Want to influence eBay’s 3 to 5 year investments and strategy? Let ‘er rip and leave a comment.
At eBay I’ve been asked to lead a team focusing on what the tech trends of the next 3 to 5 years will mean to our customers, and what competitive environment we will find ourselves in. This information will be presented to our executives and board.
To start off our work I quickly threw together 10 ideas about what’s “going on” in the tech world and mailed it along to the team.
Normally I wouldn’t share verbatim, but I think this problem might best be solved collectively. So I’m opening this up to any and all readers of my blog.
So if you’ve got an opinion about what’s happening in the web/tech/society/world and how it will change the market environment in the next 3 to 5 years, I want to hear it! 
#1 cloud computing – it’s important, but not so much for the end users, biz will start adopting but initially it will be used just for cost savings. I believe we’ll start to see the “outcome” of this only _after_ the 3 to 5 year period
#2 mobile web – here’s a biggie, the iPhone and its imitators will finally start to show people the light; we’re seeing massive adoption of search on the iPhone, no reason why well-tailored mobile apps can’t enter that realm. (also, we’re starting to see more more emphasis on data plans, expect competition around the “$99 all-you-can-eat” voice/data plans coming out now)
#3 Facebook/MySpace - important, but not because of themselves; neither Facebook nor MySpace will see adoption YoY growth like we’re seeing now, again. what IS important is how the newest generations will weave it into their life as a communication tool; the first web/mobile communication suite, if you will.
#4 data portability - another biggie, because it “just makes sense”. as more and more websites contain parts of “who we are”, we will want to share that experience and naturally gravitate to the systems which let us do that. End-users will not differentiate between oAuth, OpenID or others, all these are pitched at developers or users so geeky they could be developers; likely this will appear as “use your Yahoo! login”, or etc. (think Microsoft Passport, now http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_ID) (also, don’t be surprised if it’s still a “closed” system, but the elements of that encompass the top 5 sites, users won’t differentiate if it works for them)
#5 Ruby-On-Rails, other pet languages - no significant changes, nothing with major traction unless a similar “glue” language like Perl to make uber-mashups can make a showing, unlikely.
#6 broadband / tv-on-demand / DRM - consumers becoming more and more comfortable not owning massive libraries of physical media as streaming really does begin to work; DRM less and less bothersome/noticed as long as things “just work”, expectations around what you “can” do with media changing as newer generations never expect to OWN anything, just ACCESS it. (Netflix just debuted “on-demand” box for $99, no extra charges, we’ll see if AppleTV becomes the video iTunes everyone expected it to be)
#7 open phones / android – in next 3 to 5 years, still nearly all phones produced by “big 5″ cell makers, but it won’t be insane to have an unbranded, open smartphone (especially as mobile internet/search becomes more popular)
#8 Amazon kindle - still a toy for geeks and book nerds, most people don’t read enough books to make owning a Kindle, let alone learning how to use one, make sense
#9 operations outsourcing - major “advancements” learned in the tech booms will continue to be learned from/re-sold. the second dot-com bust will be quieter, but see more employees dispersing to “traditional” businesses, and also taking their knowledge of process and IT back to create outsourced operations businesses.
10) rich media / RIA – primary web interface still the browser, but creation and consumption of rich media continues to expand. we’ll see YouTubes for all nature of things, essentially allowing people to group around shared experience and social objects.
UPDATE: this list is continued here (ten tech trends for tomorrow: part 2)
3D Printing, eBay should definitely look into it
By: Varun Mahajan on May 21, 2008
at 9:40 am
I’ve written about this before http://rolfskyberg.wordpress.com/2007/01/10/approachable-investment-home-fabrication/
but I’m not sure it’s going to make an impact to the end-user within the next 3 to 5 years. A good start though!
By: rolfsky on May 21, 2008
at 10:11 am
I’m telling you this much, I think the wow factor exists for the apollo ideas having online apps available on the desktop, but honestly, i don’t want that, that’s why I use ebay.com and not the apollo app, the apollo app makes me feel disconnected from it.
on another note, tagging, still think it could see better implement at ebay…
By: Kyle on May 21, 2008
at 10:15 am
I’m particularly interested in 6. Movies/Video/TV and Music are powerhouses in the entertainment industry because of their reach and simplicity to consume. I’ve long been ready to ditch ownership of physical (and even digital) media in favor of on-demand, streaming, get-what-i-want-when-i-want type access. I would pay quite a bit in the way of a subscription to have power to consumer freely. Who’s going to make it happen?
By: Jon West on May 21, 2008
at 11:21 am
One big shift is how our friends will be the filters and channels for what we do and see online. This applies to info, activities, and commerce.
I wager we won’t pay attention to much of anything unless is comes filtered through our network of trusted friends.
We will pay attention to a few brands to provide experiences we want. But friends will trump brands.
We’re experiencing this today on feeds. Imagine the newsfeed winning most of our attention in the future. Extreme view: If it’s not in my feed, it doesn’t exist (at least I won’t care if it exists).
BJ Fogg
Persuasive Technology Lab
Stanford University
By: BJ Fogg on May 21, 2008
at 4:38 pm
[...] was reading Rolf’s post “ten tech trends for tomorrow” and wanted to respond. I’ve just picked a few that I disagree with to comment on here: [...]
By: Bill Watt’s Blog » Blog Archive » Responding to Rolf on May 21, 2008
at 9:43 pm
I’ve left some comments…
http://billwattblog.org/2008/05/21/responding-to-rolf/
By: Bill Watt on May 21, 2008
at 9:53 pm
Hi Rolf, will try to respond a bit lengthier later
but I did happen to write a post on possible behavior of the next generation, pure speculation of course:
http://tinyurl.com/67y6oc
I copied this thread to Friendfeed and twitter. Let’s see what people will say
By: Alexander van Elsas on May 21, 2008
at 11:05 pm
@ BJ Fogg I agree with the concept of attention filtering, if a tool/paradigm can deliver enough of the “good stuff” we want.
Ultimately we all seek to find the good stuff we want (signal) through the “bad stuff” we don’t want (noise).
There’s big research to be done in making architectures intuitive enough to be adopted by the masses. Facebook really struck gold with “status updates”.
By: rolfsky on May 22, 2008
at 5:01 am
@Jon West & @Bill Watt
Bill, you have to understand you are the anomaly with your penchant for collecting digital media… how many TiVos do you have? Apparently Jon West is ready to make the leap!
By: rolfsky on May 22, 2008
at 5:20 am
@vanElsas I think the most visible tools of Web 2.0 were definitely suited more towards the “public personality” than the private one.
In the growth of eras it’s necessary for the first wave to be expansion, something that wouldn’t have happened if we were all merrily typing away in our own email silos.
After the “tech gonzos” become comfortable with email-via-network (and then it will inevitably expand back out of the network), the masses will follow. Ah, perhaps there’s another blog post in there…
By: rolfsky on May 22, 2008
at 5:25 am
Why just the Kindle, and not one of the other e-readers? In the Netherlands, a major newspaper (NRC Handelsblad) is now selling e-subscriptions in combination with the iRex Iliad. Other Dutch newspapers started a project called MePaper to work on usability design for news presentation on these devices. I didn’t see any results of those projects yet, but I’m really curious.
By: Sander Spek on May 23, 2008
at 2:03 am
I definately accept that I’m the odd man out there.
I’m just not sure why people are willing to settle for that when the option exists to have it all.
By: Bill Watt on May 23, 2008
at 4:57 am
@Sander Spek The Kindle was merely a victim of my whim while making that list quickly in an evening. I think eBooks hold tremendous promise, but within the next 3 to 5 years, I still see the initial price as a high hurdle to adoption. For the casual book reader, $399 is the cost of 50 books you’d pick up before you went on holiday, and you can sell/give away all those when you’re done.
(Though, easier opportunities exist in positions where you HAVE to buy books… university anyone?)
By: rolfsky on May 23, 2008
at 5:40 am
The next generation in my realm is spending 4-5 hours a day texting and using sites like facebook. Two of my 12 year old students had splints for carpal tunnel syndrome caused by this excessive texting. I think keyboards will have to change to match the user. Also can we click with our tongue? Is is so much faster to whip your tongue around than click a mouse or move your thumbs.
I also worry about the education of this new generation as they are spending so much time finding out what their friends know and basing their next action on that. I see a dumbing down of the whole educational system to match this new time stressed learner. Even though mobile net makes literally anything possible, what most kids are doing with it is very surface. And this is taking up all the time they might use to, dare I say the old fashioned word, “study”. I also see kids that are afraid to think for themselves because everything they do is by group accord. And with this comes a loss of individuality and striking out on your own creativity. It seems like they have become the borg. And you know Rolf how I despise the borg.
By: msj on May 25, 2008
at 12:56 pm
[...] tech trends for tomorrow:part 2 In an earlier post (ten tech trends for tomorrow: I need your help), I proposed 10 things to keep an eye on for the next 3 to 5 years in the internet sphere. If you [...]
By: ten tech trends for tomorrow:part 2 « Rolf Skyberg - pattern hound on June 25, 2008
at 10:18 am
Sorry I’m a little late. I just ran into your blog.
Rolf, You’ve hit a on a lot of the big ones, but I see one that’s left out, surprisingly: The 3D Web and digital stores. The presence of companies in SL is just starting to ramp up. It seemed storage that Google released Sketch Up, but then Friday they came out with Lively and it all starts to make a little more sense. There’s going to be both 3D bazaars and more sophisticated 3D stores in Lively and SL, now combined with the data portability you mentioned and brought into SL, we’ll see much more mass adoption of virtual social networking and deeper 3D environments. Could they become the new browsers? Probably a way to go, but in 5 years, maybe.
Then there’s virtualization, which is a cousin to cloud computing. Hardware is going to matter less and less now that software will be run largely on VM, both hardware and software enabled. You’ll also see portable computing environments (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9078958) and the detachment from people and companies from specific pieces of hardware, more shoved into clouds and onto storage devices.
Mashups. Non-developers can now develop a lot of really cool stuff. See the power of developers shifted down to the masses. Coghead. Google Apps.
Could we see the end of databases as we know them (http://krow.livejournal.com/590912.html)? For high volume sites, maybe. We’ll see new ways of avoiding the disk read bottleneck.
Finally, speaking of disk read bottlenecks, you’ve got the steady march of flash memory.
Consumers will need to manage and synch their Web presence, personal storage/digital assets and virtualized computing environments so that the cloud assets and the local personal assets are cohesive and protected.
For me, in biology or technology, the pattern of information evolution looks like this: Abstract->connect->recombine->create-> polish->distribute->select->repeat.
My Google reader is here: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/08793424109913706064
By: Leonard Kish on July 20, 2008
at 6:35 am