Wired Validates Predictions about Privacy & AI Built Into Everything

Two of our predictions for 2020, which we've called the "Age of Anxiety," is the feeling that we're constantly under surveillance. We also said that a media topic would be "AI in everything."

With the latest column for Wired, "Worried About Privacy at Home? There's an AI for That How edge AI will provide devices with just enough smarts to get the job done without spilling all your secrets to the mothership,"  by Clive Thompson, a very smart columnist who also writes for the New York Times, touched on both parts: the privacy and the AI in everything.

His feeling: "I don't need light switches that tell dad jokes. When it comes to gadgets that share my house, I'd prefer they be less smart."

What he means is there are companies building "edge AI": AI that runs on "teensy microprocessors" that have enough capability to control a coffee maker but nothing more than that; perhaps an edge AI can understand 200 words. 

Why is that enough? With designed limited capability, the edge AI-enabled coffee machine does not need to interact with the cloud, which would give it more power but also share all kinds of data in the cloud, where it can be used to better train future iterations of the coffee machine (perhaps) and also could be monetized or further shared without your permission.

Designed to handle specific applications, edge AI can be faster and can ensure privacy while helping you get the job done. As Thompson notes:

"You can't banter with it (edge AI) as you would with Alex. But who cares? 'It's a coffee maker. You're not going to have a meaningful conversation with your coffee maker...'"

Thompson describes edge AI as perfect for appliances light lamps, TVs, and other devices that could benefit from voice control without needing full-on conversational capabilities. True, users would need to know the key terms to turn on and off devices or handle other variables (like turn up or down the lights and thermostats or the channels or volume, if that's how you still watch TV or listen to music). But they won't have to worry that someone is listening in on the conversations.

Edge AI won't solve all the "Age of Anxiety" issues but it's a good way to use just-smart-enough AI to help us without being too smart and not knowing how our input and data are being used.

Wired Validates 5 of Our Trends

We're already seeing validation of some of our trends. The January issue of Wired ran two articles of note to our trends: cutting the cord and the gig economy.

About cord cutting, we said, "We expect some people not to cut the cord because it’s more complicated and not necessarily cheaper if you cut the cable cord." In an article called "Cord-Cutting Is Gonna Suck in 2016, But It'll Get Better," Wired identified the same problem we did: the cost of different subscriptions services, the complications of how to access it including of when you exceed your data limit means that cord-cutting isn't the solution you think it.

We also said the gig economy will generate coverage in 2016, and that "To pessimists, it means that people won’t have the safety net of company-provided healthcare and benefits." Also in the January issue (and not yet available online), is an article by Jessi Hempel called, "A New Deal: Gig-Economy Workers Need Protection. Now." Check out the article when it becomes online.

Actually, in his Letter from the Editor, Scott Dadich identified other trends that validated ours. Dadich feels that VR will go mainstream in 2016 while we think VR will still be much more of an early adopter tech next year. 

We agree with him (or he with us) that "AI comes to the everyday" (we said, "The rise of AI"). We both offered up concerns about unicorns, mostly that startups worth upwards of $1B will become on the verge of extinction -- okay, that's overstating things; it's just going to be much more difficult for them in 2016. 

And in "Autonomous driving gets serious," Dadich agrees with us that "we won't be handing over the steering wheel this year," and that a big issue is "talking about regulations" -- while we said the big issue isn't the tech or safety issues but "the insurance requirements."

So, judging by Wired, we're doing pretty well with our predictions.

Also, check out Fast Company's "Twenty Predictions for the Next 20 Years," by Robert Sarfian, which has a lot of interesting good trends.

Meanwhile, by the way, we expect a lot of IoT news coming from CES next week.

Here's to a happy New Year, and more tech validations.

Check out "Rate this Article" in Wired

I really liked Chris Colin's article, "Rate This Article: What’s Wrong with the Culture of Critique."

He makes the point that we now review the reviews we read. At the end of all Amazon's reviews, it says, "Help other customers find the most helpful reviews. Was this review helpful to you?"

Many comment boards ask you to recommend or report abuse for others' comments.

In one of the article's main points, Colin quotes Wired contributor Erik Davis as saying, We've started replacing actual experience with someone else's already digested knowledge."


So I'm not going to summarize Colin's article any further. Go read "Rate This Article: What’s Wrong with the Culture of Critique" yourself. (Don't worry, it's short.) 

Mid-Year Trend Update

It's a bit early for our annual report card on our trends and predictions, but I wanted to take a look at one prediction: The battle between the iPad and the iPad Killers, the race for apps and the impact of tablet computing will be a main theme (you can find an extended discussion about this here).

We were right about the battle of iPad and iPad Killers -- every new tablet reviewed this year has been reviewed in terms of the iPad. The conclusion: a lot of good tries, a lot of misses, and no other tablet has killed off the iPad 2.


But there's one aspect to the iPad vs. iPad Killers that we missed. When it became clear that no other tablet would dethrone the iPad, the media shifted to another story angle: the iPhone vs. the iPhone Killer -- by which I mean, of course, Android. One of the first of these articles appeared in April's Wired, How the Android Ecosystem Threatens the iPhone. 

Other articles have appeared in other major outlets, including Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

It's a microtrend we overlooked, but an interesting lesson for those of us who pitch the media. The point is that the media often look for a backlash story, even if it's not a direct backlash. Even if the target is Apple, which generally gets very positive coverage.

Old Media Habits Die Hard as Wired, Fast Company Feature Look at the New Fall TV Season

There are some outliers who think we live in a post-TV world, but I think they're wrong. As a cost-savings tip, there have been plenty of articles over the past two years reporting that you can cut your expensive cable or satellite bill and still watch the programs you want...on your computer, for free.

Many of those articles ignore the fact that you still need to access the Internet to watch Hulu.com, Fancast, and YouTube or to download programs from iTunes -- and that many people use cable modems to get to the Internet.

What's more to the point of a post-TV world is that you no longer need an actual TV anymore to watch TV. You can now watch shows on a range of mobile devices that provide an immersive experience -- to the point that we may need a new term to describe a television program because what your watching is no longer on a TV and a program on a computer means, what -- that you're watching C++ on your laptop?

Yet the truth is there is still no simple alternative to cable or satellite to getting all the programs -- um, shows -- you might want to watch on whatever device you might want to watch them.

According to Chris Anderson in the Sept. cover story in Wired, "The Web is dead," 40 percent of advertising still goes to TV -- that's just one example that we don't live in a post-TV world.

Want another example? The editors of Wired and Fast Company apparently didn't get the memo -- the email, the text, mindmeld or whatever we'll be using in the near future -- that we truly livein a post-TV world. Both Wired and Fast Company featured extensive articles in their September issues to "The New Way to Watch TV" and "The New Fall Season," respectively.

Those born before the 1990s know that September meant new slate of TV shows. For the last couple of weeks, People Magazine has been thick with ads from the different networks touting their new Fall schedules. With cable starting off-season schedules -- new shows of TNT's "The Closer" and USA's "Psych" in the summer to capture viewers bored with reruns -- one might think that "the new fall schedule" isn't something that people anticipate any longer.

True to each magazine's DNA, Wired featured lots of McGyver-esque ways to cobble new ways to watch TV shows while Fast Company offered a look at content producers who are working to "redefine must-see viewing." Both articles are worth a look, depending on whether you're they type to want to "build a system that will make your neighbors cry" or the type interested in the latest content.

My real point here is that whether or not we live in a post-TV world, traditional media still often lives by a traditional media mindset. Fall means back-to-school for some while Sept. means big fall fashion issues for others. And it's not really surprising that Wired and Fast Company would kickoff Fall with looks at TV. Those of us in PR should not be afraid to consider old media conventions -- like back-to-school and the TV schedule -- to develop and pitch story angles.

Wired's 10 Best Things We'll Say to Our Grandkids

Just 10 items, a quick read. Most of them very funny, and mostly, I think, accurate.

Check out #2, 3, 5, 6 & 9.

Marketing & The Importance of Claiming an Attribute

One of the goals of marketing is to get people to care about your product or service -- and to associate a specific attribute with your brand. Even if that attribute might not seem important outside the context of that need.

For example, Charmin. "Please don't squeeze the Charmin" got you thinking about softness of bathroom tissue (as they called it, instead of toilet paper). But did anyone actually squeeze toilet paper like it's a piece of fruit? Doesn't matter. All those annoying ads with Mr. Whipple registered with the public.

How about the need for mountain-grown coffee? For years, Folgers claimed its mountain-grown coffee was the richest, most aromatic kind of coffee. 

What Folgers didn't tell you is that all coffee is mountain grown.

But that's an attribute they made you care about.

Wired recently provided a similar look at beer marketing: "3 Smart Things About Beer Marketing." You should check out their points because there's a lot of beer advertising promoting attributes that are either wrong or common attributes of other beers.

My favorite, which they did not list, is drinkability. Bud Light apparently thinks that all other beers -- including, one must suppose, its non-light beer version -- lack "drinkability." I think that's an absurd attribute to define, defend and associate with a beer. (I bet if you drink too much of Bud Light you might lose the ability to say drinkability.) On the other hand, pour enough money into the ad campaign, and perhaps consumers will start assessing the drinkability-ness of their preferred beverage.

Living in a Distributed World

Remember the paperless office? That was a hyped trend of the future, based someone in the 1970s. I know that hasn't happened yet, because I spent a weekend earlier this month, cleaning out old papers from my office. (It's been two weeks, and I've been able to maintain a low-paper office.)

In the early 90s, came the officeless office. In other words, companies tried to reduce their costs by "hoteling" office space for their sales force, who were out on the road most of the time, and only occasionally needed to work from a corporate office. "Hoteling" referred to the fact that these always-on-the-road employees would reserve space in the corporate office when they needed to come in from the cold.

The officeless office, however, has evolved, with " third of the more than 150 million working Americans telecommute at least occasionally," according a Wired article, "Home Sweet Office: Telecommute Good for Business, Employees, and Planet," Branden Koerner.

Here are some interesting facts about telecommuting:

• Only 40 percent of companies permit any sort of work-at-home arrangement, which means most insist on full-time attendance.
• According to a 2006 survey by the Telework Exchange, the top fear among resisters is that they'll lose control of their employees.
• Researchers from Penn State analyzed 46 studies of telecommuting conducted over two decades and covering almost 13,000 employees. Their sweeping inquiry concluded that working from home has "favorable effects on perceived autonomy, work-family conflict, job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and stress." The only demonstrable drawback is a slight fraying of the relationships between telecommuters and their colleagues back at headquarters — largely because of jealousy on the part of the latter group.
• An IDC report from Asia found that 81 percent of managers believe telecommuting improves productivity, up from 61 percent in 2005. The increase is attributable largely to the proliferation of unified communications technologies — tools that connect mobile and remote workers. These include products like LifeSize Express, the first hi-def videoconferencing system priced at less than $5,000, as well as Web-based services like Google Docs and Glance, which let users view a remote colleague's onscreen work in real time (in the case of Glance, with cursor movements and all).

Interesting facts to support telecommuting -- which we believe is the wave of the future, that more companies will embrace remote workers to improve their costs as the tools improve to enable us to collaborate more.

Also interesting is an article from BusinessWeek that looks at the impact of stimulus funds on pushing broadband service into rural areas, "A High-Speed Race for Broadband Billions: Companies are jostling for the stimulus spending earmarked to deliver faster Internet to rural America" by Rachael King.

In a sidebar, King notes "for every one-point increase in the percent of U.S. households with broadband, nearly 300,000 jobs will be added to the economy." That's significant!

Wired's New Rules -- Did they get it right?

The cover story for Wired's current issue is "How to Behave: The New Rules."

I think some of these so-called New Rules are, unfortunately, not actually new.

For example, etiquette around dropped calls seems new, if you're living in 1995. Same for "Provide subject for all emails."

Look, I agree with "ditch the headset," and "delete unwanted posts from your Facebook wall."

Rules about dealing with exes on Facebook and whether to friend bosses on Facebook or follow them on Twitter are more current. (It may be interesting to note that the AP earlier this summer issued rules dealing with Facebook, and one of them was that AP managers are now prohibited from friending their underlings. It may also be worth noting that Wired's JargonWatch column reported on "Frolleague, a work colleague friended on a social networking site" in Dec. 2008 -- so Wired should have said something about bosses not friending the people they supervise at that time.)

But many of these seemed to be rules for dealing with Facebook like "Don't lie with your Facebook photo."

I agree with "Don't blog or tweet anything that has more than a half a million hits" because you'll risk looking outdated by the time you post something. (And, yes, I know I'm at risk for blogging about a Wired article.)

But I think we need more current New Rules.

I don't know what they are yet -- but I think most of Wired's new rules are tired (as they would say). I do think one rule should be that each company needs to figure out how to use social media, including Facebook and Twitter, based on its culture, and that it should consider, based on its culture, whether to establish groundrules for its employees, too.

What do you think are some good new rules?

Wired's Look at "The Great Wall of Facebook"

The media loves to report on great corporate battles.

There were the "Cola Wars" between Coke & Pepsi.

There was Microsoft vs. IBM.

Google vs. Yahoo.

Microsoft (now with Yahoo! search) vs. Google.

Even an MSNBC vs. Fox. (Read "At Fox and MSNBC, Hosts Refire the Insult Machines," by Brian Stelter.)

Now there's Google vs. Facebook.

Check out Wired's "Great Wall of Facebook: The Social Network's Plan to Dominate the Internet — and Keep Google Out."

According to Wire, here are four critical steps that PR functions should be aware of in terms of understanding how to work with Facebook:

• Build critical mass. With more than 200 million users, I'd say Facebook has done that.
  
• Redefine search. Very interesting -- enabling people to use their Facebook friends for advice instead of Google search.
• Colonize the web. Facebook Connect allows people to sign on and comment about posts from other sites, but the comments appear on their Facebook page.
• Sell targeted ads, everywhere.

Check out the article.

Are Blogs Dead?

The print edition of the Nov. Wired ran an article called "Kill Your Blog." The online version had a different title, "Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004 ." Paul Boutin, a correspondent with ValleyWag, summarized his own article like this:

@WiredReader: Kill yr blog. 2004 over. Google won't find you. Too much cruft from HuffPo, NYT. Commenters are tards. C u on Facebook? That's all you need to read from my essay at the front of Wired's new November issue. The rest is good, thanks to stellar editing, but these days a 600-word essay — and a headline like "Kill Your Blog" — only stand out in print. See? They changed it online.

I think blogs will continue, but the article makes at least one interesting point:

Scroll down Technorati's list of the top 100 blogs and you'll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones. Most are essentially online magazines: The Huffington Post. Engadget. TreeHugger. A stand-alone commentator can't keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.

I don't think blogs are dead. But I do think it's much more difficult now for bloggers to break through the clutter. That doesn't mean you should stop blogging. It just means don't expect tons of advertising revenue and a book deal.

If You Were to Publish a Tech Magazine for 15 Years, How Many Times Would You Mention "Gates" and "Jobs?

According to the Sept. issue of Wired, there have been 183 issues published over the past 15 years. Of those issues, 150 mention Bill Gates while just 110 mention Steve Jobs.

Now that Gates has retired, perhaps Steve Jobs can catch up.

No mention in the graphic as to whether the current mention counted to the totals of both executives.

Do You Suffer from Nomophobia?

According to the July issue of Wired, Nomophbia stands for "no mobile" phobia -- the "anxiety produced by losing cell phone contact, for lack of coverage or power. Of course, there's a Wikipedia entry on nomophobia.

Please don't confuse this with nomatophobia, defined as "a fear of names or other words because of their meaning." Ironically for a fear of names, the condition is also known by a second name: onomatophobia. I might call that ohno-onomatophobia: the fear of forgetting which onoma-related phobia with which you're afflicted. (Onoma is the Greek word for name.)

Back to nomophobia, the Wikipedia article says that a survey commissioned by the UK Post Office -- if it's anything like its US counterpoint, doesn't it have something more relevant to study? Like improving delivery efficiencies? -- and found that "53 percent of mobile phone users in Britain tend to be anxious when they 'lose their mobile phone, run out of battery or credit, or have no network coverage.'"

Additionally, the study compared stress levels induced by the average case of nomophobia to be on-par with those of 'wedding day jitters' and trips to the dentists.

Imagine needing a survey to find out that people now must have their cell phones with them and hate being disconnected through low battery or poor coverage. Fear of poor coverage is a major selling value proposition in most ads for cell phone service: "We've got more bars" or "America's most reliable network." I just don't think you needed a survey to uncover yet another condition of 21st century life.

Meanwhile, I can only imagine the pre-wedding jitters one might if one's cell phone didn't work.

Spoiler Alert: Actually something like that happened in the "Sex and the City" movie. If only Carrie had realized she suffered from nomophobia! Could have spared us all a long, dull part of the movie.

Wired's Jargon Watch: Dark Marketing

In physics, there's dark matter.

In financial trading, there's dark pools of liquidity -- sounds Gothic and unexpectedly poetic, actually.

Now there's dark marketing. According to the July Wired's "Jargon Watch" column, dark marketing is "discretely sponsored online and real-world entertainment intended to reach hipster audiences that would ordinarily shun corporate shilling. McDonald's is the latest mega-brad to adopt this paradoxical promotional tool, with an alternate-reality game called The Lost Ring, nearly devoid of golden arches.

Interestingly, though Wired tries to report on the cutting-edge and things that will impact us in the immediate future, in this case it was scooped by -- or, worse, got the idea for the column from -- the International Herald Tribune. On April 1, 2008, the IHT published "McDonald's tries 'dark' marketing." (Hmm, April -- that's about the time the July issue of Wired would have been in production.)

Why did McDonald's go dark?

"Our goal is really about strengthening our bond with the global youth culture," Mary Dillon, McDonald's global chief marketing officer, told the IHT.

Here's an interesting point about an alternate-reality game, or ARG. "If an ARG is too clearly corporate or commercial, the gamers will not want to engage. It's very important that the game be written in a way where the branding is not obvious," Tracy Tuten, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who studies new-media marketing tools, told the IHT.

So how does McDonald's measure the impact of its ARG investment?

By not revealing the cost of the campaign, except to say "in the context of the total Olympics, it's just a fraction of what we're doing."

"As for measuring the company's return on the investment, or ROI, Dillon said she would look at it as more of a learning experience."

I guess that works for mega-corporations targeting consumers. I don't see how dark marketing is efficient or effective when it comes to the B2B market.