GFK Tech trends 2013

1. $

2. Introduction
A range of influences will
shape the technological
landscape of 2013.
Economic conditions will
continue to constrain
growth, the emergence of
new markets will present
unique opportunities and
challenges, and our growing
interconnectedness will
further accentuate the
successes and failures of
2 industry stakeholders.
From innovation to disruption,
how is our relationship with
technology evolving? And
what does it mean for those
seeking to navigate these
changes? Here we present six
trends for 2013 and beyond.
Tech Trends

3. Contents
P.04 Intelligent design:
HOW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
ARE GETTING TO KNOW US
P.06 Open-source:
HOW NEW MODELS ARE CHALLENGING
THE NATURE OF BUSINESS
P.08 F
rom push to pull:
WHY INFORMATION OVERLOAD IS
CHANGING CONSUMER Behavior
P.10 The disruption of hardware:
HOW THE CLOUD IS CHANGING THE
BASIS OF COMPETITION
P.12 A brand of me:
HOW THE ONLINE ENVIRONMENT IS
3
MAKING THINGS MORE PERSONAL
P.14 The data agenda:
FROM PRIVACY CONCERNS TO
OWNERSHIP QUESTIONS
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4. 01 Intelligent design:
how products and
services are getting
to know us
Much has been written on the subject Perhaps the most prominent examples
of artificial intelligence. While the of this incorporation of behavioral data
debate regarding the singularity have been in the fields of discovery and
(the technological creation of recommendation and, unsurprisingly
superintelligence) continues, there therefore, also advertising.
is little doubt that the products and
Where we once relied on explaining
services we use every day are becoming
our tastes to people in record stores
more intelligent in their design.
for personalized recommendations, we
4 In particular, the incorporation of now have access to a plethora of digital
behavioral data (essentially, our past services (Amazon, Genius, etc.) offering to
actions) is increasingly used to create do the same. The ability of these services
products and services that are tailored to instantly draw on your existing music
around us at an individual level. collection and past behavior allows them
»» The Nest thermostat uses sensors to tailor recommendations around your
individual tastes.
and algorithms to detect when you’re
at home and to learn a personalized As data availability increases, the
temperature schedule. algorithms underpinning these products
»» Siri attempts to move beyond voice and services will become more complex.
recognition, using other data stored Rich (and largely untapped) sources of
on your phone to increase the range data include our environment (where we
of tasks it can fulfill. are, what we’re doing) and our emotional
»» EcoDrive collects data on emissions state (reading our personality as well as
and fuel consumption to provide tips our actions). The addition of this more
on reducing the environmental impact nuanced individual data promises more
of your driving. sophisticated, personalized interactions.
»» These innovations are trying to
The business opportunities are
serve our future needs better by
potentially huge. Taking content
understanding and learning from our
recommendation as a case study, as the
past actions.
No data Behavioral data Contextual data
Tech Trends

5. AI
amount of media we can access increases
(see trend 5, ‘A brand of me’), the need
for more effective recommendation
will be paramount. Additionally, as
consumption habits continue to fragment
with the growth of streaming and on-
demand services, providers will require
more sophisticated ways to increase the
discoverability of their content.
5
There are also implications for loyalty.
If we assume that these products and
services will better understand us the
longer they spend getting to know us,
then switching to a competitor could
(at least initially) result in diminished
performance, reducing the temptation to
churn. Additionally, in terms of consumer
engagement, better integration with our
lives potentially allows brands to build
more emotional bonds with users.
While we’ll be watching the most
engaged, aspirational consumers for means a loss of serendipity, and
the earliest indications of these trends, potentially a narrowing of our horizons.
there are also significant implications Furthermore, giving up control by
for less engaged segments. Intelligently allowing intelligently designed products
designed products and services will and services to make decisions on our
lessen our burden in setting up and behalf raises questions about the societal
learning how to use them, removing a role we’re giving to them. Technology,
key barrier to entry for late adopters after all, “recognizes no self-limiting
and developing markets. principle” (Schumacher, 1973). Ultimately,
However, there are also social as our technology gets to know us, it’ll be
implications to consider. Increasingly up to us to decide how much power we
tailored (and therefore, filtered) content hand down to it.
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6. 02 OPEN-SOURCE: HOW
NEW MODELS ARE
CHALLENGING THE
NATURE OF BUSINESS
Hobbyists have always played an the scope for growth in 3D printing is
important role in the development huge. At a similar stage in its infancy
of technology. From the Homebrew Napster embedded an ideal of freely
Computer Club (an informal group of exchanging content that became hard
technology enthusiasts in the seventies to push back as the technology moved
and eighties, many of whom went on into the mainstream. Instead, business
to play important roles for Apple and models fought, lost, and eventually had
Microsoft) to the modern day Maker to evolve around the culture of piracy
Movement (who blend technological that Napster kick-started. It’s not
6 innovation with traditional DIY skills), outlandish to suggest that the culture
they can often be found at the of participation and crowd-sourcing
boundaries of what we consider possible. ingrained in the Maker Movement could
Most recently, a series of trends are therefore challenge the orthodoxies of
coming together to empower the traditional business.
latter, potentially giving them as much
disruptive potential as their Silicone
Valley predecessors.
The disruptive impact of technology “Underpinning
on traditional business is no longer a
surprise. The music, film and publishing
all of these
industries all had to navigate such
changes with the emergence of the
ideas is the
internet, where copyright infringement inclusion of
was often central to the narrative. The
potential impact of the Maker Movement the consumer;
on the manufacturing industry, just as
the first 3D printers come to market,
whether in the
could equally threaten the current form development,
of patent system.
It’s a particularly important time
pricing, or
for 3D printers, given the historical
precedent of the content industries.
distribution
Though currently far from mainstream, of the product.”
Tech Trends

7. A more active, participatory role for
consumers is not a new idea. For
example, there are parallels between
the Choose Your Own Adventure books
(where children assumed the role of
protagonist, and were allowed to make
choices resulting in different plots), and
some of the propositions on Kickstarter
(a funding platform for creative
projects, where financial investment is 7
incentivised by giving investors a say in
the decision making process).
Indeed, Kickstarter is one of a number of
services testing new funding models for
products and services. Another is Quirky,
designed to enable social product
development by providing a community
that will evaluate ideas and potentially
deliver them to market. Pricing models
are also being explored; the Humble
Bundle offered a pay-what-you-want
structure and was rewarded with $1.1m
of sales in less than two weeks for a
collection of DRM–free eBooks.
Underpinning all of these ideas is the
inclusion of the consumer; whether in disruption are largely in place. How the
the development, pricing, or distribution current patent system will adapt to
of the product. Coupled with the growth these new open business models, and
of the Maker Movement and 3D printing, whether it can keep up, remain to be
which remove many of the traditional seen. As Chris Anderson, editor of Wired
barriers to entry in the manufacturing notes, ‘The real revolution here is not in
space, and the ingredients for the creation of the technology, but the
innovation, transformation and democratization of the technology.’
Copyright GfK

8. 03 From push to pull:
why information
overload is changing
consumer behavior
The internet changed the way we »» Instapaper provides an easy way to
communicate. With email and the save and catalogue web pages you
social feeds that followed, we increased come across during the day, allowing
the speed of our communications to you to come back to articles as and
instant. More recently, thanks to the when you have time to read then
shift to mobile, our exposure to these »» The Little Printer from Berg Cloud
communications has proliferated, creating can automate a personalised
an ‘always-on’ society where interactions newspaper print-out for your morning
happen in real-time, rather than when we commute, incorporating your to-do
8 choose to fit them into our lives. list, news headlines, and messages
from your friends
Even when we’re not being demanded to
provide real-time responses, we find our »» Undrip integrates and curates your
social feeds, attempting to filter out
attention drawn to information streams
anything that isn’t directly relevant
as news breaks, conversations take place,
and opinions are formed. »» iDoneThis provides a daily update of
what everyone in a team or organisation
The internet has enabled a transition achieved, trying to reduce the time
from not having enough information, spent micro-managing
but left us with too much. A range of
The philosophical underpinning for these
innovative new products and services
products and services has been loosely
have responded to this overload,
described as Slow Web thinking. The Slow
attempting to help us optimise these
Web movement takes its inspiration (and
information streams and thus shaping
name) from the Slow Food movement,
the next stage in the evolution of
founded by Carlo Petrini in 1986. Where
information accessibility.
the Slow Food movement encompasses
Pre-internet Behavioral data Contextual data
Not enough Too much Optimal
information information information
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9. a range of ethical and environmental
considerations as a broad counterpoint
to the growth of fast food, the Slow Web
movement acknowledges the merits of
the real-time web while suggesting that
“users should not be slaves to it.”
There are historical comparisons to
be made with these products and
services. For example, there are parallels 9
between the success of games like Draw
Something and Words with Friends
(which allow people to take turns
against each other, alternately making
moves in their own time) and play-by-
post chess games that enable users to
play each other despite being separated
by geography.
However, there’s something unique to
services like Instapaper and Undrip.
They’re directly responding to a
consumer need to shape information
and communication around their lives,
rather than vice versa. The increasing
intelligence inherent in products and
services (see other trends) will further
enhance their ability to do so.
instead think about how to converse with
The implication for service providers is
consumers at the right time and place.
clear: content and information delivery
systems should better fit within our With traditional consumption continuing
needs and lifestyles. In communications to fragment and the growth of on-
with consumers, there’s a need to shift demand media, trying to integrate
away from a focus on shouting loudest seemlessly with individual consumer
or most often (share of voice), and lifestyles is no longer optional.
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10. 04 THE DISRUPTION OF
HARDWARE: HOW THE
CLOUD IS CHANGING THE
BASIS OF COMPETITION
Two trends underpin the evolution Essentially, as we start to hold more of
of computing; increasing power and our information in the cloud, the future
decreasing size. From the first moment of personal hardware becomes about
that computers arrived in our homes, to access rather than computation.
the evolution of desktops and laptops,
Another example is the launch of
and now the shift to mobiles and tablets,
Amazon’s new Silk browser. Utilizing a
mobility has always been a key driver in
split architecture that allows the device
the evolution of hardware.
to do some processing remotely via
As smartphones become increasingly Amazon Web Services, Silk is seeking
10
powerful, they’re also faced with to employ the cloud to improve the
practical and physical limitations. For user experience on hardware with lower
example, there’s no way to make a technical performance.
touch screen device any smaller without
It isn’t hard to envision this trend
impacting the user experience. One
extending across a wider range of
possible conclusion is that the next
hardware. Indeed, with the onset of
disruption in hardware is the removal of
the screen altogether. Indeed, as services
like Siri become more sophisticated, it’s
not impossible to imagine interacting
with a device entirely through speech.
“As we start to
More likely in the interim, given the
importance still placed on viewable
hold more of our
content, is that the basis of competition information in the
shifts away from the mobility of
computing power altogether. cloud, the future
In this context, the employee-driven of personal
trend towards ‘bring your own device’
(BYOD) policies can be seen as an hardware
early indicator. As mobile devices are
increasingly used to access data which
becomes about
isn’t native to them, the need to carry
multiple devices to access different
access rather
streams (personal, work etc.) lessens. than computation.”
Tech Trends

11. the ‘Internet of Things’ (a term used to
describe the extension of connectivity
beyond computers, to a much wider
range of devices and appliances), a shift
to computing in the cloud seems natural.
As core computational elements
shift to the cloud, the opportunities
for innovation and differentiation in
hardware design will increase. Freed from 11
current limitations imposed
by interface and processing
requirements, device manufacturers
could explore new form factors beyond
today’s categorizations.
With lower barriers to entry for hardware
manufacturing (and more open, flexible
business models – see trend 2), we
could also see increasing customization
and personalization of hardware. This
would mirror recent developments in
software, where the success of apps
has been partly driven by their role
in personalizing the device around
individual needs rather than a uniform
‘out of the box’ user experience.
For businesses, this trend creates a There could also be a significant
number of opportunities. Notably, the impact in emerging markets, where
greater the breadth of data held in affordability remains a significant barrier
the cloud, the greater the potential for to consumption. The production of
Big Data analytics. Understanding this low-priced hardware with access to high
data will increasingly drive competitive performance processing could transform
advantages across a range of industries. the current marketplace.
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12. 05 A BRAND OF ME:
HOW THE ONLINE
ENVIRONMENT IS
MAKING THINGS
MORE PERSONAL
As the pace of technological change picks became the first to pass $1 million in
up, market disruptions are becoming sales having built her personal brand to
more frequent. It’s hard for brands to amass 17,000 followers on the service.
keep up, but it can be equally hard for
2. Coursera is a platform offering
individuals. As innovative new products
courses from leading universities in an
and services change the way we work,
attempt to “overcome the boundaries
career paths and skill sets are changing
of geography, time and money”.
with them; a job for life is becoming a
thing of the past, and we are increasingly While these distribution and qualification
12 multidisciplinary by necessity. platforms can largely be seen as ‘pull’
effects (that is, we have access to them
The most visible impact of this trend
if and when we need to use them), there
is evident in the media and content
are also ‘push’ effects driving online
industries. As the music, film, and
personal branding. Crucially, as a result
publishing industries have been disrupted
of our growing fondness for social media,
and the income of the artists involved
we’re progressively branding ourselves
has become less secure, many have
by accident.
looked to diversify their revenue streams
in order to safeguard their livelihood. The thought of potential employers
trawling through our digital history may
For those with an individual brand
be a concern, but it also provides an
(typically authors, musicians etc.) this
opportunity to market ourselves better.
can involve a number of facets, from
Essentially, the traditional job application
embarking on speaking tours to selling
process is being supplemented by its
their own content and merchandise. One
online counterpart.
key enabling factor in their ability to do
so is the increasing ease of distribution. While we can expect these trends to
apply primarily to more tech-orientated
The list of services harnessing
job roles at first, comparison with the
technology to improve (and cheapen)
history of social networking suggests
distribution is long and getting longer.
that a trickle down to the rest of society
For example, in education:
will follow. There’s already a market for
1. TeachersPayTeachers is a platform purchasing Twitter followers and LinkedIn
for teachers to share (and monetize) endorsements, indicating how seriously
lesson plans. Deanna Jump recently personal branding is being taken by some.
Tech Trends

13. Traditional Traditional Traditional 13
qualifications references interview
LinkedIn CV Followers, Interactions,
Coursera-type services Connections Comments
Endorsements Opinions
It is debatable what impact this will followers demonstrates that there is
ultimately have on our current economic value in creating a more trustworthy
structure. It’s certainly hard to imagine social currency. There are also issues to
the disruption of our education system be solved in discoverability. In a global
or a working life that revolves around workforce, with almost no limits on
multiple projects rather than a single job, distribution, the amount of data and
and yet, increasingly, the preconditions content available is going to increase
for such disruption are in place. If the exponentially. Helping individuals to
history of the Internet has told us cut through this information and put
anything, it’s not to underestimate its themselves in front of an engaged
inherent capacity for driving significant audience is going to be even more
societal change. valuable than it was in the heyday
of the traditional record, film and
The opportunity for business is
publishing industries.
primarily in enabling this Brand of Me.
The market for purchasing Twitter
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14. 06 The data agenda:
from privacy
concerns to
ownership questions
Data privacy concerns have been high on with increasingly sophisticated facial
the technology agenda for some time. recognition software, means that
The success of business models based on we’re rapidly moving to a point where
monetizing personal data suggests these anonymity is an issue in our offline, as
concerns are yet to influence consumer much as in our online, lives.
behavior significantly, but there has also
The most prescient questions regarding
been widespread acknowledgement that
our personal data are no longer related to
such businesses need to communicate
its privacy, but to who owns it in the first
better what data they’re collecting and
14 place. To explore these questions, we can
how it’s being used.
draw three broad categories of personal
The collection of our personal data data: (Figure 01).
is both enabled, and necessitated,
By its nature, the last category is
by the nature of our digital world. As
exempt from data ownership questions
more aspects of our lives shift online,
at an individual level. Whether offline
the data produced (whether passively,
or online, we can’t hope to control what
through our online behavior, or actively
others project onto us, only how we
through uploading photos etc.) increases
respond to it. Instead, most ownership
exponentially. Monetizing this data
questions relate to where the distinction
drives the business model for many
between the first two categories lies.
‘free’ online services, and behavioral
economics teaches us that a price point Part of the reason for these concerns is
is hard to shift once it’s been ingrained; a tendency to take a reactive attitude
these business models are here to stay. to our personal data. Privacy questions
have tended to emerge after we’ve given
Up to this point, the key difference
away control, not before. Consequently,
between the online and the offline
there’s a significant market opportunity
worlds has been the accessibility of
for services that would encourage us to
this data. However, the evolution of
take a more proactive attitude as these
technology means we can no longer draw
questions become more important.
a simple online vs. offline dichotomy
in relation to privacy concerns. For Essentially, if our individual data is
example, the growth of public (and already being monetized, then it’s up
private) closed-circuit television (CCTV) to us to decide where and by whom.
networks in many countries, coupled By taking ownership of it, through
Tech Trends

15. $
$ $
$ $
$
15
Inherited data Owned data Earned data
Innate data about Data you’ve published: Data projected onto you
yourself: genetics, LinkedIn profiles, by others: being tagged
habits, preferences, Twitter comments, in Facebook photos,
your friends, family, Instagram photos, blog endorsements on
colleagues, etc. posts etc. LinkedIn, other people
referencing you etc.
Figure 01
controlling our inherited and earned will be on business to justify their need
data, we could sell access to different for it. Communicating the consumer
elements of it as and when we choose benefits of collecting data will become
to. Services such as Mydex are already more important, and transparency
seeking to create this more transparent will be paramount. The opportunities
dynamic between individuals and are significant; where businesses have
businesses. The opportunities for the greater access, competitive advantage will
latter are significant; enabling greater increasingly be driven by leveraging this
accessibility would allow for ever more data. The potential to understand your
tailored, personalized services. customers is increasingly exponentially,
but so too is the threat of your
In a world where consumers are taking
competitors understanding them better.
ownership of their data, and proactively
deciding when to use it, the impetus
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For more information please contact
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