When asked last month about what I think might be next, I said:


Not surprisingly perhaps, I think that digital identity-driven offerings, ones that give people empowering and exciting control over how they are and are not represented in online and offline environments will be at the center of a lot of different kinds of momentum.

Past using technologies only to access media that produce experiences, people will use connectivity in conjunction with digital media as means of manifesting themselves in digital environments where they are paid for their participation in a wide variety of currencies . I think of these as "contexts of consequences" and whether generating various kinds of personae in myspace, youtube or 2nd life, in return for various kinds of fame/fortune, or using game networks to become more/other than one may be in "real" life, environments and experiences that extend, protect and empower and increasingly hybrid definition of self (online/offline - digital/physical) are going to continue to drive add color and dimension to the digital environment. tools that help people do this kind of representation across environments (adding identity to interoperability) are going to come out ahead with the savvy and connected. Whether or not they'll prevail against larger walled garden vendors depends.

In addition to "identity and representation in contexts of consequence" there's the new kinds of of hybridized real/hyperreal/unreal mapping that's happening. As an example of how mainstream this is becoming. Microsoft has it's own 3d web accessible mapping application now. a la Google earth, that can be tagged, etc.

Take things like that, plus VOIP, stunning quality gaming graphics and gaming AI, and a world of quasi-self generating metadata in a world where we're all able to be broadcasting vblogs on demand from wherever we wish to our fluctuating peer group of audience/participants/constituents and it's hard to see how we are not already living in the virtual worlds long detailed by Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and others.

Dystopian optimist (or idealistic pragmatist, take your pick) that I am, I ask, at what cost comes this migration from the real to the virtual? Are these digital environments empowering and liberating, or a retreat away from reality as the unconnected world still must live it? My vote's both. Soo...there's going to be a a disconnect between digital ecstasies and physical miseries, the fleeting delights of the digital and the present dangers of the real, that might cause a backfire in the delivery channel as people seek out the "authentic" in the midst of the artificial, or encounter contexts of consequence with currencies based in something much deeper and ultimately more valuable than bits.

The result may be from a consumer products and service offering POV that a slice of people will go for tech that is less imposing, less status-based, more at least perceived-to-be earth friendly and "softer" rather the "my screen is bigger than your screen" thing. We might ask ourselves, what's the "media hub prius"? Not the technology that jumps in the middle and takes over all your experiences, but the ones (plural) that do something useful along the edges while playing nicely with others. I for one am a lot more likely to buy a wii that a PS3 - cheaper, more kinetic (you have to get of the couch to play, kids!) and somehow retro by being nintendo, with less of a violence and stuff that blows up selling proposition."