing resources.

Connectivity and an emerging global civilisation.

Flannery didn’t mention connectivity, or the internet in this particular talk, but while listening to his words I couldn’t help thinking about this concept of the great human hive in relation to the mass connectivity that has been growing around the world. As well as the big trend towards urbanisation, we also have this trend towards worldwide connectivity. Recently that trend has been increasingly towards wireless connectivity.

Sure, we most certainly have a large digital divide, a gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology, and those with very limited or no access at all. However, the fact remains that we are more able to communicate with each other on a global scale than ever before.

So, the question is: are we on the brink of achieving a truly global civilisation, a sort of global consciousness aided by mass connectivity?

It seemed only fitting that I turned to “the crowd” for an answer. I posed some questions on Twitter and Facebook. Mostly, the answer was a resounding No. Only a couple of people said yes. Interestingly, they were both young people.

“The voices on the net say no.”

“Absolutely not, that’s impossible”

“It is further away than ever”

“Don’t mistake global communications with consciousness”

“The ‘civil’ part of the q. that has a problem. I don’t see a lot of civility going on. Connectivity cuts both ways”

“Religion, greed, and egotism. Those are things what will never go away or be put into a level of control that would allow global civilisation”

“No! Any travel to a two-thirds-of-world country exposes how many billions not on grid and completely ignored by global ‘thought’.”

“no – the same people who are excluded/voiceless locally are now excluded globally. It is a conversation between the rich.”

“Global Civilisation- possibly. Global Conscience – definitly not, people/countries are unique indentities and think differently”

“Sadly, absolutely not. The more info the more divisive are positions. look at the US. but still have hope for next generations”

“Global civilization yes, because for the first time ever we are growing a Gen Y that is connected across the  World.”

“I say YES YES YES! (but maybe cause I’m 24?)”

I think there are some good points there, especially the one about mistaking mass connectivity with consciousness, and taking into account the lack of connectivity in most of the world.

I don’t like to be pessimistic, so I’m going to end with my belief that, global civilisation and global consciousness or not, we can solve some of the humanity’s major problems, including climate change.

By the way, I say it’s humanity’s problem because the Earth will recover eventually from the excessive greenhouse gases we are pumping into the atmosphere, even if humans aren’t around when it does. We would take (and are already taking) a lot of other species with us too, and perhaps new ones would emerge later.

What are your thoughts on this global civilisation question? I’m interested to find out.

Technorati Tags: climate change, connectivity, digital divide, environment, globalisation, Tim Flannery, urbanizatiion

I think this TED Talk by Iqbal Quadir is a poignant and powerful reminder that connectivity equals productivity. For those of us who use the web and smart mobile devices daily, it’s easy to forget just how much these enable greater productivity, even if some of our time is spent on more trivial or entertaining activities.

In this inspiring, embedded video, social entrepreneur Iqbal Quadir tells how his experiences as a kid in Bangladesh, and later as an investment banker in New York, led him to start a mobile phone operator connecting 80 million rural Bangladeshi.

In the process, he became a champion of bottom-up development, rather than giving increasing amounts of aid money to top down development, which seems not to be working very well, if at all. In fact, he maintains that it only empowers authorities to maginalise citizens. Even in countries that have grown rich from oil reserves, autocratic regimes have grown hugely wealthy, while poverty among citizens remains entrenched.

Enter Iqbal Quadir. Not long ago in Bangladesh, only one in 500 people had access to a telephone. Quadir points out that “Vasts amounts of wasted time results. The only way people can depend on each other is to connect to each other, which leads to productivity.”

Watch the video to find out how he overcame the significant hurdles involved in what turned out to be a massive connectivity project and business. How could poor people afford to use mobile phones? Who would invest in such a project in such a poor country? This video is a must see.

via Entrepreneur

Technorati Tags: business, connectivity, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, mobile, TED, video

Google has actually had real-time search for a while now, and has been improving it periodically. You may have read my previous post from May comparing 10 different real-time search engines, which included Google’s offering.

To recap, as they say in the embedded “How to” video, Google Realtime allows you to search real-time content from across the web. Sources include news stories, blog posts and social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz and Friendfeed. The real-time stream constantly and automatically refreshes, feeding in live content as it’s posted to the web.

Google Realtime features now include:

• The ability to look back in time to view updates from the past.
• The ability to refine your search by location – by town, state or country.
• The ability to browse a conversation (on Twitter for instance), to see how it developed over time.
• The ability to set up Google Alerts for real-time updates.

Personally, I really like the addition of being able to refine search by location. As in my previous real-time search engine comparison post, I searched under a favourite topic of mine, cleantech, and then refined the search just to Australia.  It came up with some interesting and useful results for me. I’ve previously said, as it’s not a new feature, that I also like the ability to be able to search historically. This remains true.

What are your thoughts on Google Realtime Search? Have you found yourself using it yet? Is it useful enough for you, or do you use another real-time search engine? Do you use real-time search at all?

Check the embedded video for the full set of new features in more detail and how to use them.

Thanks @warlach via @andrewsayer for the heads up this morning.

Technorati Tags: Google, real-time, search, video

In Silicon Valley just a few hours ago, Facebook held a event to announce the launch of the much anticipated Facebook Places. The embedded video is a full launch video replay from the live event, if you’d like to see what was said by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook Places team and various partner companies.

For international users, it should be noted from the outset that Facebook Places will only be available in the US at first. Users outside the US will be able to see US Places posts on the web.

Amongst others, partner companies include Gowalla, Yelp and Foursquare. A representative from Gowalla detailed how Gowalla posts will be integrated into Places via the Places API. You can choose to attach an image to a post, as you can in Gowalla now. You’ll also be able to see Gowalla stamps in posts.

The Foursquare representative was less specific about how Foursquare will be integrated, to say the least. In fact you’d have to say he looked a little less than enthusiastic about the whole thing. But hey, how can you refuse to participate in having access to a location-based service that has access to a user–base of more than 500 million users, right?

It was explained at the launch that it is hoped that Facebook users will begin to discover serendipitous moments by checking in to places and finding that other friends are at the same location or nearby.

At first, Facebook Places will only be available on the Facebook application for iPhone and can also be accessed by “advanced mobile browers” (meaning those supporting HTML 5 and geolocation) at touch.facebook.com. Mark Zuckerberg said at the launch that there are not Android or Blackberry apps available yet. There are plans for these but no timeline.

In fact, Zuckerberg stated that there are quite a lot of things they aren’t doing with Places yet, including integrating Places with Facebook Events, which seems like a very obvious thing for them to do, especially as they have recently acquired Hot Potato. Zuckerberg said that they want to get things right before launching additional apps and features.

Facebook Places seems to be quite focused on including images and being able to tag friends who are with you when you check–in. You can also post a text update along with your check-in, as you can with most other location–based services.

There’s not a lot that’s new here, but it’s not really about that, is it? What’s significant is that it’s Facebook launching this location-based service. It’s going to be interesting to see just how many of the hundreds of millions of users start using this regularly. Not everyone has an iPhone or a mobile device capable of using the service, so there will be limited numbers to begin with, but still, Five. Hundred. Million. Users, and still growing.

For a full run–down of the features, check out Facebook’s blog post on the subject.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Facebook Places, Foursquare, Gowalla, location, location-based, Mark Zuckerberg

The long anticipated geolocation feature from Facebook will be launching very soon. Apparently, “multiple sources” have told CNET this is the case. We have heard this before, from as far back as May, but surely it must be on its way now.

Word from said sources is that it will take the form of an Application Programming Interface (API) for other location-based services to be able to plug-into.

Mathew Ingram at Gigaom has pointed out that it’s likely to be more than just a check-in API, as Facebook has said previously that it thinks of places as more than just a way to add location information to a status update, or to ‘like’ a café or bar you visit.

Indeed, I too wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook Places launches with the ability to associate photos, videos and comment-style reviews. I’ve said before that the ability to upload images and associate them with venues in Foursquare would be a welcome additional feature. I’m sure they’ll add it sooner or later. Yes, I know Gowalla fans, Gowalla already has this feature, but Foursquare has the momentum.

Facebook has partnered with Localeze to provide a business directory infrastructure  for the new location feature. This is the same company that powers Twitter’s Places directory. In addition, Facebook recently acquired Hot Potato, which is a service that focuses on user check-ins to events rather than locations. It remains to be seen how Facebook Places will be integrated with Facebook Events, but I’d have to say there must be a big opportunity there for that to happen. It could work out quite well.

Will Facebook Places be a Foursquare killer? What are your thoughts on that? Personally, I doubt it but it’s bound to attract a lot of users. Even if the percentage of Facebook users who take it up is reasonably low, with 500+ million users, it’s still bound to be a huge number!

Technorati Tags: CNET, Facebook, Facebook Places, Foursquare, Foursquare killer, Gigaom, Gowalla, Hot Potato, Localeze, Twitter

Do you operate more than one Google account? Have you ever needed to use both at once and had to inconveniently sign in and out to switch back and forth between the two? Most annoying, isn’t it?

Previously the options have been to constantly sign in and out of different accounts like that, or use a second browser (which I found didn’t seem to work well between Firefox and Safari), or use Chrome Incognito.

Google has announced on The Official Gmail Blog that we can now enable a feature that allows us access to more than one Google account at at time, well mostly. After enabling the feature, you can sign into two other accounts from the sign in menu. However, Google is calling this an advanced feature for a number of reasons:

• Not all Google services support multiple account sign-in yet. These are the Google products that do: Google Code, Google Calendar, Gmail. Google Reader, Google Sites, Google Voice. Apparently, Google Docs will be added soon.
• The mobile versions of these products do not support multiple accounts in the same web browser. They will default to the first account you sign in to.
• Google products not included above will also default to the first account that you signed in with, using your current web browser session.
• Offline Mail and Offline Calendar will be disabled. You may lose any unsent mail.

These issues aside, I think it’s still a welcome addition and long overdue, especially if you have separate personal and work accounts. To enable the new feature, visit google.com/accounts and click the “Edit” link next to “Multiple sign–in”.

Technorati Tags: email, gmail, Google

A comprehensive new report released today by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the Australian entertainment and media industry will grow by 28 percent over the next five years, at a predicted compound annual growth rate of 5.1 percent. This means that the industry is forecast to increase its revenue to $36.2 billion by 2014.

Newspapers and the changing media landscape

Unsurprisingly, magazines, newspapers and radio aren’t expected to lead the way in terms of growth. In fact, in 2009 the Australian newspaper market shrank by 11.4 percent. However, the PwC report expects that a compound annual growth rate of 1.8 percent will be sustained through to 2014. This includes revenues from newspaper websites of course.

However you look at it, the future for traditional newspapers doesn’t look particularly great. Clearly, major changes are taking place in the media landscape and media organisations running newspapers are (somewhat desperately) attempting to figure out how to continue to remain viable into the future. Everywhere you look people are taking about what’s going to happen. Just yesterday I was reading an interesting blog post by Malcolm Turnbull on the subject:  Twitter, Newspapers, New Media – Some Observations.

Increasing national broadband speeds and access?

David Wiadrowski, head of technology, information, communications and entertainment at PwC, states that, “With machines in homes becoming smarter, people sharing information through social networks and data being stored in clouds the appetite for content and speed strengthens. High-speed broadband connectivity is an opportunity to satisfy consumers’ growing appetites”.

I have no argument with this, however, given that the federal Opposition’s policy going into the imminent federal election is to call a halt to the building of the new National Broadband Network if elected, it remains to be seen whether broadband speeds in Australian will actually get the boost that is required. We’ll have to wait and see on that one. Personally, I’d like to see the new network built as soon as possible.

In any case, the report expects the local internet industry to grow from $7 billion in 2009 to $10.6 billion in 2014. Wireless broadband is the fastest growing kind of internet access.

Online social networking is also making a large contribution to growth in Australia. As I pointed out recently, Australians spend the most time social networking in the world. When I mentioned this on Twitter, a couple of people (only half jokingly) pointed out that “it’s because our TV is so crap”.

High growth in interactive gaming

The report observes that interactive gaming was the strongest performer of the industry sectors during 2009, and bucked the global financial crisis to grow by 7.7 percent. The prediction here is that gaming will continue to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 9.4 percent, to reach $2.5 billion in 2014. Growth from both online and mobile games is expected to account for the highest growth. Annual compound growth rates for online games and mobile games are expected to rise by 20.4 percent and 15.7 percent respectively.

Digital downloading expected to go ballistic

While filmed entertainment in general bucked the local economic slowdown to grow by 7.1 percent during 2009, in-home digital downloading is forecast to grow by a huge 117.8 percent per year to reach $126 million in 2014. Obviously, this only counts paid-for downloads. $126 million is surely only the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential future revenue from digital downloads.

Demand for DVDs is still expected to be strong for a few years until we see significant improvements in internet speeds and data download limits. Again, we’ll have to wait and see what happens with the roll out of the National Broadband Network. There will be a lot of people in the industry hoping this goes ahead as soon as possible, and that when it does, prices are not steep.

Are these predictions in line with your expectations of the next few years on the Australian media and entertainment scene? Let me know your thoughts.

Technorati Tags: Australia, broadband, business, digital downloading, digital media, election, Malcolm Turnbull, mobile, mobile games, National Broadband Network, NBN, newspapers, online games, PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, technology

From a mainstream communications point of view, I think there’s a growing issue with labeling things “Green”, or having a separate category for Green, as is nearly always the case. It’s true, a few individuals, organisations and businesses have started to move beyond using the Green label but most have not yet.

Mainstream backdrop

A little background is in order first. Over the past few decades, since the sixties and even before that, there has been growing concern around the world over rising pollution levels and increasing environmental degradation in general. In addition, world population is now approaching seven billion people, estimated to reach nine billion around 2050.

Further, since the eighties, mounting scientific evidence of human induced climate change (despite ongoing attempts to discredit the science), has become occasional front page news, and pretty much never out of the news completely. That’s most unlikely to change over the coming years.

We had the situation late last year where governments who agree that climate change exists and is a significant problem, met in Copenhagen to attempt to hash out a binding global agreement to curb global emissions. There was unprecedented media attention on the COP15 event and an enormous amount of pressure from different individuals and groups to achieve a sensible outcome. Needless to say, there was an accord reached but expectations were not met at Copenhagen.

However, it’s not over by a long shot. Global warming is still on the agenda and it’s not going away. As I said on Twitter the other day, I’m 100% convinced that climate change will continue to cause catastrophic damage to the careers of quite a few of the world’s politicians. In Australia (where I live), Kevin Rudd’s position as Prime Minister comes to mind. Among other issues, after publicly staking so much on it, he never really recovered from the failure at Copenhagen and his party’s failure to get a proposed emissions trading scheme signed into law. He was ousted from within the party after a significant drop in the polls. The new leader, Julia Gillard, will face the issue again should she be reelected.

The problem with Green

So given the contemporary situation, what’s my issue with the current proliferation of the “Green” label or category? What’s not to like? What we have appearing all over the place recently are things like Green sections on popular news blogs, sites and in newspapers. We have Green products proliferating, and companies advertising the new Greenness of their products and services, in some cases whether they are actually more environmentally friendly or not.

“Greenwashing” is a term I have less of a problem with by the way, as it seems like a fairly descriptive and accurate term for what has gone on in some cases. BP’s Beyond Petroleum makeover springs to mind as an obvious example, but there are many subtler versions out there. But I digress.

Now, after Copenhagen, we have governments such as the Obama Administration talking up a much needed push towards a new, emerging green economy, and the many green collar jobs that will create. We have technology related blogs and sites introducing Greentech sections. We have Green online social networkers wanting to build sizeable communities and become ‘friends’ with as many people as possible in order to help spread the word and get action on various environmental issues.

Don’t get me wrong, this is all well and good. Green has been useful and has worked well to attract and communicate with a certain percentage of people. I don’t think the fact that there’s a growing awareness and a proliferation of information, ideas and action is bad at all. It’s brilliant! The main reason I now have a issue with the label “Green”, is that we have got to the point where it’s going to marginalise what needs to become very mainstream, ubiquitous in fact.

So what next?

There are many people, perhaps the majority, who do not want to identify as Green and probably never will. Green is a turn off to many. Even though the label Green has become a lot more mainstream, to many it still conjures up images of hippies, “greenies”, “treehuggers” and environmental activists climbing chimneys.

But hey, guess what? A lot of these people would still like to help fix the environment even though they don’t identify with the Green label. Many might switch to clean power given half a chance, rather than use coal-fired power, if it comes at the right price that is. Many might buy an electric car one day that runs on clean energy. They might buy it because the technology is more advanced and it’s more efficient. They might buy more environmentally friendly products, but because they are better quality products, not just because they are greener.  They might buy locally grown food, it might be organic, but they might buy it because it tastes better and is healthier, and because Jamie Oliver says it’s better. But green? No not me.

We will have big businesses who come to realise that investing in clean technologies, efficiencies and more sustainable production processes will in the long run make them even more profitable. It will also give them a leading edge when it comes to how their brand is viewed by the public, their customers, suppliers, shareholders and by the media. They won’t have to shout “we’re Green” and try and make it stick. It’ll become obvious they are making real changes when perhaps others aren’t doing so much.

The issues need to be so mainstream that they need to be integrated within many other information categories: news, technology, politics, business and finance, transport, energy, food, lifestyle, you name it. The majority of people in the world are going to need to change the way we live and work in order to move towards a more sustainable situation. Having a Green category that appeals to only a minority (admittedly growing) percentage of people is simply not going to be enough to do the job.

So I think it’s time to move beyond the Green label. It’s been useful but it’s served its purpose. It is happening to a certain extent but it needs to go much further. Most of the time I think Green in used for want of something better. I think sustainability is not a bad term to use within businesses. I think the term Clean is useful when talking about the clean economy, clean energy and cleantech. Eco can be useful but is a bit like Green in that it has often been used as a greenwashing instrument. Perhaps we need some new terms. Perhaps we don’t need a new label at all. After all, the idea of, and push for a more sustainable future needs to become so mainstream that it doesn’t have a name anymore, it’s just normal. We have a long way to go.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree we need to move beyond “Green”?

Technorati Tags: BP, business, cleantech, communications, cop15, Copenhagen, environment, green, marketing, Obama, population, social media, sustainability

It seems highly probable, if this recent report by ReadWriteWeb is correct. It’s only speculation at this stage as to what will be rolled out.

As RWW says, it could just be a measurement system for marketing promotions they will be running through their own @earlybird Twitter account. It could be an analytics tool for Twitter Search, now the world’s fastest growing search engine, but by my estimation currently not the best real-time search engine.

Whatever it is, if it’s an offering that can be used by individuals, organisations and companies outside of Twitter’s own walls, it’ll be most welcome (except perhaps by those who’ve been developing their own). What kind of tool would you like to see being offered by Twitter? What would be useful for you?

Technorati Tags: advertising, analytics, ReadWriteWeb, real-time, RWW, search, social media, Twitter, Twitter search

According to Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, Twitter now handles around 800 million search queries per day, or more than 24 billion per month. This is a massive 33% more than it said it was handling back in April.

To put that into some perspective, Google reaches around 88 billion per month, so it’s pretty impressive that Twitter has already moved well past a quarter of that. In addition, Bing only achieves around 4.1 billion and Yahoo around 9.4 billion per month.

So as well as being an information network (as Stone prefers to call it), it seems that Twitter is now the world’s fastest growing search engine. It’ll be very interesting to see how much revenue they manage to pull in with their new Promoted Tweets initiative on search. Although quite different, Google has certainly done fairly well out of search advertising!

via Fast Company

Technorati Tags: Bing, Biz Stone, Google, promoted tweets, search, social media, Twitter, Twitter search, Yahoo