There was a lot of discussion about my previous posts here and here. My point is that the internet is a stable platform. Its a utility. Its evolved to the point where you can count on it and develop applications for it without much fear that its going to change.
What confirms my point is that with all the talk of a possible or existing recession, not a single mention is ever made about how increases in productivity from technology will pull us through. That is counter to the recessions of the past 25 years. Whether it was the early 80s, the 90's or even the post bubble , economists and others pointed to technology as a catalyst to productivity that would help pull us out of our economic doldrums.
When there were boomtimes , as we saw from about 91 to 2000, technology was given the lions' share of the credit.
So where are the claims of further productivity enhancements from technology ? They are no where that I can find.
In fact, we can start to make arguments to the contrary. That technology and in particular social network and video sites can be a hindrance to productivity in the workplace.
Further arguments can be made that the MSFT YHOO potential merger is further evidence that the technology industry is maturing.
It is what it is.
The Internet is Officially Dead & Boring - Its the economy stupid !
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. I was going through the Sunday paper and came across an ad for a Dual Core Pentium Laptop for $299 (after re-bate)and a 32`` HDTV for $500. I hope the current recession that the media denies we are in pushes prices down even further.
Posted at 5:25PM on Feb 10th 2008 by Gregory Rueda
3. I show people at work how to check work e-mail from home as well as work remotely from home at my job often. We push more and more work to online freelancers, which saves a ton of money. Very few companies are really taking advantage of the internet. People who grew up online are becoming major players in their companies and cutting a lot of costs. Before businesses would host their own e-mail and servers, now they are more likely to farm this out at a fraction of the price. The internet is an area every business could use to save money, unfortunately local techs and old managers speculate on the security problems and don't give the global marketplace a real shot.
Posted at 5:35PM on Feb 10th 2008 by money and finance
4. Technology has continued increases in productivity. However, wages and employment have not grown at the same rate. And labor creates demand for without a good paying job, the average US employee(making 32,000/year) cannot buy the GI Joe with the kung fu grip while paying 3.00 for gas and 3.50 for milk.
So there is no demand for the goods produced even though we can produce more cheaper.
So technology is great. But it's the old argument that if robots replace the worker, who's going to buy the cars that the robots produce?
Posted at 5:44PM on Feb 10th 2008 by PSC
5. You're of course correct but it still moves faster than 95% of industries. The burn through of social networks starting with friendster, then myspace, and now facebook indicates there is turnover and opportunity. The high traffic numbers of these sites indicates they do create user value. The long run, real monetizable value of that user value is very likely less than the initial web.
Creative destruction rules eternal.
Posted at 5:50PM on Feb 10th 2008 by Patrick Boyd
6. More productivity means less workers required to produce the final product. As PSC asks, if there are fewer workers, who is going to buy the output of more productivity??? If there are less workers, who is going to pay the taxes to fund local, state and federal government??? As they say, be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
Posted at 7:12PM on Feb 10th 2008 by Jojo
7. Mark, I usually appreciate your posts and find your analysis of various industries and trends extremely insightful. Here, though, I am not really sure what you are getting at, unless your point is to start a conversation on the subject.
Posted at 10:07PM on Feb 10th 2008 by Soren Gordhamer
8. Mark, interesting post. I don't know that I completely agree with your statement:
"Its (the web) evolved to the point where you can count on it and develop applications for it without much fear that its going to change."
Although I think that it has become easier for developers to cope with the constant evolution on the web, to say that it is a stable platform is probably a bit much. :)
Posted at 11:32PM on Feb 10th 2008 by Hooman Radfar
9. Sorry for the double beatdown, but Hooman is right. You still can't even sort organic Google results by date directly from Google search yet - they make you go to "advanced" options to do this. They got it right with news.google.com at least.
Internet 1.0 can STILL be improved. And yes, 1.0...that's STILL where we are, the 2.0 and 3.0 crap is just spinmeistering. The Internet has reached the desktop equivalent of Windows 95. Yay!!! better than Windows 3.1, but...big whoop! ; )
Posted at 12:07AM on Feb 11th 2008 by Robert Seidman
10. Mobile is next internet
Posted at 7:48AM on Feb 11th 2008 by Prashant
11. Hey Mark,
It's really about the Internet making a transformation from a destination to an enabling technology. In the beginning (and probably a vast majority still) use the Internet, and more specifically the web, as an entertainment destination. Now that the platform has stabilized, we are beginning to see more applications designed specifically for it (eg. Quickbooks Online and Google Apps). And this is just the beginning. The Internet today is just like the telephone in it's early days. Who would have imagined in the 30's that we would have fiber optic or even wireless phones today. They simply didn't have the context or experience to imagine those things. In the same way, we can't even begin to imagine what lies ahead for our connected world and what it will be able to do for us.
Thanks for the topic!
-Thom
12. Where do we place telecommuting in the economic bottom line? How do we compare a slight drop in the overall US economy relative to 10 years ago when people spent more time on the road going to and from work, but now can savor their hours of each day by staying at home, using technology from the home, and be (perhaps) slightly less productive, but certainly more happy about it?
I know I am enjoying my life better with our new "tools", even though I may be making a little less.
13. A very interesting video montage of statistical comparisons between China, india, and the US.......The questions it raised in my mind were more thanw orth the 6 minutes it took to watch......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q
Posted at 11:37AM on Feb 11th 2008 by Alex Skinger
14. Mark and all..
http://trolltracker.blogspot.com
This guy is interesting.. Look at the latest post about Acacia suing Apple.
Posted at 11:50AM on Feb 11th 2008 by Pat Crofoot
15. Its a good point. I saw where somebody had said that Tech always pulls us out of economic doldrums be it first with the chips then the PC and then the internet. I think the technology that will pull us out of this period of stagnant technology and an unpredictible stock market is going to be mobile tech. combined with GPS.
Posted at 1:18PM on Feb 11th 2008 by James B Marshall
16. I definitely agree that technology growth is maturing. I do think that in the next 5-10 years there will be some Killer App to change the growth but for the time being, nothing exciting is going to blow us away or excite the growth rate of technology again like we saw in the late 90s
17. I will agree with you the the Net has become boring. Back in the 1990s surfing sites was as engaging as watching the lobotomy box. Yes, it was a complete waste of time but evening after evening just breezed by. I'd visit hundreds of sites in a typical day to check out the competition and see what was new.
For the past few years the number of sites I visit regularly has shrunk to less than ten. Basically, the Net has become another home appliance. It's used for email, price comparisons before a purchase, looking up the correct spelling for words, and the occasional conversation like this.
Posted at 5:42PM on Feb 11th 2008 by How Billionaires Become Billionaires
18. i have to disagree with you here, marc.
the internet is cool and it's still delivering major productivity increases, maybe just not for sports teams. maybe your team's staff is wasting too much time following sports? ;-)
what's interesting is your perspective on this. you're not questioning the value of sports teams, and truthfully, i can't think of anything good ever coming out of professional sports.
anyway, i'm sure other readers will innumerate the perpetual value of the net so i won't go into what may be a repeat. cheers, nonetheless!
19. In the 80s and 90s, technology was all about increasing productivity. We know that technology is mature because today we're battling the fact that we have too much technology and that's hampering productivity. I haven't seen a new innovation or idea for a while that made me say, wow that's going to make my life easier. Everything is just old technology repackaged to look new with catchy marketing phrases like 'Unified Communications' or 'Web 2.0.' What we need is for technology to simplify and become smarter. To be designed with the normal human being in mind. Otherwise, it'll just become one huge bureaucratic mess.
Posted at 6:59PM on Feb 11th 2008 by David Chu
20. I have to agree that enabling technologies have slowed a bit. This happens with the maturation of ANY innovation.
But, web development has continued to make USING web sites easier and more elegant. I can do things today in 3 minutes and 3 clicks what it might have taken me 30 minutes and 20 clicks to complete in 2005.
AJAX, bandwidth and more common interface look and feel have dramatically increased the ability to get simple but tedious things done using the web.
I'm still searching for the next killer app, and I believe we'll find a bunch this year (DEMO just finished, and there were some nice finds amongst the rabble).
Best,
Mark Alan Effinger
http://www.RichContent.tv
Posted at 8:17PM on Feb 11th 2008 by Mark Alan Effinger
1. The 2 current buzz technologies that can help productivity have drawbacks;
Green Technology is generally more expensive than existing methods, everyone is unwilling to spend more for the same results and that's especially true during a recession. Unless there's some kind of radical legislation I doubt this will help much.
Nanotechnology has fantastic potential, it's just at a very early stage and will be very costly to develop. Research grants tend to dry up & companies shrink the R&D budget.
As for the last few years, what have we got? blogging, flash video sharing, social networking, twitter? Everything is so dependant on advertising budgets.
Posted at 3:54PM on Feb 10th 2008 by Adam