Crazy New Ideas
Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in.I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome.The web: couldn't you just transfer a file to an open port and use a rendering tool to view it?Blogs: couldn't you just update a web page?Wikis: couldn't you just update a web page?social media: couldn't you just set up group view preferences and use RSS?youtube: couldn't you just upload a video and use tags for search?twitter: couldn't you just not? Isn't that just a worse version of what we can already do??Honestly, I've overlooked almost every one of these things, because I failed to understand how removing small bits of friction can cause a technology to explode.Sure, some ideas are crazy new, but some sound too underwhelming to be revolutionary. but they are, there's no question about it, all those things I listed above changed the world, in ways both good and pretty damn awful.