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David Shing, AOL's 'Digital Prophet'. Dublin Web Summit

Smartphone explosion - and 10 other predictions your business should know

AOL’s Digital Prophet David Shing was speaking at the Dublin Web Summit today.

THE MAN WHO AOL trusts to predict future trends in online and social media has told the Dublin Web Summit that he believes smartphones and mobiles are where people will spend most of their internet-surfing time in the near future.

David Shing, who kicked off the conference on the main stage at the RDS this morning, said that there were 1 billion smartphones in the globe. The smartphone, he said, should no longer be referred to as a second or third screen (behind, say, your laptop or desktop PC) but was for many, their “first screen”.

As a result, online companies had to begin creating mobile-compatible apps which properly addressed their users’ needs.

The shock-haired Australian gave a sharp and snappy presentation – these are some of his predictions:

  • The landline is dead. Shing says he has a landline number but it connects to a florist in London as a joke because he doesn’t believe in communicating by phone call.
  • ‘Likes’ on Facebook and other social networks are a “rubbish” concept. Only 18 per cent of people who ‘like’ a brand have any intention of buying one of their products.
  • There will be a backlash in social media as it starts to get too diluted and, dare we say it, stalker-like – eg, allowing you to pick your seat on an airplane beside someone you spot on LinkedIn who you want to connect with.
  • The backlash will take the form of defriending, unfollowing, culling our social networks.
  • Allowing people to interact isn’t just letting them comment – sharing videos, audio and pictures are also tools of empowerment.
  • “Attention is the new currency”: the web has become “overwhelming” so curation of niche interests will be important.
  • Authenticity and active engagement: that’s what users want now.
  • Generic advertising is out – it has to be tailored to users’ interests.
  • Location is vital for mobile services to tailor towards where you are, when you’re there, what you’re doing there.
  • It will be all about video calls on our phone by 2015.

And his lessons for companies trying to harness social networks? Harness pre-existing communities, constantly innovate even if it means failing sometimes (“fail-forward”, apparently).

Read: Coder Dojo founder, aged 20, honoured at Web Summit>

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    Mute Niall Dorr
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    Oct 17th 2012, 6:16 PM

    His comments seem out if date..His future thinking!!! would of been visionary ten years ago.

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    Mute jackass ireland
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    Oct 17th 2012, 8:21 PM

    The “futurist” from AOL. His office is next to the chief technology officer’s for Netscape. Who in their right mind would open any technology conference with someone from AOL? My 9 year old can give better predictions than this guy.

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    Mute Stephen O'Callaghan
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    Oct 17th 2012, 8:50 PM

    @Jackass. Spot on. I thought the author was taking the Pisa.

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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Oct 18th 2012, 8:14 AM

    Was just thinking the same, they’re more likes statements of the present and recent past.

    Here’s a prediction:

    I predict a backlash against the current model for the cloud, in the future cloud services will be personal, people will retain all their data in the cloud, but in their own personal household server, out of the reach of major corporations.

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    Mute Barry O'Brien
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    Oct 18th 2012, 9:55 AM

    That’s a very good point Paul. My biggest gripe with ‘the cloud’ is SaaS (Software as a Service). This means instead of buying a program and running it locally on your own computer, your computer becomes no more than a terminal and instead you pay a subscription to use the software and it runs remotely on servers. This effectively gives some corporation control over all your work and you pay them for it!

    Storage in ‘the cloud’ is also something to be wary of. I do use cloud storage for things like duplicating my photos to dropbox. If I lost my phone they are already backed up and no need to remember to backup manually. However I wouldn’t use cloud storage as my main storage. What if dropbox went bust and everything was lost? Look at what happened to Geocities – they had a substantial portion of the early web on their servers and then flicked a switch and a chunk of web history was gone. Look at the @ireland.com email contoversy now. No corporation cares about end users, they care about $$$. So to trust them with your work and data is simply crazy.

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    Mute Simon Moore
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    Oct 18th 2012, 10:13 AM

    already possible Paul with the likes of the Western Digital Personal Network Cloud device, its physically in your home but accessible anywhere on the web, but still secure. works well so far

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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Oct 18th 2012, 11:33 AM

    It’s far too easy to loose everything in the cloud through no fault of your own, or at the whim of the service provider.
    I’m the same, dropbox is handy for on the fly backup, but you really do need everything at home.

    @Simon, I’ll check that out! I’m also thinking of trying to build something like that myself as a bit of a project.

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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Oct 18th 2012, 11:41 AM

    Yeah, dropbox is great for on the fly back-up, but I’d never leave anything there full time. Imagine loosing all your data in a flash, possibly at the whim of your service provider. Not a nice thought.
    @Simon, nice one, I’ll check that out. I’m considering building my own system as a little project. Lots to learn!

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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Oct 18th 2012, 11:42 AM

    the comment section on here is weird, I posted, nothing there, I refreshed twice, nothing there. I posted again, both show up!

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    Mute Stephen Downey
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    Oct 17th 2012, 6:27 PM

    Long wavy hair on people with large foreheads will also become a thing of the past.

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    Mute Barry O'Brien
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:20 PM

    I don’t want to say it’s aliens… But ALIENS!!!

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    Mute Paul Kane
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    Oct 17th 2012, 10:30 PM

    Where can I like this?

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    Mute Steven Smyth
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    Oct 17th 2012, 6:07 PM

    Is that an invisible mobile phone I don’t see in his hand? I bought one of these last year, can’t find it anywhere.

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    Mute graham galvin
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    Oct 17th 2012, 6:14 PM

    thats the new galaxy samsung invisible.i heard they are an amazing phone but ive never seen one.

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    Mute Paddy O'Reilly
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    Oct 17th 2012, 6:40 PM

    I would question the wisdom of anyone from AOL. They have a history of epic fails e.g. paying silly money for Bebo after everyone else knew it was a dying platform. Paying silly money for Winamp and destroying it. Loosing so much market share to Comcast and Verizon that Time Warner were so embarrassed they removed AOL from the company name.

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    Mute Barry O'Brien
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:07 PM

    Well, the fact he’s not predicting future trends but instead just repeating the present, is typical of AOL. Except for the last one. If video calls were ever going to be popular then they would be by now. Imagine being on an hour long call and not being able to pick your nose or scratch your arse!

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    Mute Aaron t
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:20 PM

    exactly not the best company to look towards for future predictions

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    Mute Matt Byrne
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:21 PM

    Ha ha ! Pick your nos e or scra tch your arse !

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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Oct 18th 2012, 11:47 AM

    Video calling is essential for Ex-pats like myself! I’ve made 5 video calls in the past week, two on my phone.
    It’s an excellent way for my 4 year old to keep in touch with his grandparents, and me, with my mates too.

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    Mute stephen cullen
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    Oct 17th 2012, 6:37 PM

    In the future, we’ll all be dead. :-/

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    Mute Rob Power
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:13 PM

    Mobile phones will be popular and landlines won’t you say?

    How much is this guy paid?

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    Mute Niall Dorr
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:25 PM

    My guess is that he is hanging in there. No where else to go. He would fail his first interview…for being a historian…

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    Mute Noel Cronin
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    Oct 18th 2012, 1:08 AM

    He’s predicting video calls by 2015. He could be onto something there. He should get cracking on a new start up, call it, I don’t know, Skype or something. I could see it catching on.

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    Mute Joe cassidy
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:27 PM

    I make most of my phone calls on the toilet so if video calling truely is the future norm then I’ll have no choice but to “cull” my friends network.

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    Mute Julian King
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    Oct 17th 2012, 6:47 PM

    He can predict the future?
    Wonder if he thinks the mullet is combing back too!

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    Mute Donncha Ó Coileáin
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    Oct 17th 2012, 10:39 PM

    Shing says he has a landline number but it connects to a florist in London as a joke because he doesn’t believe in communicating by phone call.

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    Mute Dave Hammond
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    Oct 18th 2012, 12:15 PM

    Ha ha , he sounds like a pain in the ass who loves himself , he’s listed online as a digital prophet by day and a “singer songwriter” by nite ……his singing songwriting skills sound as flat and dated as his future predicting skills I’m afraid..

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    Mute Niall Dorr
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    Oct 17th 2012, 9:35 PM

    Good to see AOL have a prophet. But a pity they don’t have profits!

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    Mute Rory Conway
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    Oct 17th 2012, 6:18 PM

    I wonder why the usual experts on journal have not commented more. Intellectual disabilityb, I presume given their comments on matters political which send them into the normal rant against the government /anti taxes / anti everything etc etc etc. trolls ,the lot of them .

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    Mute Kevin Blanche
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    Oct 17th 2012, 6:25 PM

    intellectual disabilityb…

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    Mute Mick Lennon
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    Oct 17th 2012, 8:33 PM

    digital prophet,what a job title,when I used to pump petrol I liked the title fuel technician but alas it never took off,I must have been ahead of my time

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    Mute My Two Cents
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:18 PM

    He looks like a Cult leader….i be wary of them types and the crap they be pushin….

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    Mute Barry O'Brien
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:12 PM

    Reading this story I was in disbelief that this kinda crap from an idiot at one of the most spectacularly dysfunctional companies of the tech-era was here, but then I thought it was surely one of the stories reprinted from that rag tabloid ‘Business Insider’, but no… This is actually a journal article?

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    Mute Helen of Troika
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:59 PM

    With a forehead like that he has room for another face.

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    Mute Pádraig O'hEidhin
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    Oct 17th 2012, 9:10 PM

    It’s a pity he cant predict fashion trends.

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    Mute Keith Kelly
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    Oct 17th 2012, 8:52 PM

    Sure even Marty McFly had a video phone in the 80s!! Oh wait…..

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    Mute Victoria Hall
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:12 PM

    I still have my ‘Dan Dare’ walkie talkies and they
    have never let me down…it’s back for some
    more fun on the holodeck now….

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    Mute Joe McDermott
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    Oct 17th 2012, 8:17 PM

    Some prophet. Talk about stating the obvious. 2015 woooo thats years away!

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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Oct 18th 2012, 8:17 AM

    I think he ment to say 2011

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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Oct 18th 2012, 8:18 AM

    *meant

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    Mute Gavin
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    Oct 17th 2012, 9:17 PM

    Can’t beat surfing on my 24″ benq screen with a half million tabs opens!!! Just because I can :)
    Sorry, but desktop sufin remains tops for me!

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    Mute Kevin Walsh
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:12 PM

    What you all font understand is that he is a robot

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    Mute Paul Mallon
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    Oct 18th 2012, 8:15 AM

    Wow! that is impressive!

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    Mute Cpm
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    Oct 18th 2012, 10:00 AM

    You’re some comic sans

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    Mute mcgoo
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    Oct 18th 2012, 8:42 AM

    Smartphones will never take off.

    Sent from my Nokia 6310i

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    Mute Dave
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:19 PM

    he does look like a Robot

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    Mute mark o'neill
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    Oct 18th 2012, 5:09 AM

    Hold on a second……those are fake arms

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    Mute Barry O'Brien
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:15 PM

    Wait, wtf!!! On my phone it showed my comment in reply to someone above as under your post… Now on my laptop it’s normal. Please disregard my comment ‘wrong comment’ post :)

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    Mute Mark Fitzgerald
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    Oct 18th 2012, 9:12 AM

    Video calling? It’s been around for years, nobody uses it. One network operator decided not to waste money implementing it. What’s going to change this apathy towards it?
    Landline dead? It’s been dead outside businesses for a while now, but he’s wrong I saying we don’t need them, we’ll need the speed & latency that only a fixed line will be adequate enough to provide.
    I agree with him on the impending future back lash against social media, are we all supposed to live in the virtual world more than the real world now or does real life not count anymore? The targeted advertising has already started ages ago too, hello? Google have been doing it for years… Since when has stating the obvious become “predicting the future”?

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    Mute Oskar Fritsche
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:52 PM

    just watched RTE news and “Chairman” shouldn’t it be chairperson Mitchell Baker, from Mozilla!

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    Mute Mike Clinton
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:45 PM

    He had better hurry up because according to some bearded lady the world ends next week :-P

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    Mute John_FitzGerald
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    Oct 18th 2012, 9:04 AM

    Thanks Dear Leader for the enlightenment. Now, if you could do something about you not wanting look like Kim Jong-il, that’d be great.

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    Mute Barry O'Brien
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    Oct 17th 2012, 7:12 PM

    Sorry, replied to the wrong comment!!

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    Mute Will Monaghan
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    Oct 18th 2012, 4:55 AM

    should of gone to Specsavers !

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    Mute Thomas o brief
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    Oct 23rd 2012, 6:21 PM

    Wait for it, wait for it, I predict Colgate bring out a better toothpaste this year?

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    Mute Cpm
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    Oct 18th 2012, 10:01 AM

    It’s Edward Scissorshands

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    Mute Carl Anders
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    Oct 18th 2012, 3:00 PM

    Hmmm, the smartphone comment is also a bit at odds with the evidence. 35% have a “smartphone” and only 25% of them use the “smartphone” as their primary internet device. And it breaks down even further in that even though Apple only has 24% of the overal “smartphone” market, iOS accounts for 65% of the web traffic.

    So I guess he has a point, of the relatively small number of people who have a smartphone, the even smaller number of them who have an iphone tend to acces the internet a few times.

    (links)
    http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2054/smartphone-ownership-demographics-iphone-blackberry-android
    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57464763-37/apples-ios-grabs-65-of-mobile-web-traffic/

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