Do you ever feel like there are an astronomical amount of buzz words that are thrown around in the tech space that you don’t understand? If you are like me, you probably hear them on a daily basis, but if the teacher actually called on you to provide a definition, you’d likely be more confused than the Bronco’s defense was on Sunday night in the Super Bowl.
Snapchat, Big Data, Net Neutrality, Drones, Bitcoins, Responsive Design…
Well done if you look at that list and say: Yes, I read the news, I know what these are and I understand them too. Perhaps some of us (me) should be spending less time binge watching Breaking Bad. Well that all stops today! The time has come friends and colleagues! Now is the time to end this madness!
Maybe you see that list and your brain fails to synapse like mine does…I’ll bet you $50 that we’re not alone. Well today I’m here to help (some of you at least). Today’s post is designed to be your crib notes on some technology related buzz words that we should probably know about, form an opinion on and track, as details will most certainly continue to unfold as we read this. But I am not doing it alone. There are obviously TONS of other important topics I’ve left off this list (Lean In, Virtual Heat Maps, Retargeting, A/B Testing, Killer Flu). In an effort to engage our audience, I’d like for you to think of some of the important issues we face in the tech industry today, and Email Me. Hopefully we can start building a communal list and I’ll continue to add them below. It will be interesting to look back at this post one day…we’ll all probably have a good laugh as Amazon drones drop bitcoins into our wifi enabled refrigerators. As Vonnegut said, “So it goes.”
Snapchat: You send a text. I receive that text. 24 hours later, that text self-destructs. “Teenagers hopped on the bandwagon because the self-destruct mechanism means that posts on Snapchat won’t leave a mischief-filled trail of breadcrumbs for authoritarian figures to follow. And people in their 20s are gravitating towards it because people in their 20s actually go out and do stuff and have weird things to share. Or they just want everyone to know they’re brushing their teeth.”
Big Data: Oh this is a good one. Christopher Versace of Forbes says “Simply put, Big Data is the explosion of digitized data – created by people, machines, sensors, etc. – that acts as an audit trail, capturing what is happening in and amongst humans, machines, markets, natural systems, and the like.” If you read that and said, “That’s not that simple,” then I’m with you! Here is the best explanation I found: “Big data is mostly about taking numbers and using those numbers to make predictions about the future. The bigger the data set you have, the more accurate the predictions about the future will be.”* Now that I can understand…I think! *from an article entitled “Can You Explain Your Big Data Tech to a Middle Schooler.”
Net Neutrality: This is an easy one. NN is kinda like the first amendment (of the internet). That we the people of the internet have the freedom to access any web content we choose and use any applications we choose, without restrictions or limitations imposed by our internet service provider. Salon.com states that NN is widely viewed as: major providers of high-speed Internet access in the US, who have systematically divided markets and tacitly agreed mostly not to compete with one another, can treat high-speed Internet access like a cable TV service. They can be gatekeepers, charge content providers (any business) for the privilege of reaching us, the subscribers; and, of course, charge us. A lot.
Drones: Come on, who doesn’t know about Amazon drones? At this point, you better, because one day a spaceship could be dropping off diapers on your front door!
Bitcoins: Virtual currency. Once looked upon as a black market form of payment, you can now actually go to a Sacramento Kings game and pay with them. But how? Through online gateways and mobile payments of course. What is even more bizarre is that you don’t need to earn them by working, like actual coins. You can use a computer to mine for them. This article does a great job explaining bitcoins, and there’s also a video, which always helps.
Responsive Design: You ever visit a website, scroll down, and then suddenly the site becomes alive? The more you scroll, endlessly, the more content loads on that page? It can be annoying to say the least, if done incorrectly. I’ve read that less than half of marketers are planning on utilizing this technology in 2014. Regardless, it’s pretty sweet.
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