We Germans are a nation, which mastered recycling (“Less than one per cent of the remaining waste ends up as landfill.”) and others ask for advice. And we certainly export that success as well. Hence, it might not be far fetched to say, that I like to re-use leftovers from our consumer society. And this might be because of the place, the time and how I grew up.
I just used Foursquare today, to show, that I am reading the new print edition of The Economist. Recycling (using) a service for my purpose because I can, and the flexibility given by Foursquare’s design. And I am not aware about any other service that lets me tell ‘I am reading the new print edition of The Economist with a good cup of tea.’ Newspapers and print magazines are at the end of their life-cycle anyway, who would want to develop a service for a scarce activity anyway? Twitter is asking me ‘What’s happening?’ (in 140 characters) or Facebook, but that routine lost already its cool I think. Yes, it has its multipurpose as (intentional) simple platform, but I can’t collect badges, have statistics and so forth.
What I wanted to reinforce with this post, that I used Foursquare for something different, is the thought about innovation. Innovations (and economic growth) are, in reality, many small steps towards the optimization of a current situation. A current business. A current technology. A current idea or theory. There is nothing like the big bang of innovation and something new. Before the modern Internet, there was dial-up. Before the telephone, there was the telegraph. Before nuclear energy (early 1950s), there was the atomic bomb (WWII). There was already some primitive form there (a use case), and somebody or many had the eureka effect or the need to do it differently or knew somehow how to do it better (a new use case/need). For the business case example; todays Google wasn’t the same Google it was 10 years ago. Todays Microsoft wasn’t the same Microsoft it was 20 years ago. Apple, now the embodiment for mobile devices, design and usability. Tomorrows marijuana might not be used primarily to have a Rausch, but it is already used in some places to help patients cope with chronic pain. Examples extended to politics as well, where California’s direct democracy system (state’s initiative process) will be adopted by the EU through the Lisbon treaty (Sub req).
So, how long do I have to wait for the vertical of Foursquare that asks me ‘What are you doing?’ (Hello Twitter) to collect points, badges, ranks and making a game out of it? Or will Foursquare and Gowalla make a small step forward towards my need and adopt general activities like reading a book or magazine, sport, cycling to work, playing chess or a video game? Redesigning it towards a platform for activities in general (with or without geo-location).
Speaking of convergence and the shortening life-cycle of introduction, adoption, mass-use, and the dying of a service or product which would make an interesting new topic. Or the question whether the current form of democracy in America has reached the point of ineffectiveness or not, and small steps of optimization are necessary unintentional. Two things, technology/SAAS and politics/society, which have a vastly different life-cycle time.
PS: I have not blogged throughout January for some reasons, but I will do my best to find topics for more than 50 words and or just thoughts, links, and illustrations (see my tumblr). Because this here is a very joyous, rich and far reaching exercise for my mind.
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