IT First Look by Forrester Research
Forrester Research has some interesting video and audio sessions attached to its IT First Look (November 9, 2005) – subscription required. Forrester’s work on IT First Look is interesting because it touches on how technology and web companies are failing in their marketing communications with consumers.
IT First Look touches on how these companies understand how build the stuff, but do not understand how the consumers really use and adopt it.
AT Kearney on mobile media
Thanks to Ian Wood who pointed out an interesting thought piece and associated research by management consultants AT Kearney. Some interesting data in there which I haven’t had a full chance to check out but two points immediately leapt out:
- Western European survey respondents were less interested in downloading music on to their mobile phones than their counterparts in Asia, The US and Russia. This and a flatlining of online music sales in the US since May this year indicates that the post-iPod age may be upon us
- Interactive entertainment like games was less popular and did not have as much repeat demand as other mobile services. Interactivity is something that tech advocates bleat on about since before the arrival of the CD-ROM, but it fails to take account of the different types of people and the various ways that they like get and work with information.
Mobile society
The FT devoted much of its magazine over the weekend to mobility and its impact on society. The main article by Richard Waters, their US technology correspondent can be read here. What is really interesting is the way people have absorbed mobility into their cultures, rather a brave new world occurring like all the tech-mavens like to crow about.
37 Signals
Salon.com has an interesting article about 37 Signals a Chicago based software company that is making waves. The company has developed lean, responsive web-service based software applications for project management and personal productivity.
Odeo
Odeo is a way of making podcast publication and consumption much easier, it has the ease-of-use that one would expect from one of the founders of Blogger.
Firedrop and Basecamp
When I worked during the dot.com boom I briefly used a great free document management service called FireDrop to manage approvals from press releases to appraisal forms for my team. There has seldom been a web service that has impressed me since, however BaseCamp looks like it might do that.
Unlike many web services offerings it is truly platform-agnostic.