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Bringing Trends to Life

The 2008 PhenomsDecember 19 2008

Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs famously predicted that oil could hit the $200 barrier “within the next six to 24 months.” Now that oil is trading below $40 per barrel, that prediction seems rather removed from reality. While the investment bank may prove right in the long run, making predictions can be fraught with risk.

That’s why we will not participate in the countless list of predictions made about 2009. To believe that trends can be identified by calendar year is the media’s favorite pastime because it occupies an otherwise boring week. Much more insightful is recapping how society is changing course due to minute adjustments in its booster rockets of time.

08-Feb-08 Videogaming Transcends Life
Videogaming continues to blur the boundaries between reality and virtuality. And the most remarkable convergence of life and gaming happened in a most unlikely milieu: physical rehab. The discovery that the Nintendo Wii’s groundbreaking haptic interface could speed the recovery of patients after injuries and strokes resulted in the year’s first big buzzword: Wiihab.

16-Mar-08 Bear Stearns Collapse
If you ever needed proof that the Ides of March can wreak havoc with the best-laid plans, the spectacular collapse of 85-year-old in

I Love My LappyDecember 4 2008

It’s a sensual ritual that’s repeated daily, sometimes hourly. Highly detailed online videos show close-ups of trembling fingers eagerly yet gingerly peeling away layer after layer. Anticipation builds as the object of desire is finally unveiled: it’s a gorgeous and sexy…new laptop. Welcome to the wonderful world of unboxing, a trend that’s being propelled by a lust for anything digital.

At the MacRumors discussion forum, a topic speculating about “glass trackpads” in Apple’s new MacBooks begins at 34 minutes past midnight on October 14, the day Apple is set to launch its new MacBooks. By 11:44 that same morning the meandering thread has already reached a whopping 60 pages containing some 1,200 posts.

That type of feverish anticipation is simply unheard of in any other consumer market. But then again, this is no ordinary product. Over at NotebookReview, aficionados refer to their laptops as “my lappy.” The computer is no longer merely a productivity tool, it has become an extension of our persona. A marriage between man and machine.

And the bride is becoming increasingly fashionable. Starting today, Hewlett-Packard is shipping its Vivienne Tam Special Edition notebook for $700. We can thank ASUS CEO Jonney Shih for that low-ball price. Shih kicked off the “mini-book” trend last year when he

A New Political ScienceNovember 13 2008

Last week’s victory by President Elect Barack Obama unleashed a global groundswell of positive vibes. Most of the emotional outpouring was directed at the striking achievement of this U.S. election, but it might as well have been a moving tribute to the powerful advances in social engagement marketing, as deployed by Obama’s campaign.

Beginning with his February 2007 meeting with Netscape founder and Facebook board member Marc Andreessen, Obama has displayed an impressive ability to harness the forces of burgeoning new social media. Quite remarkable, because Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were barely a glimmer in their founders’ eyes during the 2004 election.

Not that this year’s election was lacking in publicity stunts. The world was spellbound by images of Hillary Clinton shedding a tear in New Hampshire; transfixed by the YouTube antics of Obama Girl; and amused by NBC’s Saturday Night Live comedy skits, culminating in the hilarious portrayals of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin by Tina Fey.

In fact, Palin’s appearance drew 14 million viewers, the highest Saturday Night Live audience in 14 years. Yet, the same skit was watched more than

Love, Sex…Maybe MarriageOctober 9 2008

They were first spotted in that ahead-of-the-curve state, California, some time during the late 70s. No, not yuppies but bumper stickers proclaiming, “Happiness is being single.” Whoever conceived the slogan was clearly riding a wave that’s reshaping society, as it’s abundantly clear that America, and the rest of the world for that matter, is becoming a nation of singles.

In October 2006, The New York Times somberly declared that “married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority.” As the chart below shows, this trend is accelerating with 49.7%, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 made up of married couples today, according to the Census Bureau.

With more competition from other ways of living, the proportion of married couples has been shrinking for decades. In 1930, they accounted for about 84% of households. In 2006, the figure dipped below 50% for the first time.

The trend is fueled by a number of contemporary phenomena. More women in the workforce means decreased dependence on financial support. Out-of-the-closet gays have also had an impact. But the biggest force is the Unwired Ubertrend, w

The Political BlogosphereOctober 2 2008

The power of blogs to change public opinion was on full display this week, helping doom the outcome of the U.S. Congress’ “Wall Street bail out” vote. Fully 43% of blog visits center on news and politics, reports comScore MediaMetrix, including such stalwarts as Daily Kos, FreeRepublic, Huffington Post and Wonkette, and the total number of blogs has reached a cumulative total of 133 million, notes Technorati’s just released State of the Blogosphere.

Washington got a firsthand taste of the power of the Blogosphere, because blogs — a contraction of “Web logs” — are the fastest-growing form of online publishing, skyrocketing from nowhere in 1999 to 78 million unique visitors in the U.S. in August 2008, according to comScore MediaMetrix.

The drama surrounding the U.S. presidential elections, has dramatically lifted the visibility of political bloggers, with mainstream media now relying on blogs not only to aid in research but also as a publishing platform.

About 43% of visitor traffic goes to blogs that cover news or politics, equivalent to 34 million monthly visits in the U.S. alone.

A survey released by