I have a variety of thoughts on where the future is heading but I feel most strongly about the potential/danger of the Google world (officially Google Lively), becoming a bio-metrically regulated, truly realistic metaverse – not unlike the matrix. I joke with my girlfriend that I’m “plugging in” when I put my headphones on and work late online, but I feel as if we will see similar situations in our lifetime. The advent and proliferation of accelerometers, the growing intelligence of artificial inteligence and the increasing rate of technological advancement all have us barrelling towards some development that takes control of our lives beyond the control of its creator.

As Google grows in its influence and world position and “organizes all the worlds information” it literally contains the existing internet/world on its servers; Google is essentially becoming the “Global Seed Bank” of information. This topic becomes particularly cogent after the recent public introduction of Google Lively. Google’s (or any of a slew of different companies) virtualization* *of the physical world and the creation of such a virtual world combined with a push towards inteligent computers, the semantic web, and the increase of human efficiencies could very well be leading us towards a world where we communicate passively in our heads, plugged in to the net, holding virtual meetings across the world (or perhaps across worlds). Will we make business trips from our consoles, will we take tours of the Great Wall from our living rooms, or will we be taken over by this technology and thus lose our attachment to the physical world?

** While “Don’t be evil” may be their corporate slogan, you can never trust a HAL 9000. It may be many years ahead of us but I look forward anxiously and apprehensively to that technology.

All views, comments and thoughts expressed above are entirely the creation of Jamie Hutson.

Among the society’s findings:

#1: Hydrogen fuel cells will be cost competitive by 2010. By 2012, fuel cell power is expected to cost around $400 per kilowatt-hour. Fuel cells will power cars and allow each home to have its own non-polluting electricity generator.

#2: The era of the Cyborg is at hand. Researchers in Israel have fashioned a “bio-computer” using the DNA of living cells instead of silicon chips. This development may soon allow a computer to connect directly with a human brain.

#3: By 2015, New York, Tokyo and Frankfurt may emerge as hubs for high-speed, large-capacity supersonic planes. NASA’s X-43A Scramjet recently flew at 7,000 mph (nearly ten times the speed of sound). These hyperspeed planes will whisk passengers across continents in the time it takes most people to drive to the airport.

#4: Schools based on classrooms and a human teacher will dwindle over the next 25 years. Why sit in a classroom when you can visit virtual worlds and experience your subjects? An avatar, a personalized interactive guide, will answer all of your questions and help you pose new ones.

#5: Speculation in hydrogen energy stocks could create an investment bubble, as happened with the Internet. When investors see the huge potential of hydrogen energy, the stocks of companies with promising technologies may skyrocket to unsustainable levels.

#6: Ocean currents may surpass wind as an energy source. Turbines driven by ocean currents could generate four times more electricity than windmills. At one site alone—in the Channel Islands off the coast of France—the potential electricity could match that produced by three nuclear power plants.

#7: A snail may save your life. A non-addictive painkiller one thousand times more potent than morphine could soon be on the market, thanks to research on conotoxins, the distinct set of chemicals found in tropical cone snails. Future medicines from the snails may help treat heart disease, depression and spinal cord injuries, among other ailments.

#8: Weapons of mass destruction will be even easier to obtain over the next 15 years. Terrorists may move from bombs to creating havoc on the cellular level. The weapons of the future – genetic engineering and nanotechnology – require neither large facilities nor mass materials.

#9: The convergence of genetic engineering, nanotechnology and robotics will allow humans to change their bodies in profoundly new ways. In the next 15 years, people may be able to rearrange their genes to change their physical features, extend their lifespan, merge their brains with computers and their bodies with robots, among many other remarkable developments.
#10: Robots and smart environments will improve care and independence for the elderly. Intelligent walkers will help seniors get around while sensors on the handlebars monitor their vital signs. Handheld devices will track senior citizens’ movements and guide them around town, keeping people mobile and independent.

I’ve been taking a macro view at my entire portfolio of investments and have begun devising a strategy for the future.  What we’ve been witnessing with the Internet in terms of “the world is flat” is having a major network effect into other industries, thus the world is fundamentally changing.  While cultures may be separate and geographically disparate, there is no reason why they can’t live next to each other digitally.  “Best in the World” does not apply any more:  everyone has a voice that becomes crowdsourced into a microsystem.

I’m not an economist, stock picking guru, or even significant angel investor, but there are areas that I’m taking a dive into more recently.  The areas may not be new, but the attention I’m giving them are greater than previously:

1.  Overseas:  Living in the USA, we tend to drink our own Kool Aid.  When traveling overseas, you realize what the rest of the world is up to and how much greater of a an impact an investment overseas could have.  So with that said, I’m exploring markets like Eastern Europe, China, and India and finding distressed areas that with a little investment, could create both social and economic winners.  I’m learning, albeit the hard way, that where there is hype, there is often smoke & mirrors.  There are billions of people that are under-served due to their relatively small buying power is something that is attractive to me due to the way that the world is becoming flat and I’m investing my time and funds into this area to try and figure it out.

2.  Digital Real Estate:  I’ve always been fascinated at the domain name game.  There is a relatively small group of folks who control this market and it’s sure to break out into mass appeal in the coming years.  How will it play out?  I have no idea.  If history is any indication however, property value raises over time and there are always going to be premier real estate locations to own.  The market creates it’s own stratospheres and if you pick the right one, you can do extremely well.  I’ve built up a portfolio of domain names that may or may not have some value (I sold a .org domain name for 4 figures back in 2001) and I’ll be looking to monetize them in one way or another.  Any domain name that I have purchased in the past or do intend to purchase has a vision to it.  I don’t like to purchase domain names for the sake or owning them, I like to purchase so that I can build them out in the future.  If you look at my porfolio (to be made public in 2008), you can predict or see what businesses I was looking at rolling out over time.  Like I said earlier, I don’t claim to know this space well, but I’ve been learning from a few pros and have met some great people so far and am digging deeper everyday.

3.  Ad Targeting: You’d think I would be late to the game here but it’s honestly just starting to play out.  Digital ad targeting is going to be a hot area in 2008 as players like AOL, MSN, Google, Adify, Glam, ValueClick, Casale, Lotame, and others try to refine their network strategies and create highly targeted customer segments.  I am fortunate to meet with each of these companies quite often and am up to speed on their offerings, but I don’t think we’re 100% there yet on targeting.  The thesis I see playing out in 2008 is Vertical vs. Contextual vs. Behavioral vs. Social Targeting where each one of these areas aren’t mutually exclusive.  I’m predicting lots of roll-ups in this side of the business and it’s going to be extremely exciting to watch it all play out.

4.  Green:  We’ve been going green for years but I don’t think we’ve ever had the breakout year that we’ve expected.  2008 will NOT be that year, but it will be a year that I spend quite a bit of time learning the ins/outs of the industry.  Lots of issues will be brought to light due to the elections and if you act as a sponge throughout 2008, you can listen quietly to the issues and try and find (and back) the right people solving them.  I’m not trying to follow the many venture capitalists who are investing in this space, but for my own tree-hugging self (who also owns a Jeep), I’m socially interested.

5.  New York:  We’re starting to get on the USA digital media radar screen.  AlleyInsider and Center Networks are helping lead the charge and entrepreneurs from Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens (amongst many other places) are cooking up their own flavor of the web.  nextNY and NY Tech Meetup are in full swing and the comraderie is increasing.   With the financial world’s bonus’s delivered in January 2008, there is going to be quite a bit of angel investments into the scene which will potentially drive venture capital into larger rounds.  I’m excited to be located in New York during these times and we’re seeing some amazing companies launch.  Word of caution:  I’m seeing a lot of companies launching in NYC and many are features, not a company.  Please keep in mind that just because you have the financial means to launch a company, doesn’t mean you should.  Build out a sustainable business that could survive on its own, not just a simple feature that any social network, communications company, or software company could add onto it’s feature list.

6.  Features, Not a Company:  As we get even more bullish in 2008, we’re going to see even more companies launch because more dollars are being put to work from an investment standpoint.  As I alluded to in #5, we’re going to see quite a bit of “companies” launch who are essentially features.  This generally is a negative thing as most of the companies burn through their capital and die, but I do think there is a way to launch standalone features as part of a portfolio strategy and this is an area that I’m going to be spending some time looking at.

7.  Creativity:  It seems that each newborn child these days knows how to develop using the latest tools, but many of us forget how to be creative.  Linear thinkers will always be needed and in some ways, may become a commodity (if not already), but the real winners of 2008 are the creatives.  I’m not saying this because I work hand-in-hand with creative agencies, but as technology becomes a commodity, how do we differentiate ourselves and design better interfaces, business plans, etc.  It’s all about the creativity.  How can we harness this for the future?  I don’t know, but I’m certainly trying to figure it out.

These are just a few of the areas that I’m looking at in 2008.  Any overlaps with what you are looking at?

I’ve recently taken notes on the top 5 things in my life which I believe are indicators of what the future looks like:

1. Twinkle
2. AppleTV
3. Silicon Alley Insider
4. Meetup / The Point / CarrotMob
5. DonorsChoose & Kiva

Twinkle

No need to put the iPhone or Twitter on my list, because the Twinkle application (jailbroken phones only, for now) combines both of these tools and highlights what is most revolutionary about these two phenomenons.

On the surface, Twinkle is just an iPhone client for Twitter, and has an appearance much like the popular desktop client called Twitterific. However, its ability to tap into the iPhone’s GPS/location API, as well as it’s tie-in with the phone’s camera turns the device in your pocket into a geiger counter for social ambiance.

What do I mean? When I open Twinkle, I can press the “Near Me” button and find recent messages and photos posted by folks right near me – whether I know them or not (coincidentally, my friend Patrick Ewing had just messaged as I took this screenshot).

This is a significant departure from other location-based social platforms — like Dodgeball, Socialight, and BrightKite — because I am passively being introduced to things occurring in my surrounding, while I’m out and about, rather than just connecting with people I already know when they “check in” or leave geo-specific notes. Instead, these are people chatting away as usual, just with the added meta-data (and thus context) of location and images.

It’s about the meta-data, not the data!

(My friend Chris Messina wrote more about this, by the way.)

So, this is Twinkle today — very cool — but the Twinkle of the future (or whatever succeeds it) will have more meta-data and more open data (location based data will be shared via Fire Eagle or some other broker/standard), and it will also incorporate more data sources (Upcoming.com’s data could alert you to something happening next to you; Facebook’s data could tell you when you’re near a friend of a friend).

This is the future.

AppleTV

Quick multiple choice exam folks. “Podcasts” have:

1. Been predicted to really break out in 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 …
2. Are delivered via open standards (RSS), which means anyone can publish a podcast
3. Have been adopted by major media, with little success outside public radio example
4. Are good for major media because they get to control the source files thus ad inventory
5. Very hard to monetize without critical mass, because getting everyone on one ad platform is hard
6. For consumers, they are conceptually tethered to iTunes and the iPod (thus the name), creating a glass ceiling for adoption
7. All of the above

The answer, of course, is 7 — “All of the above.”

But the AppleTV changes everything you knew about podcasts, new media distribution and new media consumption.

While this first started last fall when a firmware upgrade included access to YouTube’s library of videos — the first time user generated content could be consumed in a “lean back” environment — the “this is the future” change came in early February, when the device upgrade included a entirely new interaction around it’s 100,000 feed library of podcasts.

This new interaction — which most importantly allowed the user to watch/listen to shows “on demand” (actually an interaction first introduced by Odeo) — eliminated the clumsy necessity to “subscribe” to a feed, only to listen or view the episode you really wanted. Finally, you could view a podcast episode on-demand.

AppleTV finally lets you surf the video web like you watch TV. Lean back AND surf a never-ending, democratized base of content.

That’s powerful. See that screenshot above? Yeah, that’s my friend Gary’s show, WineLibraryTV, featured next to Larry King — on my TV? How ridiculous is that?!

That’s the future.

Silicon Alley Insider

Okay… roll you eyes… Nate is a contributing writer for Silicon Alley Insider and calling them the future. What a jerk!

But wait! Silicon Alley Insider is not the future, but their approach to journalism certainly is!

What happens when you take professional writers, make them use the veracity-threshold of old media but act like a blog and play with bloggers!?

Folks, if journalism has a future, this is it. Online versions of newspapers are boring and emulating them makes you just as boring; meanwhile, blogs are often amateur, and relying on them will often leave you misinformed.

But, professional blogs, like Insider, combine the best of both worlds… and create a go-to spot for information you NEED to know in a format you CAN easily consume.

Kara Swisher and AllThingsD is another fantastic example of this (she has complete editorial and operational independence from WSJ, though is funded by them).

As traditional newsrooms crumble across America, expect to see more of these hybrid opening up and competing.

They are the future.

Meetup and its followers

Scott Heiferman said the only thing that really stuck with me at last year’s Personal Democracy Forum. He said, “The revolution will not be on YouTube.”

Indeed it won’t. Still today, the most powerful things that happen are when people — real people — organize and do something together, in the same location. As powerful as Obama’s online fundraising has been, think about how he bootstrapped his grassroots fundraising: by getting large groups assembled, and asking them to donate, in whatever amount they could, some money to his campaign. News reports of tens of thousands-strong demonstrations, even through Barack’s toughest weeks of the campaign, propelled him closer to the nomination — not to mention the people gathering at polls to vote for him.

In fact, in a world where people can just stay at home, donate and phone-bank from their couch, getting people together matters more than ever!

Anyway, Meetups are a great example of this, but there are many new technologies facilitating group action in new exciting way; including:

• The Point — think of this service as “tipping point insurance” for group action. What does that mean? With this service you register a goal and ask people to sign-on to the goal. The catch is this: no one has to do anything around that goal (give money, boycott, march, etc) unless the right number of people sign up too. A one man march doesn’t mean anything, and a Million Man March only works if a million men show up and are counted.
• CarrotMob — At this point, CarrotMob is more and idea plus one example, but it’s pretty compelling. Check out this video:

I started with a quote from Scott Heiferman, so I’ll end with something he recently went on record saying:

This kind of thing… – inventions in group-power — will have more impact on the future than anything.

I agree. This is the future.

Donors Choose and Kiva

In general terms, charity organizations have always had great intentions, but they’ve also been terribly inefficient at delivering on their missions because of administrative, supply-chain, and other inefficiencies – and donors are catching on.

Luckily, organizations like DonorsChoose.org and Kiva.org are revolutionizing the word of philanthropy, and are leveraging the web to make giving feel good again.

So what’s the magic of Donors Choose and Kiva? They’re great examples of “Just in time Philanthropy” (cool! Google says I just coined this term).

With DonorsChoose.org, teachers register their classroom needs, and people/philanthropists sign-up to meet those needs by donating the exact amount for the project. Then, the money goes straight into the hands of those teachers, with relatively lightweight administration in between. Ask for a pencil and thee shall get a pencil!

With Kiva, I can loan money directly to a business man in a developing country — the agency doesn’t decide what to do with my money, the recipient does. They’re just there to make the process run smoothly.

I’d like to see how this model could be extended into other important realms of philanthropy, like food banks.

Why organize a food drive, have a bunch of people bring a bunch of random food to one location, and then find a way to transport that food to a foodbank that does or does not need what you’ve gathered?! We should take the Donors Choose model, have food banks tell us what they want, and then buy that food on Fresh Direct to be delivered on site! If Fresh Direct had an API like Amazon’s we could put this in place and eliminate entire agencies, getting more of the right food in the right hands, directly from those who are giving!

In general, the Internet allows us to be much more direct in our actions and, in many cases, nearly eliminates the need for bloated agencies and NGOs.

“Just in time Philanthropy” is most definitely the future!

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