What lies ahead

What lies ahead? That’s a dangerous game, in this era, as I suggested in 2020 (The Changes A-coming). But with an eye on the tech future, I thought I’d rummage around in the basement of gadgets, and content, and the mechanisms to both deliver content to gadgets and for the gadgets themselves to be something … Read more

Sponsored content: the bait and switch

Sponsored content on big media name platforms is not what you think it is. Increasingly, companies are paying well-known journalism brands to produce and host sponsored content. The deal is this: you pay a big name media platform to write something nice about you and they put it on their website. If you squint you … Read more

beware the theatre of digital first

I’m a big fan of digital challengers to old technopolies — I’ve moved everything I can from big telco to MVNOs, big bank to neobank, cable TV to Netflix and its ilk, from big taxi to ride hailing. But there are plenty of challenges. One of them is this, highlighted by Chris Skinner on his … Read more

why big-name apps are stuck in the core

There’s a graveyard somewhere with the word Core on it. Relying on a core function is a killer. Think Dropbox. Twitter. Whatsapp. Evernote. All apps heading for Core Graveyard. Here’s the thing. In the old days the way to get your app noticed was to offer something no one else did, or did as well/cheaply. … Read more