Yecinto - Your ECommerce Innovation Trends and Online marketing blog

How social life will change profoundly – the potential impacts of transhumanism

2012-02-02T12:47:00.000+01:00

I think my eyes opened for the concept of the singularity after seeing a documentary by Frank Theys called 'Technocalyps' a few years ago. Although not purely about the singularity it gave me insights into a lot of the concepts connected to it and it brought some order in my mind around various memes and concepts I had been following or researching (as a wanna-be / amateur futurologist or trend watcher). The various technological developments, scenario's of possible futures and people involved have been fascinating to me for various reasons. One reason always stands out; the potential impact on social life. It is the idea that the impact of technology on our daily lives in the future will be vastly different from today that makes my pulse go faster. Out of all the interesting near-future or longer-term future concepts connected to the singularity there is one that I feel is going to impact our daily lives the most and that is the concept of 'Transhumanism.'

Transhumanism

Transhumanism is essentially the enhancement of humans. It is regarded as a subset of post-humanism and the word is formed by the combination of transcendence and humanism. The definition according to Wikipedia reads as follows:

'Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.'

Most enhancements are of bio-technological or information-technology origin. Examples would include brain enhancements either through genetic engineering or 'smart drugs', or physical enhancements such as high-tech prosthetics or technological gadgets. A lot of these ideas have been woven into science fiction scenario's such as William Gibson's 'Cyberpunk' or the movie 'Gattaca'. Transhumanism is all about the human race taking charge of our evolutionary process and adapting our 'being' to new or long-existing needs.

Transhumanistic examples today

Although a lot of this sounds like science fiction, the acceleration of many technologies often discussed when talking about the singularity are already there today - and not just in labs and other experimental settings. Let me highlight three examples of transhumanism widely practiced today; brain enhancing drugs, smartphones and brain-pacemakers.

We have been using 'drugs' to help us perform better for many many years already. Products such as coffee help us focus and/or get more energy when needed. Over the last years I feel we've really started to go beyond this with more and more people using drugs to enhance their academic performance. In a commentary in the journal Nature a few years back, two Cambridge University researchers reported that about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant, and Provigil, which promotes wakefulness, to improve their academic performance. The former is approved to treat attention deficit disorder, the latter narcolepsy, and both are considered more effective, and more widely available, than the drugs circulating in dorms a generation ago. Surveys of college students have found that from 4 to 16 percent say they have used stimulants or other prescription drugs to improve their academic performance. Should we call this cheating? Or is this more similar to using a calculator instead of calculating by yourself with pen and paper? If the demand is there (and the numbers above seem to indicate that it is) surely new, better, drugs will be developed and used by sizable portions of society. Will access to these drugs make a difference in academic results and are we OK with that? An academic degree in the near future might not say that much about the intrinsic capability of a person, but maybe more about his or her ability to get things done / make things work. Surely it will improve the productivity of the general population as technology generally seems to do.

A second example is our smartphones. The ubiquitous adoption of mobile phones and smartphones has been staggering and suddenly a large part of (the rich world) society has an extension to him or herself that enhances their capabilities enormously. It is almost weird to see how easily we accept and adopt this - your smartphone allows you to know where you are and how to get to places you have never visited before. Remember discussions in a bar about who that actor was in this and that movie - cracking minds until someone would remember. Now whip out this new 'extension of your body' and google the answer. Having a personal device connected to the internet with you at all times has enhanced the human capability enormously. But again, even though probably a lot less controversial than brain-enhancing drugs, the social effects have been clear to almost everyone in the developed world by now. Go into any social place, like bars, public transport or city squares and observe how many people are interacting with their (smart)phones. Many of you will have seen groups of people having dinner while at some moments half or more of the group are engaged with their smartphones and (at least) less engaged with the group. In my eyes we're still in the phase of technology adoption where new social rules need to be collectively figured out, but also where most of us need to learn how much more we can accomplish because we have devices with us in our pockets.

A third example of today’s technology that I feel is part of transhumanism are brain-pacemakers. We have all heard about pacemakers that assist our heart when that fails (also transhumanistic I feel) but less known to the general public are brain-pacemakers that help patients that suffer from epilepsy or Parkinson's disease. It is a medical device that is implanted into the brain to send electrical signals into the tissue to stimulate parts of the brain. Where the first two examples really enhance the basic human condition now, this example is more about curing people from a disability. It is, however, in my opinion, an example of current-state technology that if further developed can potentially affect more functions in our brain including stimulating it in such a way that we can go beyond our basic capabilities. What initially will be very expensive 'upgrades' to how our brains work could conceivably produce a 'cognitive-divide' where the rich will be able to enhance themselves and be more competitive versus the rest. We are already living in a world where technology helps 'superstars' in media, banking and IT gain immense rewards. Brain enhancing technology like future versions of the brain implant in this example will only accelerate that trend and increase inequality.

These are three examples of today - we've not even touched the impact of future advancements such as an upcoming leap in longevity (how long before most us live to become 100 to 150 years old) and brain-machine interfaces that allow us an almost telepathic access to computers and the internet. All of these, either today, or in the short or longer term future will have a unbelievable impact on core concepts of most of today's society; capitalism, democracy, equality under the law etc.

Why the discussion matters

Part of Transhumanism is very much science fiction, but more and more it is becoming today's reality. We need to think about it and discuss it today if we want to ensure this trend will be beneficial to at least most of humanity - if not all. I see descriptive articles on transhumanism starting to hit mainstream media such as Time magazine or the Economist with some thought on the social consequences but I feel it's time for the real discussion to start. I'm looking forward to many great discussions going forward and I do invite every reader to participate as of today!

Siberian tiger campaign uses Augmented Reality

2010-10-07T12:20:00.004+02:00

The new conferences – web enabled

2009-11-01T23:00:00.001+01:00

I visited eComm in Amsterdam last week – a conference on emerging communication with a high-paced information packed program. I enjoyed it but afterwards reflected a little bit on how internet ‘backchannels’ are changing the way we experience these conferences.

A couple of years ago, when twitter was still very young, Mobile Monday in Amsterdam used a twitter backchannel that was projected behind the speaker. I loved it although I can imagine as a speaker it’s actually less so (especially when people tweet that what you are saying is nonsense or make jokes that make the audience laugh while you have no clue). I started appreciating it even more later when it allowed me to follow conferences while being at my desk in the office, without visiting the conference itself (perfect in combination with a live video feed).

Now at eComm there were several backchannels; of course people used twitter for which I set up a search in tweetdeck, but we also used Google Wave at this conference and a public Skype chat/channel for eComm. I followed them and participated in all.

And man!….was that exhausting. Switching between the channels, reacting, tweeting, listening and watching all at the same time while also making notes on my pc. It was too much!! I had a hard time actually following the people in front of me on stage.

It made me think about the backchannel phenomenon. On the one hand it is great and supplies non-visitors with a way to follow what’s happening but making notes and looking at the backchannel does distract from the most important thing; the presentations / demo’s etc themselves!

Maybe it’s time for a backchannel aggregator to read comments and a automatic transcription of things that are being said and get some time back to actually listen :) I’ll be the first customer!

My iPhone as mobile television

2009-10-20T23:28:00.002+02:00

Since I bought my iPhone last April I have been playing extensively with new apps and trying out dozens of podcasts. I cannot express how much I love this device and would almost (not totally ;) ) say it has become an expansion of my body; I have it around and in use constantly.

But not only has it become an extension of myself – even more it has become an expansion of my television; or maybe I should say visual media consumption; I actually don’t watch that much television in the traditional way any more; only the news in the evening, sometimes sports and maybe a cool series (like Flash Forward which I’m following now). And even there I turn to the web more and more (50% of FlashForward episodes I watched via the web at a time that suited me better). Most of my video/visual consumption is now online or on a DVD.

With more and more podcasts being video, and some real quality video’s being published as podcast I have noticed that I’m using my iPhone more and more as my viewing device. I regularly watch TED.com video’s, the Onion news or even episodes of ‘Lost’ on my iPhone while commuting to or from work, while travelling or in the evening in bed before I go to sleep. All in all it has become my mobile TV.

Now when I was travelling in Korea and Japan in 2007 I spotted many people watching television on their mobile phone. With mobile television launched in some countries I still have to spot the mobile TV viewers in Europe or the US (I’m sure they’re out there though…somewhere…hidden). Maybe iPhones and Android phones will be the enablers of mobile TV here, although more in a time-shifted way as my current usage on my phone.

If anyone has interesting suggestions for good podcasts or Youtube channels to watch on my iPhone – please leave them in the comments section; I will reward the best suggestion (if there is more than 1 person submitting by November 30th) with a Apple Store voucher of 5 euro!

Please find some of my favourites below – enjoy the video’s! They can be found via iTunes:

- TED.com (my absolute favourite)
- Mobile Monday Amsterdam
- Onion news network
- Wired Science Video Podcast

- Lost (the series – paid unfortunately)

Nice Paypal video on the future of payments

2009-09-18T16:13:00.001+02:00

Another one in a series of future visioning video's - Paypal's view on the future of payments.

A Nokia vision on Augmented Reality

2009-09-17T18:57:00.005+02:00

A nice video by Nokia on a possible Augmented Reality future (or mixed reality as they call it)

eBay selling 65% of Skype

2009-09-06T17:46:00.000+02:00

The big news this week for me was the sale of 65% of the Skype shares by eBay. Good news for Skype I think - it will take some pressure off that comes with being part of a listed company. And the investors that have bought the 65% seem to be a really great group of people with a lot of experience, knowledge and vision to support Skype's growth.

It's a mixed end for eBay; I think they were under so much pressure from the general analyst and media mood on the skype acquisition which only a sale could solve. On the other hand they say goodbye to one of their growth engines. I feel it's smart that they have kept the 35% and will make a very nice gain on that when they sell that in a couple of years.

There was a lot of blogging coverage - I felt the following two were interesting enough to mention; Michael Arrington's post after the sale was confirmed and the New York times analysis by Joe Nocera which I found interesting.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/01/hey-ebay-actually-did-ok-with-skype/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/technology/companies/05nocera.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Back to Blogging

2009-09-06T17:23:00.001+02:00

It has been more than 20 months since I've posted on this blog - so I'm guessing I've lost all or most of the few souls that did visit here. Nevertheless I'll re-boot and start writing again; about ecommerce, innovation, trends and online marketing - but also about communications, futurology, social media and anything else that interests me.

I'm thinking of giving the blog a new name, moving to Wordpress and giving a total overhaul - but I'll just start by putting words back on the page.

I'll continue to blog in english - any dutch readers will be able to understand I assume and will of course open up my thoughts and ideas to a wider audience.

Let's see where we'll get from here....

No news during my INSEAD year

2008-01-12T14:21:00.000+01:00

I'm off doing an MBA at INSEAD in France and have discovered that keeping my blog updated is impossible while being there. I will be done studying by the end of december 2008 and will resume blogging from then on!

YBay Merger becoming more realistic?

2007-12-06T17:29:00.001+01:00

eBay and Yahoo have announced they will let Yahoo Auctions Japan work with eBay in 2008. For the full post see here on AP and some new speculations on a Yahoo eBay merger here on Fool.com

Dealbundle for sale

2007-12-05T23:59:00.000+01:00

I just received an email from socialshopping site dealbundle. Unfortunately the technology company behind dealbundle, r3interactive.com, will not continue to run the platform and is planning to sell it via eBay starting monday december 10th. I wrote about social shopping services on dekoopman.net and I think it is unfortunate that this one apparently did not really pick up.

Maybe interesting for a webenterpreneur? I will post the link to the eBay sale as soon as it is available.

Please find the content of the email below:

DealBundle Member,
We would like to thank you for using dealbundle. Unfortunately, at this
time, we have decided to put dealbundle up for sale. Dealbundle started as a hobby for our technology company, but with limited resources, we simply don't have the time to grow dealbundle into something that it can, and one day will be.
Starting this Monday, December 10, 2007, we will be staging dealbundle for sale, and will be removing all user accounts and deals. Within 2 weeks, dealbundle will be posted on eBay for sale, and we hope that the right person/business will grow this community and our technology!

Thank you again. We look forward to showing you our new web application coming early next year!

DealBundle Team
www.dealbundle.com

Preview - some techspottings from Asia

2007-11-03T16:32:00.000+01:00

I'm travelling through asia for 7 weeks and while here of course do some trend and/or tech spottings. Here are some examples - more will follow later.

Skype launches beta version 3.5

2007-07-04T22:13:00.000+02:00

Skype launched a new beta version today. This version 3.5 solves some little bugs and delivers new services around video. You can now integrate video in your mood message, you can share video in chat sessions with multiple people and you can take snapshots during a videocall to save and retrieve later. Next to that, it's now easy to share contactdata with people (I did not see that one in previous versions) and it is possible to forward calls.

It seems skype is launching new beta's now every 2 to 3 months with nice new functionalities. The last beta was at the end of march and the one before mid februari.

The question is if all these new functionalities are really used by the average "skyper". Doesn't it lead to a product that becomes complex because of the enormous amount of functionalities? For instance: I don't believe skypefind from version 3.1 is that populair and I really ask myself how many people even know of it? The beta version (watch it: "beta" so not so stable) can be downloaded from here.

Just quickly; some links

2007-07-02T00:45:00.001+02:00

Here a couple of links I'd like to share:

Jan Chip Chase (nokia) - mobile usage research page
I was busy with creatinga list of online tools: Measuring your "buzz" on the web: Technorati and Blogpulse
Prometeus - the media revolution - I personally don't think this one is as good as some of the others I have seen but still interesting

Yahoo buys sportssite Rivals.com

2007-06-21T11:44:00.000+02:00

Yahoo has just bought rivals.com - a popular sportssite in the US. The site will operate as a seperate entity within the Yahoo sports division and is a strengthening of it's media division.

Takeover Season

2007-06-19T17:06:00.000+02:00

I know - this is what I get if I don't blog for a long time....

SO MANY TAKEOVERS TO REPORT!!!

I've been positively surprised by the number of takeovers/acquisitions over the last months and will try to give a overview of some of them and their potential consequences:

Display advertising - Market upheaval

Wow - this must be the most explosive one. Google buys Doubleclick for 3.1 billion dollars , Yahoo buys Rightmedia, WPP buys 24/7 Real media and the in a move that I can only explain as "drive by fear of losing out" MSN buys Aquantive for a whopping 6 billion dollars!!!
That's a total of 10.4 billion dollars spend on display ad firms. It seems there is quite a consensus that display ads will pay off big time in the (near) future. Maybe seeing the success of systems like adwords and Yahoo's panama the display ad market will now move into "intelligent" bannering and get systems that are both smart in their targeting (micro-niche targeting, behavioral targeting etc) as well as that they will have smart payment systems (auction/bid system, perhaps even combined with pay for performance modules).

The only player left standing alone is Valueclick, the ad company that also owns affiliate system Commission Junction, tracking software provider (my favorite) Mediaplex and some other platforms. Who is out there to buy this one - eBay? AOL? IAC? Another "offline player"?

Web 2.0 - acquisitions continue

The most active sphere of little acuisitions is the web 2.0 sphere. Here we've also seen some interesting acquisitions

eBay has bought Stumbleupon. The acquisition rumors came already early and I'm surprised my former company wasn't able to keep the information inside - something they are usually good at. eBay also bought a turkish auction site.

Google has bought feedburner. Good acquisition I think. I also found this site with an overview of Google's "acquisition scorecard". Google has been also active in the geo-space -e.g. with the acquisition of Panoramio

And one I also wanted to mention; CBS has bought Last.fm

Twitter & Jaiku

2007-06-18T16:58:00.000+02:00

I've been following it a bit over the last ~4,5 months and have VERY rarely really used it: Microblogging.

Until two weeks ago at Mobile Monday in the "Rode Hoed" where I saw a great presentation by Jyri Engeström from Jaiku. The event had a backchannel via Jaiku and the whole thing got me interested again in the microblogging thing. My impression so far though is that it is a great nice tool to follow people and events, but takes quite some time again - as if the overload in emails and IM isn't enough yet. I will give it a try again for the coming weeks and see if I get addicted as well or if I stay with my current conviction; nice, but I will hardly join this thing....

AdMarkt by Marktplaats launched

2007-03-13T16:24:00.000+01:00

Today Marktplaats.nl launched their CPC/lead generation product AdMarkt in all 31 categories. AdMarkt had already launched in 5 categories as a initial test for the market. The in-house developed Admarkt is replacing Google's Adsense ads on the listing pages, and is supposed to be a better experience for both the buyers on Marktplaats, as well as opening up increased opportunities for product advertisers. AdMarkt is the first 3 ads on top of a listing page, e.g. shown in BMW.

Skype enhancements

2007-03-12T10:46:00.000+01:00

That skype is pretty innovative is known, but the speed in which they launch new features and or new beta versions of their products keeps surprising me. And it only seems to accelerate, within three weeks they have released two new beta versions.

The new Beta has a couple of interesting features that open up new business models for skype, but also allow for many new business models for people leveraging the skype technology.

With SkypeFind skype enters the services space. Letting the users co-create a yellow pages on skype and voting for the business in the index seems like a great idea. Once adoption is high, skype could easily create featured placements or pay per call schemes to monetize this global services index.

Skype Prime is a huge business enabler - it enables users to charge another for the call at a rate specified by the "seller". You can set up any business over skype and charge per minute. Some business models jump to mind immediately; consultancy, translation, adult. It will be interesting to see what unconventional business will leverage this. There is discussion though about the take rate of 30%

Some other features were released as well, but I wanted to highlight these big two. I will try to follow this skype business eco-system. If you find any nice usages or mash-ups from skype - please let me know in the comments.

Open id & Jyte

2007-02-20T00:31:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post on a new service - Jyte (see example below) that leverages OpenID. OpenID is an open standard for id-services, a bit comparable to what Microsoft tried with passport. A service that let's you securily log in at several sites with the same id. Great idea - now let's see if it works. I do believe that such a standard should rise - either open or by a commercial player - I get crazy of all the login's and passwords!!!

To just give an example of the Jyte service:

Marktplaats nu op de kaart

2007-02-13T09:54:00.000+01:00

Zo net gelanceerd - Marktplaats Kaartoverzicht. Met deze nieuwe functionaliteit kun je zoeken via de kaart, op landelijk niveau maar ook op straatniveau. Leuke extra is de mogelijkheid in je buurt te zoeken - eens even kijken wat er vlakbij wordt aangeboden :)

Met deze ontwikkeling lijkt Marktplaats nog meer in te zetten op "lokaal" zoeken. Het zoeken op afstand bestond al en werd ook in de televisie reclame naar voren gehaald. En er was ook al een uitbereiding van Marktkijker (dat ook van marktplaats is) met Marktkijker Lokaal. Nu komt daar dus de kaartfunctie op Marktplaats bij.

Vertical Search - Cars

2007-02-12T16:03:00.000+01:00

One of the predictions many have made and I definitly believe in is that we will see an explosion of vertical search engines in 2007. I will try to keep track of as many (new) launches as I can. Here's a start with the cars vertical...

Last week saw the launch of a Dutch Cars search engine with the funny name "gaspedaal.nl" (accelerator). This site is launched by the company behind vinden.nl and zoeken.nl. This follows the launch of a Cars-(search) vertical in december by Yahoo, although Yahoo Cars carries a lot of content as well. I also expect other Dutch companies to come with a Car search engine soon. Funny fact; "rempedaal.nl" (brake) was registered on february 7 by classifieds site Marktplaza which also owns classifieds vertical search engine Advertentiezoeker (thanks for the tip JK!!). Apparently vinden.nl wasn't alert enough to register this domain as well.

UPDATE: A very alert Sebastiaan Ambtman alerted me that Marktplaza is actually a partner in the project - thanks seb!

Launch event at IPAN

2007-02-07T01:09:00.000+01:00

This evening IPAN organised a launch party at which several start-ups presented themselves. Very good to see the start-up spirit and a lot of these new webcompanies present themselves. I particularly liked the following:

Fleck - they already got a lot of coverage and of course they were present tonight at this "homeparty" for Boris and Patrick (the founders). For the people that missed the buzz around fleck's launch; fleck is a so-called annotation service. Do check out their product! Really looking forward to the social networking functions fleck will offer soon...

Leadz.nl - a nice services platform that mimicks the "old" letsbuyit.com but then for products. People can either co-shop or just put their request out so that service providers can bid on it. Nice move into services!

ToMap - also a cool new service: it allows people to find and select events on Google Maps. It is an open site and anyone can add events to the map/system. A nice new feature is that you can download a KML file of the event (to your mobile phone) which contains the location info for the mobile version of Google maps

Swoot - I also met Swoot on the innovation playground event in November and they have a great product for your browser. They have developed software that enables you to build a (branded) skin for your internet explorer but it really looks like a different browser or some kind of widget. Really nice to see and it can even adapt it's skin to the site you're browsing. Really cool innovation.

There we're a lot of other nice startups like; start12, blogads, rasasa (which I'm already a happy user of), originalsignal, 14dayz, yelloyello (social, web2.0 version of the yellow pages), watvindenwijover.nl, muziekkaart.nl, sharecare and others. Do check out their sites.

It was a nice event with a quite a good number of people. Well done event IPAN!

2007-02-05T23:44:00.000+01:00

Glimpse of the future

Well the letters IN & T in Yecinto are for innovation and trends, so it's time for a little update from the future:

Meanwhile I have found this great jewel of a blog by two futurologists (in dutch) with some great content and movies:

"Extend Limits"

Enjoy and let me know what you think!!

2007-02-01T12:37:00.000+01:00

Picking on Yahoo

It seems in fashion to criticize Yahoo these days. They almost look like the poor little guy in class that all others pick on. Not entirely fair I think; although they need to get their act together on lot's of things, there's also a lot of great things happening at Yahoo - both internationally as well as locally.

On the one hand some things are really going wrong - the stock price is in decline, the new search ad-system panama was delayed and some peanut butter loving top managers in the company felt Yahoo needed a change.

On the other hand there are great things happening - Yahoo answers is a great success, silently following the growth pattern of PR baby Youtube. I also think Yahoo is busy with a smart acquisition strategy - buying key properties/technologies early in their development but picking out the right ones like Flickr, delicious etc. And Panama has now rolled in the US and will hit other markets really soon.

More locally here in the Netherlands Yahoo had two separate units (kelkoo and YSM) working pretty much apart and YSM was losing quite some of the big deals with publishers - which led to disappointing results for the advertisers on their network (mainly in volume). But 2007 must become a nice year; panama will roll in the Netherlands in the 1st half of the year, the Kelkoo and YSM teams are now combined under a new manager and Yahoo is starting to role new products into the Dutch market; like Yahoo Cars which just launched or the upcoming NL version of Yahoo answers.