Technologizer: “How Long Do You Give the Desktop?”

This story is the third piece in a trio – to get the impact, read the third story below (or go to the home page and then scroll down 2 stories): Online shopping is growing dramatically; Online advertising will surpass print advertising this year for the first time ever; Desktop computers will soon be surpassed by smartphones for computing, convenience, and online access. No red highlights here – I think you should read this whole thing.  Visit the Technologizer site for many more great tech takes, including yesterday’s story on the “The Secret Origin of Windows” which describes how Microsoft’s product manager was told that shipping the new Windows software “was a path toward a ruined career.” How Long Do You Give the Desktop? By Harry McCracken  |  Posted at 10:38 am on Thursday, March 4, 2010 One of the big subjects of debate on the Interwebs this morning is a big, existential technological question: Are phones on the cusp of replacing PCs? Don Dodge (presently of Google, formerly of Microsoft) thinks so: The future of computing is that your cell phone will become your primary computer, communicator, camera, and entertainment device, all in one. The exciting new applications are running in the browser, with application code and data in the cloud, and the cell phone as a major platform.  I think in the near future there will be docking stations everywhere with a screen and a keyboard. You simply pull out your phone, plug it into the docking station, and instantly all your applications and data are available to you. So does Google Europe sales chief John Herlihy, as quoted by a Silicon Republic story: “In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs,” Herlihy told a baffled audience, echoing comments by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the recent GSM Association Mobile World Congress 2010 that everything the company will do going forward will be via a mobile lens, centring on the cloud, computing and connectivity. BetaNews’s Joe Wilcox basically agrees with Herlihy: Three years — most certainly five — is not an unrealistic time horizon at all. Even if it proves wrong, Google is acting like change will come rapidly. Last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt asserted the company would put mobile first — yes, before the PC. There is no Windows monopoly on mobile handsets to stop Google, Apple or any other would-be mobile competitor from rapidly advancing. Cloud services, whether delivered by applications or browsers, promise anytime and anywhere access to anything. On Twitter, meanwhile, folks like Microsoft PR head Frank Shaw, Gizmodo editor Brian Lam, and analysts Michael Gartenberg and Ian Fogg chimed in: @fxshaw I am sure that Don wrote this post on his android phone. @blam just going to say, for non geeks, the phone is more accessible than the computer. @gartenberg The phone *is* important but it will not become MY primary computer, communicator, camera, and entertainment device. Nor yours either. @ianfogg42 If primary = most time spent, then I think the iPhone is already my primary computer. A few thoughts about this enormous topic, in no particular order: Phones already are PCs–they just happen to be really small ones that don’t run exactly the same operating systems as their bigger brethren. The vast majority of interesting applications are already highly mobile, networked creations. When was the last time that a brand-new piece of PC (or Mac) software was a huge deal? True, not all interesting apps are available in great smartphone versions yet. But they will be. Old devices usually give way to new ones over time. But they usually don’t utterly vanish. And predictions about timetables are almost always wrong–they’re often either far too quick or far too slow. A device can be both pervasive and–in terms of innovation and mindshare–kind of irrelevant. The FM radio is already there. Thinking of desktop PCs (ie, non-notebooks) as FM radios isn’t crazy. I don’t see the need for large screens and full-sized QWERTY going away, ever. But there’s no reason why they must be connected to a dedicated, full-blown computing device in every situation. Like Don Dodge, I’ve long thought that we’ll end up with screens and keyboards that can talk to our phones. (I don’t think it’ll be done via docking stations, though–it’ll all be wireless so our phones can stay in our pockets.) We don’t need to look into the future to see an era in which many people find phones as valuable in their own way as traditional PCs–it’s here today, and really got underway with the introduction of the BlackBerry more than a decade ago. If virtually all of your data and much of your applications end up living on the cloud, the idea of a death match between PCs and phones starts to sound silly. You’ll use both–as well as great big screens like TVs–and they’ll all be portals to your real computer, which is…the Internet.

Outsell: U.S. Advertisers To Spend More On Digital Than Print

Add this to the ecommerce article below, and it’s an overwhelming vision.  The shift of advertisers to directing “dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding” leads exactly to DubLi’s long-term strategy of getting a huge community of shoppers to rely on DubLi for information, bargains, and overall ecommerce.  DubLi Founder Michael Hansen’s vision of interactive, targeted ads sent to cellphones, with credited rewards for viewing the ads, comes to mind here.  (Watch him describe this vision in this 70-min. video.) This is no small undertaking:  the effort is gargantuan in scope and could be Amazon-like in the future.  Wise business people and investors will bide their time, just as Amazon’s investors had to wait nearly an entire decade just to see a profit occur. Red highlights belong to my upline "Antipaper". http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.642d53c67e2bcaf6302164c0de9f8c70.3d1&show_article=1 Mar 8 01:44 PM US/Eastern US companies will spend more this year on digital and online advertising and marketing than on print for the first time ever, according to a study released on Monday. Companies will spend 119.6 billion dollars on online and digital strategies and 111.5 billion dollars on newspaper and magazine advertisements and other print campaigns, according to the study by California-based Outsell. Outsell, which provides research and advisory services to the publishing and information industries, described the spending shift as “an industry milestone crossover event.” It said overall US spending on advertising and marketing will increase by 1.2 percent in 2010 to 368 billion dollars. Outsell said 63 billion dollars, or 52.8 percent of total online advertising spending by companies, would be on their own websites, which it said constitutes a “powerful form of direct to customer marketing.” “Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding,” Outsell vice president and lead analyst Chuck Richard said. “As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they’re spreading their spending over a widening set of options,” he said. By category, Outsell said spending on print newspaper advertising was expected to drop 8.2 percent to 27 billion dollars while print magazine advertising will rise 1.9 percent this year to 9.4 billion dollars. US newspapers and magazines have been facing declining print advertising revenue, falling circulation and the migration of readers to free news online. Outsell said that spending on direct mail marketing campaigns would rise 2.7 percent to 24.4 billion dollars and spending on custom print publications would be 3.0 percent higher at 19.3 billion dollars. Spending on print directories would fall 8.3 percent to 11.6 billion dollars while spending on print newsletters would be flat at 11.4 billion dollars. “2010 will not suddenly erase the painful memory of crumbling ad spending in 2009, but it will provide much closer to a flat year for several of the traditional media types,” Outsell said. “This means that publishers with significant shares of traditional media in the mix and who pounded their expenses and debt into shape sufficient to survive the brutal 2009 should be able to carry on at those levels in 2010.” Spending on television advertising was forecast to drop 6.5 percent to 59.6 billion dollars. Outsell surveyed more than 1,000 US advertisers in December 2009 for its annual “Marketing and Advertising Study 2010.”

Forrester Research: U.S. Web Retail Sales To Reach $249 Billion By 2014

The shift from stores to internet is happening right before us.  I don’t think this study factors in the two dramatic expectations: 1. The tipping point is coming when it’s common knowledge that online shopping is cheaper and more convenient (you’d think everyone would know this by now, but “8 percent of total U.S. retail sales within five years” means 9 out of 10 dollars are still spent in stores) – the word will soon spread and dramatic exponential growth will occur.  Remember not too long ago when such a large percentage of people voiced concerns over the safety of online shopping?  I rarely hear those kinds of comments any more. 2. The move from inconvenient, immobile desktops to “shop/transact anywhere” smart phones will accelerate this process. This will be fun to watch …  Red highlights belong to my upline "Antipaper". http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100308/wr_nm/us_retail_online_1 Mon Mar 8, 1:13 pm ET SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Online retail sales in the United States could reach $248.7 billion by 2014, growing 60 percent from 2009, according to a study released on Monday. Driven by a 10 percent compound annual growth rate, the projected $248.7 billion is expected to account for 8 percent of total U.S. retail sales within five years, according to Forrester Research, which authored the study. Online sales, which slowed in the downturn, have still managed to outpace sales at U.S. brick-and-mortar stores. The National Retail Federation expects 2.5 percent growth in total retail sales in 2010, well below the 11 percent online growth rate that Forrester projects — the same as in 2009. With more consumers comfortable with shopping online and retailers investing more in their online operations, the online sector has been steadily growing, driven by robust growth at Amazon.com Inc, the industry leader. Amazon.com posted 42 percent sales growth in its most recent fourth quarter. Forrester expects consumer electronics and apparel, accessories and footwear to lead the growth, while sales of computer hardware and software will slow. Still, the bulk of total computer product sales is made online. About 52 percent of computer product sales was made online in 2009, compared with 9 percent for apparel and 14 percent for electronics. Forrester’s online sales numbers do not include sales from vehicles, travel or prescription drugs. In Western Europe, online retail sales are projected to increase by 68 percent from 68 billion euros in 2009 to 114 billion euros by 2014. “The pan-European marketplace is still in a stage of healthy late new-market growth,” wrote Forrester.