trends

That’s A Lot of Business Cards . . .

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When talking with an artist at Anime North, they'd noticed it seemed they were collecting an awful lot of business cards.  By the end of the convention I had to agree – it seemed that a lot more people had business cards, be they for their own business or just personal contact.  I certainly left with quite a few of them.

Perhaps it's just me, but I honestly feel people are using business cards a lot more, including for personal contact and for their hobbies.  It's to the point where I think we may need a new term for "non-business" business cards.

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Is Everything an App?

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iPhone Apps.  Android Apps.  Google TV will have Apps.  It seems everything is becoming an App.

Now I'm all for some interesting slang, but I think what we're seeing is something deeper here.

An "App" of course is short for Application, such as a Word Processor, only it seems the term is broadening.  You can turn your book into an App, you can make an App that's a game, you can make an App that interfaces with Social Media services.  It seems that the "App" really is a term for "something specific you do on a piece of technology."

I think this is great because it actually brings out an important truth about our media and our technologies – they're about doing things and getting information.  It's all Apps.

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Frustration Friday: Lawsuits From The Sweet Spot

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Frustration Friday: Lawsuits from the Sweet Spot

So, as usual we hear about various lawsuits in IT this week.  Ironically I could be writing this column any week in the past decade and you could be nodding your head.  For that matter, for all you know I wrote this column two years ago – and I'm still right.

So, anyway, the usual IT lawsuits are flying about, it seems like there's quite an extensive web of them, especially in mobile IT as of late.  This company sues that company over patents, this company sues another, etc.  It's like a very strange game of tag, where everyone gets to be it.

Now it's too easy to dismiss these lawsuits as being about greed, stupidity, or both, but I'd like to suggest that we keep another reason for the constant Technical Law Suit Tsunamis that we progeeks see and wring our hands over.

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