I may be a bit late to the party but I was finally able to see the power of Twitter this afternoon.

I kept on getting an “Authentication failed” message when trying to log in to AIM. A few years ago I would not know what to do except ask my friends if they were having any trouble. Right now, I went to searched for “AIM” on Twitter and discovered that other people were having the same problem. Turns out it was a systematic problem and I wasn’t the only one affected. Being able to know more about this problem is a great benefit. There has been a lot of talk of the power of real time search and real time news but this was my first real glimpse into the power of Twitter.

My first action wasn’t to search for “AIM log in problem” on Google but to search for “AIM” on Twitter. It’s amazing to me that Twitter was able to replace a certain type of search. The majority of my searches will still be done on Google but it seems that for anything with a pulse – Twitter search is the way to go.

Twitter’s character limit is a great way to take advantage of the network effect. Having a low character limit encourages a lot more users to tweet thereby making Twitter feel alive and giving everyone else more information.

There have been numerous ideas of Twitter being used for market research and to get an early customer response – I can imagine that happening now and it’s mind blowing.

Image via Wikipedia

As expected, the article had it’s exaggerations (automatic cars driving at 250 miles per hour, inter-continental rockets, average work day of 4 hours ) but what struck me the most is how accurate the predictions about computers are:

The single most important item in 2008 households is the computer. These electronic brains govern everything from meal preparation and waking up the household to assembling shopping lists and keeping track of the bank balance. Sensors in kitchen appliances, climatizing units, communicators, power supply and other household utilities warn the computer when the item is likely to fail. A repairman will show up even before any obvious breakdown occurs.

Computers also handle travel reservations, relay telephone messages, keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, compute taxes and even figure the monthly bills for electricity, water, telephone and other utilities. Not every family has its private computer. Many families reserve time on a city or regional computer to serve their needs. The machine tallies up its own services and submits a bill, just as it does with other utilities.

Money has all but disappeared. Employers deposit salary checks directly into their employees’ accounts. Credit cards are used for paying all bills. Each time you buy something, the card’s number is fed into the store’s computer station. A master computer then deducts the charge from your bank balance.

Computers not only keep track of money, they make spending it easier. TV-telephone shopping is common. To shop, you simply press the numbered code of a giant shopping center. You press another combination to zero in on the department and the merchandise in which you are interested. When you see what you want, you press a number that signifies “buy,” and the household computer takes over, places the order, notifies the store of the home address and subtracts the purchase price from your bank balance. Much of the family shopping is done this way. Instead of being jostled by crowds, shoppers electronically browse through the merchandise of any number of stores.

Compared to the rest of the predictions, this is amazingly close to what we currently have. There is still some emphasis on the server and treating computers as a utility that is not currently present but with the rise of Google Docs and other online tools, that is not such a distant notion.

This begs the question, why are the predictions so close when it comes to computers but so off when it comes to other technologies? More importantly, why does Moore’s Law apply to transistors but not to larger technologies? I have a few ideas:

• Infrastructure costs – it’s cheaper to replace modern day computers than modern day cars. Thus, innovation can happen at a faster pace as people replace their computers. Also, computers tend to work in a much more solitary environment than cars do; being able to drive a car 300 miles per hour is useless when the roads can’t take it and the laws prevent it.
• Experimentation – it’s easier for the average person to hack around on a computer than it is to hack around on a car. Thus, a lot more people are working on ideas and due to sheer numbers, more ideas are bound to stick.
• Brand new technologies breed creativity -
  

  Image via Wikipedia

  When computers were invented, no one knew what they were capable of and everyone had ideas as to how they could be used. Many people pursued their ideas and were able to create and improve on various technologies. Also, many teenagers and students were involved in embracing this new technology – and they didn’t know what was impossible so they reached for the stars.Now, everyone is so used to what cars are that people don’t even imagine what cars could be capable of. We may be approaching this same plateau with computers.

I’ll try to update these when I think of any more.

In addition, people have come to expect to be able to add you as a friend after they’ve met you and rejecting them may be construed as anti-social. Imagine a recruiter not being able to look at your information on LinkedIn or a potential date not being able to look at your interests or photos on facebook – you will be missing out on opportunities.

How is one supposed to play this game where you want your information both hidden and shared? My solution is to embrace this lack of privacy: integrate yourself into as many social networks as you can, start a blog, post on various forums, publish your photos on Flickr, and so forth. By being famous (if only on the internet) you will eliminate a lot of the adverse effects of having your information public. You will have enough of a community to support you in case anything goes wrong and you can stop worrying about your information being shared.

How often does Bill Gates worry about his identity being stolen?

1. Jerry Yang was doing everything in his power to prevent MS from acquiring Yahoo – what type of message does that send and how must the employees of Yahoo feel if their CEO is acting this way.

2. In order to compete with Google, the merger must have gotten done quickly and smoothly, this would not have been the case in the case of a hostile takeover.

3. There have been rumors that many of Yahoo’s employees were just waiting for the merger to happen in order to cash in on their new accelerated vesting and compensation packages, immediately leaving Yahoo there after.

4. A lot of the Yahoo employees and MSFT employees and investors did not want the merger to go through. From what I know the largest group that wanted the merger to go through were the Yahoo investors, albeit at a higher price.

5. Yahoo will now have to deal with a variety of problems: shareholder lawsuits, talk of Jerry’s management ability, sudden price drop. All these may in fact lead to another Microsoft offer in maybe a few months at a much lower price – in which case it will probably be accepted.

The only downside that just immediately to my mind is that MS and Yahoo are in deep water and do need to do something in order to compete with Google – but I do not think the merger would have neccesarily helped them, given the merging difficults and the corporate culture clash.

The author is giving 2 reasons for the acquisition:1. The short term reason is to force Intel to give Apple price cuts for fear that Apple will make their own chips.

- I do not think that Intel needs to worry about Apple manufacturing their own PC chips as Apple already went through that phase and AMD already provides the necessary pressure on Intel to lower their prices.

2. In the future, software and OSes will not be tied down to a specific chip so Apple will start manufacturing their own processors to increase their margins.

- I think the author is on to something regarding the future of processors but I do not think the PC market will change that drastically. Apple will probably start making their own chips for the iPhone and their new gadgets but I doubt they will do the same for the PC market.

Edit: Just found out that Apple already makes a server (Thanks Brian). I have to start doing some research from now on.