• A low-cost global network will be thriving and creating new opportunities in a “flattening” world.
• Humans will remain in charge of technology, even as more activity is automated and “smart agents” proliferate. However, a significant 42% of survey respondents were pessimistic about humans’ ability to control the technology in the future. This significant majority agreed that dangers and dependencies will grow beyond our ability to stay in charge of technology. This was one of the major surprises in the survey.
• Virtual reality will be compelling enough to enhance worker productivity and also spawn new addiction problems.

• Tech “refuseniks” will emerge as a cultural group characterized by their choice to live off the network. Some will do this as a benign way to limit information overload, while others will commit acts of violence and terror against technology-inspired change.
• People will wittingly and unwittingly disclose more about themselves, gaining some benefits in the process even as they lose some privacy.
• English will be a universal language of global communications, but other languages will not be displaced. Indeed, many felt other languages such as Mandarin, would grow in prominence.

Om Malik comments that these predictions are surprisingly pessimistic, and I completely agree. Nearly all of the negative issues highlighted in this precis — lack of control, privacy, addiction, luddism — are already very apparent. It seems a bit bleak to suggest that we won’t do anything to address problems that are staring us in the face over the next 14 years.

If you look further into the report, though, its findings become less startling. The respondents were presented with headlines with which they could either agree or disagree. This is a good way to generate headlines, but not a way to explore original thinking. And the 304 experts polled were very much less than unanimous. Only 56%, for example, agreed with the first point on the list, with similar divides throughout.

1. The joint number three single search term that has led people to this site from Google is “funny”. I am so, so sorry about that. Sort it out, Sergey.
2. AskJeeves is lazy; it’s downloaded 3.87MB from this site, as opposed to Google’s 43MB. Or is Google just greedy?
3. The interview that I did with Paul Graham when the site first launched in June is still one of my top in-bound links. The spooky thing about that is that the interview is on Pauls’ site, not mine.
4. Google searches provide four times more traffic than all the other search engines combined.
5. My reddit links draw in a lot more traffic than digg links. Perhaps because it’s slower moving?
6. The US (or .com domains) accounts for more than half of my traffic. Elsewhere, China is already bigger than Japan; India is already bigger than the Russian Federation.
7. I currently have twice as many Dutch readers as British ones. Dank u.
8. Even a semi-thoughtful comment on another blog makes people come and see who you are.
9. More than half (57%) of my visits are from Firefox users.
10. 10 page views per visit this month, apparently. That’s incredibly high for a blog, I think, and a bit mystifying. I guess it reflects the fact that this is still a new site. Also, some will have been unrecognised bots which would bump up the average a lot.

Part of the problem is that I can emulate almost every feature of Flock with a Firefox extension that is considerably more mature than the social browser. Flock is still in beta one as I write. My Firefox extensions are all version three, or later. I have the del.cio.us extension for bookmarking. I have the Bloglines bookmarklets for RSS feeds as quick buttons on my toolbar, along with a dozen other websites and WordPress buttons. I have the Performancing extension for blogging (that one’s on trial, I have to admit, since it munged up the Fred Flintstone post a few days ago). I haven’t got anything to integrate photosharing, I’ll have admit, but since I store my photos rather than share them, that’s not really a big loss.

I guess my real issue with switching to Flock is that I don’t want to be locked into the services it has managed to integrate. If a better bookmarking site than del.iciou.us comes along and people move over, I want to go there instead. I’m already looking carefully at Blinklist (bookmarks) and NewsHutch (RSS). If I do choose to switch to them, then that’s two quite large parts of Flock that will have ceased to be at all useful.

This is the reason I think that Flock will have a hard time. The sort of person who downloads Flock is a neophiliac. They always want the latest, greatest services to work with. When Bookmarkolio 2.0 comes along with its swish logo and AJAXified transitions, the core Flock user is exactly the sort of person who is going to want to move all their bookmarks there. At that point, the gorgeous blue and gold star that handles bookmarks in Flock becomes a waste of space. Or worse still, you’ll end up forgetting and using it for half the time so that your bookmarks end up spread between two different services.

Have you been looking for centralized, up-to-date Second Life business info and spent forever asking complete strangers “How to” and “Where can I” type questions? Only to be left with half-baked answers or out-of-date information that is yesterdays news?

Have you been searching for the right tools to start your Second Life business idea or just looking to network with professionals? How about investment opportunities or tips on land developing? Ever wanted to meet and learn from seasoned professionals in a relaxed environment or just casually chat about business with a group of like minded people?

Have you ever wanted to hear stories from some of Second Life’s successful business owners in a way only they can tell it?

You can with SL Business Magazine!

Via 3PointD