Do Technology Trends Have Their Own Hype Cycle?
Found a neat chart over at TechCrunch on technology hype cycles, pulled from the Gartner Consulting website. For those of you who do not know about Gartner, they are an IT consulting group that are also known for trend research. This stuff is not free, however TechCrunch got permission to post one of their hype cycle charts.
The picture shown at the top is the July 2008 tech hype cycle.
Gartner explains hype cycles here, but long story short there are five phases of a technology cycle:
- Technology Trigger
- Peak of Inflated Expectations
- Trough of Disillusionment
- Slope of Enlightenment
- Plateau of Productivity
I’ll just go over the emerging trends, as they are probably the most interesting and also the most likely of places to find available domain names.
Context Delivery Architecture is a fancy name for WYNIWYG: What you need is what you get. It’s the idea of focusing on an individuals needs and delivering the goods. Though it is quite low on the chart, it’s obviously been around a long time. Perhaps they are saying that we now have the technology to take this to the next level.
Mobile Robots, something I claimed to possibly be the biggest trend of 2008, and perhaps future. (Yea, I know… it’s hard to argue against the green machine).
Augmented Reality, as defined by Wikipedia, is the combination of the real world and the digital world. For instance, one could wear translucent glasses and through them see the real world, as well as computer generated images that project onto the real world. TranslucentGlasses.com and TranslucentGoggles.com were available, I picked them up.
Surface Computers started hitting the news last year where Microsoft announced a division dedicated to bringing these to the masses. Surface computers can recognize things you set on top of them, such as paint brushes, your finger, plates, whatever. They are aiming at hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues.
Cloud Computing is one of the more popular tech trends at the moment. “Cloud” confuses people; just think of it as “Internet Computing” or “Online Computing.” It’s a combination of many internet technologies, but mostly software as a service and web 2.0. Your G-mail, a place where you store your emails online, is a perfect example of cloud computing.
3D Printing has actually been around a long time, but recently has been picking up steam. Personally, I find it boring and almost totally useless. At least so far…
Microblogging is a huge trend right now, thanks largely to Twitter and partly to Pownce. Some businesses are catching on and using microblogging and instant messaging to communicate in the workplace. Large social networks, like Facebook and LinkedIn, have incorporated microblogging into their platforms.
Green IT is the practice of using computer resources efficiently.
Of course, this is just one company’s point of view. But I still find it quite interesting and full of material that I can research and find domain names.
Are there any technologies that you think they left out? If so, where would you put them on the hype cycle?
Baby Boomers Will Trigger Many Trends
Boomer companions/caregivers where chosen as one of the top jobs of the near future, as chosen by MSNBC. They’re absolutely right. In fact, the Boomers will trigger several huge trends that have already begun to reveal themselves and will be in full swing just 2 years from now.
There are 78 million Boomers, and in the next couple years many of them will be turning 65, making them eligible for Medicare. 78 million! To give you an idea of how many people that is, it is the same amount that live in our three most populated states:
The Baby Boomers are going to begin retiring and hitting up that Medicare. Expect a surge in age-related illness/treatments such as Alzheimer’s and Diabetes in the next couple years. But is that really all that 78 million people can give us?
Hell no. You see, these people will be retiring and that will set in motion oodles of trends.
To start, someone must fill their positions at the workplace as Baby Boomers are one third of America’s workforce. This is something I pointed out in a post about Generation X. Gen X is set to take over. Know their tendencies, likes, dislikes, whatever.
Second, these people may be retiring from their careers, but some (actually, I think most… and so does CNN) will move on to an every-day job… either by necessity to pay the bills, by choice to fill the time, or to fulfill their lifelong dream of starting a business. You should see a boom in the following industries due to retired Boomers:
- Senior job placement and training services. To help them find a job they’ll be happy with.
- Volunteer and non-profit (especially the Peace Corps). Now that they have the time, many will volunteer it.
- Consultants. Many of these seniors will become consultants for the very field they retired from.
- Temp Agencies. Many people turn to them, and Boomers like them because it’s most likely how they started.
- Houseboats. Both sales and rentals. Boomers love them and can now actually spend time in them.
- RV’s. Oh this will be big. You heard it here first: I don’t care about the gas crisis, Boomers LOVE their RV’s. Boomers love to travel, and they’ll do it in an RV.
Third, Boomers are going to want to live in their dream home. The key is WHERE their dream home is located. Like I said: they love to travel, so Boomers have timeshares, second homes and favorite vacation spots all across the U.S. These are the places they will want to move to. So where are these?
In no particular order:
- Flagstaff, AZ
- Tucson, AZ
- Sedona, AZ
- Palm Springs, CA
- San Diego, CA
- Lake Tahoe, CA
- Aspen, CO
- Boulder, CO
- Tampa, FL
- Port St. Lucie, FL
- Sarasota, FL
- Key West, FL
- Orlando, FL
- Boca Raton, FL
- Fort Myers, FL
- Cape Cod, MA
- Santa Fe, NM
- Las Vegas, NV
- Reno, NV
- Myrtle Beach, SC
- Hilton Head Island, SC
- U.S. Virgin Islands
- Anywhere Hawaii
- OK, anywhere Florida
- The Caribbean
Boomers already own timeshares or second homes in these cities. I feel there will be a significant surge in population in most, if not all, of these cities/places over the next couple years as the Boomers move in permanently. They are already familiar with them and will want to spend their remaining days, and money, in the place that most makes them happy. Expect healthy real estate markets in these cities.
I’m sure there are plenty more trends as 78 million people are bound to produce many. Are there any you can see the Boomers setting off?
What Careers Will Be Most Popular In 4 Years?
MSNBC has posted it’s top 10 hot jobs for 2012. One or two of these may be a bit of a reach, but I think they are certainly on to something on every single one of these. A couple may even ring a bell. That’s partially because I’ve already blogged about their industries.
- Organic food producers, retailers
- Computational biologists
- Parallel programmers
- Data technologists
- Simulation engineers
- Boomer companions, caregivers
- Genetic counseling
- Brain analysts
- Space tour guide (Blogged about it here)
- Robot builders, tenders (Blogged about it here)
Loads of opportunities for domainers here. I think if you focus a small portion of your portfolio to some of these you can’t go wrong.
Your Macs, iPods And iPhones Are Now Being Targeted
11 posts on the front page of Domaining.com are reporting the sale of Property.com.
Not here! I have a Mac trend instead!
One of the main draws for Macs is the sense of security that you have in that malware is designed for Windows. Combine that with the halo effect (iPod, iPhone) and you have about 8% of computer users on macs.
And they’re just going on with their malware-free happy lives.
Not so fast.
You see, these people who were fed up with the viruses and spyware on their PCs moved on to Macs. Only… it was their OWN computing habits that got them the malware. It was their downloading of p0rn and pirated software. It was their not having a firewall or anti-virus software. It was their not running anti-malware or anti-spyware software. It was their own fault for not taking preventative action and being reckless of the tubes.
Virus programmers realize this and are starting to target Macs because the users are easy victims. For example, a Mac trojan came out in June and is capable of doing everything a PC trojan can do, such as stealing passwords and opening firewalls. So are the Mac’s OS’s really more secure than Windows? Or is it that no one really paid attention until fairly recently?
So here we are in the third week of July and Apple STILL has not fixed the security issue.
But that’s not all! Your iPods and iPhones are vulnerable too! With the ever increasing popularity of these two gadgets, the probability of malware grows higher.
Don’t worry though, just visit your favorite Mac site that focuses on security issues like malware. Oh noes!! Where the hell are you going to find one?
There’s your opportunity.
With Macs being targeted and the vulnerabilities of the iPod and iPhone, now is the time to prepare for it. Sites will need to be built to provide Mac users with the proper downloads and content on how to protect themselves from malware.
You can build them yourself, or sell them some domain names.
CNN Money’s Top 100 Places To Live And Why Dickinson.com Sucks As A Geodomain
CNN Money has posted their top 100 best places to live in the U.S. This is an indispensable article for the geodomainer. Not only is it a wealth of information, CNN Money exposes and reinforces the trends to make them stronger.
How do they decide what the best places are? Affordable housing, leisure activities, cultural options, job growth, crime rate, sunniness and health care among others. A good set of qualities to judge a city on. Perhaps not perfect- I’m a stormy weather kind of fella, not sunny- but I think it’s in line with the common perception.
Lets take the top city: Middleton, Wisconsin. Obviously they’re doing something right to place at the top of the list. Even so, now that CNN Money has labeled them the best place to live, you can bet everything on their tourism and real estate industries increasing… by a lot. If you lived near the top city, wouldn’t you want to check it out if you haven’t already done so? I would.
The absolute best part is that these city’s .coms can most likely be acquired at bargain prices. I’m curious to see how much Dickinson.com will go for at Bido’s auction. One of the selling points I’ve seen for this domain is the size of the city Dickinson, Texas. I work just 10 miles from Dickinson, Texas and can tell you that you do NOT want to use this as a geodomain. The place is a hole. The entire area is a hole. I’ll take any of the below cities over Dickinson.com as a geodomain.
Stick with Dickinson as a surname.
Back to the list! You can sort towns in many different ways here. Want to buy a .com of a city with high household incomes? Not a problem. How about a geodomain that focuses on the health industry? Sort by health care access. This list is great!
Here are some great ways to sort this list:
- Top-earning towns
- Hottest towns
- Priciest homes
- Most singles
- Youngest
- Job growth
- Affordable housing
- Plentiful leisure activities
- Plentiful cultural options
- Sunny weather
- Short commute time
- Good health care access
- Skinniest
- Clean Air
And, here are the top 10 places to live in the U.S.:
- Middleton, Wisconsin
- Hanover, New Hampshire
- Louisville, Colorado
- Lake Mary, Florida
- Claremont, California
- Papillion, Nebraska
- Milton, Massachusetts
- Chaska, Minnesota
- Nether Providence, Pennsylvania
- Suwanee, Georgia
Want a geodomain that would be great for a social network for singles?
- State College, Pennsylvania
- Durham, New Hampshire
- Amherst Center, Massachusetts
- Storrs, Connecticut
- Oxford, Ohio
- Stanford, California
- East Lansing, Michigan
- Indiana, Pennsylvania
- Blacksburg, Virginia
- Geneseo, New York
Notice something? They’re all college towns. Stanford, Miami U, UConn, Penn State and Michigan State are great schools and would be perfect to focus a geodomain on.
If you’re a geodomainer, this is a great tool for informing yourself before you buy. Boomark it!
EDIT:
This is the 2007 list. You can find the 2008 list here. And here is the post explaining my blunder.