Predicting Tech Failures: Asking for Push Back
January 19, 2009
Nicole Ferraro is tougher than this old goose. She wrote “Troubled Technologies: An ’09 Watch List” here in Internet Evolution. She refers to “this report” and I am not sure if the article is the report or if the article is summarizing the report. I did figure out that she has arrived at a list that contains six items. I don’t want to reproduce the full list, but I want to highlight two of the technologies on “watch” and offer a couple of observations.
She taps targeted advertising as ripe for failure. Google, based on my examination of its patent applications, has done some thinking about targeting ads. Now the way patent applications are written, the method can apply to operations “one skilled in the art” will note. Google has taken the trouble to file for a patent for a number of targeted advertising methods. I am not willing to bet against the GOOG. Ms. Ferraro may know something Google doesn’t know.
She also identifies enterprise social networking as a potential flop. I personally don’t trust social networks anywhere. But that’s just my familiarity with how these social systems can be spoofed. Whether it is Belkin paying for positive product reviews or Reddit users ganging up on an unpopular poster, social means spoofable or manipulable. But I recognize that anyone younger than 24 probably has social Web sites hard wired into their spinal column. When these folks arrive at work, social networks arrive. Done deal. Like it or not, the enterprise will have to adapt to the demographic reality when young employees walk in each morning.
I have some comments about the other four technologies on watch, but you will enjoy looking at the list and determining if you agree strongly, agree, disagree, or disagree strongly with her selections. For a subjective whack at making quite a few vendors eager to buttonhole the writer, I am on the fence and will remain firmly anchored in that spot.
Oh, search and content processing, business intelligence, and text mining are not on her list. I can name one technology that is a definite for life support. But I am not putting that information here.
Stephen Arnold, January 19, 2009
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