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New Media Technology Curated By Ken MorrisonHannam University, Linton Global College Spring - 2012 1

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This non-traditional textbook represents the best knowledge available for free on the internet. Much of it is directly from the minds of the people creating the changes in the tech world. The articles and linked videos been curated by KenMorrison for students at Linton Global College (Hannam University), in Daejeon South Korea. Morrison is an Assistant Professor of New Media & GlobalCommunications. All materials were free at the time of the curation and creationof the .pdf file. I have taken care to provide links to all of the original content. Ihighly endorse all websites included in this .pdf and encourage you to follow the links to learn more.From Awel Ghonim to Mark Zuckerberg, 2011 has been an exciting year of manybenchmarks of humans finding new ways to use technology to connect and create change. This course will study the convergence of how new media technology is changing the worlds of business, education, and Society. We will also briefly examine how this changing landscape effects journalism, law. globalization, and even how technology changes our brains and our behavior. Most importantly,students will learn how to use free new media tools to personalize their learning to help prepare for success in reaching for their future goals. We live in a new world where information that was once reserved only for the wealthy, is now becoming a commodity. However, this new luxury comes with anew responsibility. We must learn a new set of skills of how to swim through thesemassive waves of information in order to find the information that is most helpful for us. I have modeled the skills that I will teach in this class to collect the following 340 pages of information that I feel represent a solid foundation for success in this new digitally-connected world.We will learn from Bezos and Brogan for business, Turkle and Shirky will teach us about society, We will learn about law from Lessig, changes in education from Rheingold and Siemens for, and changes in journalism from Assange and Cashmore. Although the front lines of “The Great Tech War of 2012” is in the United States, we will use these materials to discuss the implications of thesechanges around the world. Most importantly, students in this class will be able touse new tools to connect and create, while also using new thinking tools to become critical consumers of information in a digital age. Let’s begin! 2

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NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGY Textbook Curated by Ken Morrison for Linton Global College www.lgc.hnu.krNew Media Technology Syllabus! 7The Great Tech War Of 2012! 16SOCIETY! 29 Is Social Media Actually Making Us Less Connected?! 30 genM: The Multitasking Generation! 31 Do you obsessively check your smartphone?! 37 IBM Worker Email-Free for 4 Years: How to Live without Email! 42 How mobile is forcing us to change the way we measure the Internet! 44 Why your computer is becoming more like your phone! 48 GOOGLE, MOTOROLA, AND A PATENT WAR! 51 Twine: The Revolutionary Box That Can Make Your Appliances Tweet! 52BUSINESS! 54 Let’s Talk Social Media For Business! 55 How to Systematically Build a Mountain of Links! 95EDUCATION! 100 New Media Literacy In Education: Learning Media Use While Developing Critical Thinking Skills! 101 College students limit technology use during crunch time! 109THOUGHT LEADERS! 112 Tim Cook! 113 Mark Zuckerberg! 115 Sergei Brin! 120 Larry Page! 123 Ev Williams! 125 Sheryl Sandberg! 134 Pete Cashmore! 143 3

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Tariq Krim! 147 Clay Shirky! 150 Nicholas Carr! 152 George Siemens! 157 Sherry Turkle! 165 Sugata Mitr! 184 Steve Hargadon! 185 Awel Ghonim! 191 Jeff Bezos:! 193 Chris Brogan! 198 Julian Assange:! 204 Yoshikazu Tanaka:! 206TERMS! 208 TERM #1: LOCATION-BASED MARKETING! 211 By Cynthia Boris on February 14, 2012 The Future of Location-Based Marketing is Cool. . . or Scary! 211 7 Things You Need to Know About QR Codes! 213 STOP CENSORSHIP: THE PROBLEMS WITH SOPA! 214 Wikileaks! 216 What is digital media literacy and why is it important?! 217 HOT TRIGGERS! 220 Hashtag! 224 KHAN ACADEMY! 226 CONNECTIVSM! 229 CROWDSOURCING! 231 Content Curation?! 234 COGNITIVE SURPLUS! 235 INFOTENSION! 238 4

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MOBILE:! 242 MECHANICAL TURK! 246 Digital Divide! 249 SECOND SCREEN! 252 FLASH MOB! 253 SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION)! 255 AUGMENTED REALITY! 257 GOOGLE HANGOUTS! 259 GENERATION FLUX! 261 PETE CASHMORE! 271 FLIPPED CLASSROOMS! 282 ORKUT Orkut App Finally Arrives for iPhone, iPad! 286 RENREN! 287 PLN! 290PROGRAMS! 293 GOOGLE+! 294 GOOGLE DOCS PROGRAM #2- GOOGLE DOCS (http://docs.google.com)! 307 Evernote! 310 LIVEBINDERS! 311 NETVIBES! 315 Qwiki! 317 Other Programs We Will Preview:! 319USING TECHNOLOGY TO HELP YOU GET A JOB! 320DIGITAL PORTFOLIO Using Technology | Electronic Portfolios in theK-12 Classroom! 321 FACEBOOK TO GET YOU A JOB INFOGRAPHIC! 324 View full-screen at http://mashable.com/2011/12/11/can-facebook-get-you-a- job/! 324 5

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5 Ways You Should Be Using Pinterest To Attract Employers! 325 HOW TO: Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for the Job Hunt! 327 9 Ways Students Can Use Social Media to Boost Their Careers! 330 Twitter Literacy (I refuse to make up a Twittery name for it)! 334EXTRA! 338 ABOUT KEN MORRISON! 340 Assistant Professor of New Media and Global Communcations at:! 340 http://lgc.hnu.kr/ Biography: http://lgc.hnu.kr/sub2/sub2_01_morrison.php! 340 6

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New Media Technology Syllabus Linton Global College Hannam University Spring 2012Instructor : Ken Morrison, MS (Instructional Design & Technology)E-mail : kenmorrison30@yahoo.com (best way to contact me)Cellphone : 010-8653-6352 (Please send text message if there is no answer)Schedule : 12:00 AM – 1:15 AM (Wednesday & Friday)Blogs Due : Every Friday 5 PMClassroom : 330-103 (Computer Lab)Office : English Cafe 104Website : http://lgcnmt.ning.com/Why Is This Course Important:We have crossed an important point in world history. Very recently, media and technologyhas changed everything. New Media Technology has changed how businesses makemoney, how governments lead people, how teachers teach, and how family and friendscommunicate and think. It is very important for us to understand this trend in order to beeducated participants in the 21st century. As communication majors, it is crucial tounderstand how new media technology is changing your field. If you are a business major,you will also learn many things that will directly affect your future.Course OverviewThe official Hannam University Website says:This course will provide students with a good theoretical and practical understanding ofhow to harness the power of the new internet applications and media tools in a highlynetworked world. Students will look at the social implications of new technologies and alsolook at the technologies themselves to understand their level of complexity and howconsumers and organizations can use or implement them appropriately.What does that mean?We will study how New Media Technology is changing our world and your future in fourways:1) Business 2) Social 3) Education 4) Politics 5) JournalismI. Course Objectives:1. Explore new media tools that may help you succeed in your career2. Explore new media tools that new media can help you succeed at LGC3. Explore new media trends that are changing society, business and education4. Gain experience using new media in a safe, private environment.5. Learn resources to help you make future adjustments when new media tools andtrends change in the future.6) Learn facts about 20 people who are changing how we use technology todayTextbooks and Course Materials 7

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I am creating an updated textbook with Apple’s brand new iBooks 2 Author Program. Yourtextbook will be available for download in .pdf format. I suggest budgeting about 30,000 Wand printing out the book and additional printoutsRequired Technology.You do not need to own a computer for this course. Yet, you will need access to acomputer with reliable internet access for much of your homework. Plan your schedule sothat you can do homework when you have access to a computer connected to a reliableinternet connection. Please make a schedule to do much of your homework in a computerlab on campus.Office HoursMonday 12:00 - 14:00 (My Office)Tuesday: 2:45 - 3:45 (My Office)Wednesday 1:15 - 2:15 (Pink Building Computer Lab)Thursday: 2:45 - 3:45 (My Office)Friday: 1:45 - 2:15 (Pink Building Computer Lab)Evaluation and Grading SystemThere will be two major examinations. They may contain multiple-choice, true-or-false,matching, fill in the blank and essay questions. You will have many quizzes over yourhomework to prove that you have been doing your readings. This is to reward studentswho do their homework. You will have weekly writing assignments due in the form of blogsthat your classmates can see. Your classmates will see your work, so make sure that yourwriting is of high quality. Attitude, attendance & participation are all very important keys toyour success. Some of my grading for test questions and projects are quite subjective. Iwill provide rubrics so that you can know what I am looking for when I am grading.AttendanceI need to be as clear as possible here. You must be at class. This is not a class that youcan miss and catch up easily I give attentive points, not attendance points. Simplycoming to class is not enough. If you want to earn points you must1) Be in class on time2) Pay Attention3) Avoid distractions. If you are playing on your cell phone or browsing the internet, I willnot give you credit for coming to class that day.4) No Sleeping. I do not give attendance credit to students who sleep in class!I will allow up to three absences (excused or unexcused). Use your absences wisely.Budget time for being sick, conferences, HNU/LGC events, family emergencies. You mustcommunicate in advance when you will miss a class. You can not make up any quiz thatyou missed during an absence (excused or unexcused). Being late three times equals oneabsence.Classes always start on time. Being late three times is equal to one absence. In otherwords, don’t be late. As regards absences, we will strictly observe the university rule thatstudents absent for more than 25% of class periods will receive an automatic “F.” In thesame way that I prepare for every class, you should do the same by reading the assignedreferences and submitting your homework on time. Cheating or any other form ofacademic dishonesty will not be tolerated in this course. Any student caught plagiarizingwill automatically receive a failing grade for the course. In order to avoid being accused ofplagiarism, please do not forget to cite your sources. Before turning in your work, please 8

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edit and proofread it. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any problemsrelated to the course. You may send me an email, leave a comment in my blog or drop bymy office. I reserve the right to revise this syllabus. Should I decide to do so, I will post anupdated copy on the class website and tell you in class. Be aware of some schedulechallenges. I will make all reasonable efforts to get your questions answered. I need youto plan ahead so that I can help you in best way possible. I will return all phone calls andemails and website posts within 24 hours. It will be a rare situation when you actually wait24 hours during the week, but that may happen. This is similar to many managers’ policiesin the working world. So remember to plan ahead.Participation (5 Points)Participation points in my class are my way of rewarding students who give extra effort toparticipate in class and/or online in a way that shows that they are willing to actively sharewhat they are learning in class. These points are not easy to earn. In 15 weeks, you willhave many opportunities to be a leader and share what your opinions and new informationfrom this course. It is up to you to share that information with the class.VI. Preparation & ParticipationI plan your homework carefully. All homework assignments are directly related to helpingyou meet the short-term and long-term objectives of this course. You must do yourhomework to succeed in this class. You should be prepared to give specific points that youfound interesting from every reading or online activity. You should also be prepared with atleast one question every class.HonestyDo not lie. Do not cheat. We will meet each other 30 times during this semester. Eachtime,you are representing your family, your country, and yourself. I am very good at finding outwhois being dishonest. You will not be happy with the results if you are caught being dishonestorcheating in my class.During your LGC days you will have the opportunity to meet many foreign professors fromaround the world. Each of us have many professional connections both in Korea and inothercountries. If you work hard and prove to have a good character, we will write letters ofrecommendation to help you get a job after graduation. Professors communicate with eachother about who is not being honest in classes. It is not wise to destroy your reputation bymaking bad choices. Is that clear?AttitudeWe are going to have a fun class. I love teaching at LGC. I love learning new knowledge,and I loved learning about organizational behavior during my career and during graduateschool. We are going to learn many things that will help you both at LGC and aftergraduation. The world is changing. We can not predict the future. Yet one skill has beenthe key to success in any economy in any country. That skill is Communication. I will helpprepare you for a successful career of identifying and using communications skills. I also 9

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think you will find this class to be exciting if you come to class with a positive attitude andopen mind every time.CommunicationI have many years of experience. I have learned from some great people and have hadsome great experiences. I have lots of passion and energy to help good people learn.However, I am not perfect. If you have suggestions on how to improve the class or anyproject, I am willing to talk about possible alternatives. But you must communicate yourconcerns or I can not help you.There will be some times when you have a true excuse for why you can not be at class orwhy you are not available to do your best work on homework. Your future managers willneed you to communicate with them. I am very fair to students who plan ahead andcommunicate their concerns. I am not very flexible to students who are not willing to.Unfortunately, sometimes managers view a lack of communication as laziness, disrespect,or worse. Practice using your communication skills during this course. I am here to help.There are many ways to contact me: Before/after class, Face-to-face meetings at myoffice, our class website, phone calls before 7pm, email, or hand-written notes. If youchoose not to communicate in any of these ways, I will probably assume that you do notcare.Please do not contact me about class-related questions on Facebook or YahooMessenger. Also, I often have many windows open on my computer. So I may not see achat request on our class website. The best way to contact me on our class website is bysending a message. You can try to chat any time that you see my name as ‘active’. But ifI don’t respond, please know that I am not ignoring you.ConferencesI encourage students to go to conferences to expand their network and get experience in aglobal atmosphere. Choose your conferences wisely. I will allow you to go to twoconferences during this semester. Choose them wisely. These will count toward yourthree (3) excused absences. I feel this is fair. During my advertising career, I was allowedto miss 4 days of work per year for conferences. I will allow you to miss two classes in 15weeks. This is a fair balance between class responsibilities and possible opportunities forbuilding your future. I will have specific steps that you must follow to receive an excusedabsence.This is your busI accept, appreciate, and encourage creativity. This class can be a bus where you learn,have fun, meet new students, and prepare for an exciting career after graduation. As longas you communicate with me, I will allow some freedom in planning your projects. One ofmy favorite college professors always said, “Ken, this is your bus. You are the driver. Howcan I help you get to where you want to go.” It is crucial that you communicate. As long asyou are applying the new information from class with real situations in the outside world, Iencourage you to adapt these projects to meet your personal, academic and professionalgoals. However, you must communicate these desires with me in advance. 10

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Please keep in mind that the university follows this grading chart:Hannam University (like other Korean Universities) has a curved grading policyI can give up to 30% of you a A- or higherI can give up to 40% of you a B-, B, or B+I must give at least 30% of you a C+ or lowerQuizzes from Homework Reading (10%)I give quizzes to reward the students who do their homework and come to class on time.You do not have to be the expert of your reading homework assignment, but you will needto be able to clearly and quickly communicate (via writing) that you have done your 11

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homework. Quizzes are given during the first 10 minutes of class. If you are late for class,you can not take the quiz. I do not give make-up quizzes for any reason. This is anotherreason why you must come to class. I am pretty generous in grading your quizzes. If it isclear to me that you did your homework and tried to understand it, you will not get below a75% on a quiz.Weekly Blogs (15%)You will need to write 20 sentences each week to share with me what you have learnedduring the week. Deadlines will be very important in your future career. You may also berequired to give reports of your projects. Your required weekly blogs are a good way foryou begin documenting what you do during the week. These blogs will be seen by yourclassmates, so do your best. These blogs will be very helpful for you and others inpreparing for your midterm test, final test, and final projects. The deadline is every Fridayat 5pm. However, you do not have to wait until after Friday’s class to write your blog. Youwill probably have enough to write about after the first class, and your homework to write ablog. You can also write about your progress of your long-term projects, or how our classmaterial relates to other things you are learning in other classes or observing in the worldnews.Attentive Points (formerly known as “Attendance Points” (15%)As stated above, you are not guaranteed attendance points by just showing up. I giveAttentive Points, not attendance points.Participation (5%)These are basically extra credit points for the students who spend the whole semesterfinding ways to lead and participate. The best way to earn points is by participating inclass and online in our class website. Our class website has a unique way of measuringwho is participating the most. Again, these are only for the leaders in the class. It is acompetition to earn these points.Personal Projects (35%)I believe in giving students control to earn their grades. I also know that spending four ormore years in college is a waste of time if you can not show what you have learned. Thatis why 35% of your final grade will be determined by personal projects.Midterm Test (10%)My tests are not easy, but they are fair. My tests are mostly short answer and essays.They take one hour. Most students use all 60 minutes.Midterm Test (10%)My tests are not easy, but they are fair. My tests are mostly short answer and essays.They take one hour. Most students use all 60 minutes.Cell Phones:There is a new policy this semester at LGC’s Global Communications and Culturedepartment that says that students can not use cell phones at any time during class.Class ConductThe goal of this course is to provide a stimulating environment for learning. Coursematerial includes both theory and application, with an emphasis on application to realworld problems and situations. Written and oral reports are required because these skills 12

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are needed in the work environment in general, and in digital communication,management, and consulting in particular. Students are required to comment andcollaborate as these are practical skills.Classes always start on time. Being late three times is equal to one absence. In otherwords, don’t be late. We will strictly observe the university rule that students absent formore than 25% of class periods will receive an automatic “F.” In the same way that Iprepare for every class, you should do the same by reading the assigned references andsubmitting your homework on time. Cheating or any other form of academic dishonesty willnot be tolerated in this course. Any student caught plagiarizing will automatically receive afailing grade for the course. In order to avoid being accused of plagiarism, please do notforget to cite your sources. Before turning in your work, please edit and proofread it.Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any problems related to the course. Youmay send me an email, leave a comment in my blog or drop by my office. I reserve theright to revise this syllabus. Should I decide to do so, I will post an updated copy on theclass website and tell you in class.Be aware of some schedule challenges. I will make all reasonable efforts to get yourquestions answered. I need you to plan ahead so that I can help you in best way possible.I will return all phone calls and emails and website posts within 24 hours. It will be a raresituation when you actually wait 24 hours during the week, but that may happen. This issimilar to many managers’ policies in the working world. So remember to plan ahead.Grade NegotiationAfter you receive your final grade, HNU allows one week for changing grades. This isonly to change mathematical errors. It is not for students to ask professors to change forany reason other than mathematical errors. You will have many opportunities during thesemester to earn a high grade.Keeping Your ScholarshipDid you earn a scholarship from HNU/LGC? GREAT! That means that HNU and LGChave invested in you. They think that you are the type of young person who will spendfour years taking classes seriously. They think you will be a leader in your classroom andon campus. They think that you will be the type of young person who will get a good joband represent HNU/LGC in a positive way by doing more than what is expected by yourprofessors or your boss. A scholarship is like the stock market. It is an investment, butnot a guarantee. If a company stops performing well, people stop investing. If a studentstops performing well, the university may take away a scholarship. If you need to have aspecific grade in this class to keep your scholarship, it is up to you to earn it....two timesevery week. It is your choice. I believe that you can do great things. I am here to helpyou learn. If you communicate clearly, I will do everything I can to help you continue toearn your scholarship.Citation:This site helps you with citations: http://citationmachine.net/index2.phpThis site helps you understand the rules for using citations: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/A FEW WISE QUOTES FROM WISE PEOPLE:“Begin Classes on time. End classes on time. Homework for every student every class.Professors and students attend every class. Christian atmosphere.”-- 1960 June, President W.A. LintonPractice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. 13

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--Vince LombardiI do not expect you to be perfect. I do expect progress from you every day.--Jim Morrison (my Father)The only people who become truly great are those that do what they love to do--Malcolm GladwellThe difference between the almost right word and the right word is equal to the differencebetween a lightning bug and lightning--Samuel Langhorne ClemensAsk yourself the easy questions and youll have a hard life, ask yourself the hard questionsand youll have an easier life!— Peter Thomson: U.K. strategist on business and personal growthSeriously Ken, Why be average?--Nancy Touil (8th grade teacher)Dear God, Your will, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Amen.--Bobby RichardsonDate last updated: March 1, 2012I encourage you to join the official LGC Facebook Page by clicking the like button at: <--LGC Facebook Page <--Professor Morrison’s Scoop.it PagePlease see class website for future revisions. All revisions will be announce in class. 14

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New Media Technology Course will help you through:-Learning Key People Who Are Changing our World-Learning Key Terms That Tech Leaders are Passionate About-Learning programs that can help you at LGC, at home, and in your career.Through readings, videos, lecutres, and personal projects, you will become much more aware athow New Media Technology plays an important role in Education (Scool & self-learning), Business(buying/selling, marketing), and Society (behavior, social, politics, parenting, lifestyle, and evenhow our brains are wired)This video should get you excited about this course:http://documentaryheaven.com/networked-society-on-the-brink/Print out Blank Graphic Organizers here:http://www.scoop.it/t/new-media-technology/p/166585387/printable-graphic-organizers-for-teachers-grades-k-12 15

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The Great Tech War Of 2012retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/tech-wars-2012-amazon-apple-google-facebook onMarch 6, 2012Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon battle for the future of the innovation economy.BY Farhad Manjoo | 10-17-2011 From left: The late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Larry Page,and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. | Photos courtesy of David Paul Morris/Getty Images (Jobs); Justin Sullivan/Getty Images (Zuckerberg); Chip East/Reuters (Page); Mario Tama/Getty Images (Bezos).Gilbert Wong, the mayor of Cupertino, California, calls his city council to order. "As you know,Cupertino is very famous for Apple Computer, and were very honored to have Mr. Steve Jobs comehere tonight to give a special presentation," the mayor says. "Mr. Jobs?" And there he is, in hisblack turtleneck and jeans, shuffling to the podium to the kind of uproarious applause absent frommost city council meetings. It is a shock to see him here on ground level, a thin man amid othercitizens, rather than on stage at San Franciscos Moscone Center with a larger-than-life projectionscreen behind him. He seems out of place, like a lion ambling through the mall.Fast Company is tracking developments in The Great Tech War of 2012 for 30 daysafter this storys original publication to show just how quickly competition betweenApple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon is heating up. Follow the updates here."Apple is growing like a weed," Jobs begins, his voice quiet and sometimes shaky. But theresnothing timorous about his plan: Apple, he says, would like to build a gargantuan new campus on a150-acre parcel of land that it acquired from Hewlett-Packard in 2010. The company hascommissioned architects--"some of the best in the world"--to design something extraordinary, asingle building that will house 12,000 Apple employees. "Its a pretty amazing building," Jobs says,as he unveils images of the futuristic edifice on the screen. The stunning glass-and-concrete circlelooks "a little like a spaceship landed," he opines.Nobody knew it at the time, but the Cupertino City Council meeting on June 7, 2011, was Jobss lastpublic appearance before his resignation as Apples CEO in late August (and his passing in earlyOctober). Its a fitting way to go out. When completed in 2015, Apples new campus will have afootprint slightly smaller than that of the Pentagon; its diameter will exceed the height of the 16

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Empire State Building. It will include its own natural-gas power plant and will use the grid only forbackup power. This isnt just a new corporate campus but a statement: Apple--which now jockeysdaily with ExxonMobil for the title of the worlds most valuable company--plans to become agalactic force for the eons.And as every sci-fi nerd knows, you totally need a tricked-out battleship if youre about to engage inserious battle."Our development is guided by the idea that every year,the amount that people want to add, share, and expressis increasing," says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg."We can look into the future--and its going to be really,really good."To state this as clearly as possible: The four American companies that have come to define 21st-century information technology and entertainment are on the verge of war. Over the next two years,Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google will increasingly collide in the markets for mobile phonesand tablets, mobile apps, social networking, and more. This competition will be intense. Each of thefour has shown competitive excellence, strategic genius, and superb execution that have left the restof the world in the dust. HP, for example, tried to take a run at Apple head-on, with its TouchPad,the product of its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm. HP bailed out after an embarrassingly short 49-day run, and it cost CEO Léo Apotheker his job. Microsofts every move must be viewed as areaction to the initiatives of these smarter, nimbler, and now, in the case of Apple, richer companies.When a company like Hulu goes on the block, these four companies are immediately seen aspossible acquirers, and why not? They have the best weapons--weapons that will now be turned onone another as they seek more room to grow.There was a time, not long ago, when you could sum up each company quite neatly: Apple madeconsumer electronics, Google ran a search engine, Amazon was a web store, and Facebook was asocial network. How quaint that assessment seems today.Jeff Bezos, who was ahead of the curve in creating a cloud data service, is pushing Amazon intodigital media, book publishing, and, with his highly buzzed-about new line of Kindle tablets,including the $199 Fire, a direct assault on the iPad. Amazon almost doubled in size from 2008 to2010, when it hit $34 billion in annual revenue; analysts expect it to reach $100 billion in annualrevenue by 2015, faster than any company ever.Remember when Googles goal was to catalog all the worlds information? Guess that task was tootiny. In just a few months at the helm, CEO Larry Page has launched a social network (Google+) tochallenge Facebook, and acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, in part to compete moreferociously against Apple. Googles YouTube video service is courting producers to make originalprogramming. Page can afford these big swings (and others) in the years ahead, given the way hisadvertising business just keeps growing. Its on pace to bring in more than $30 billion this year,almost double 2007s revenue.Why Apple Will WinThe iPhone, iPad, and iEverything else will keep it merrily rolling along.Continue >> 17

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Facebook, meanwhile, is now more than just the worlds biggest social network; it is the worldsmost expansive enabler of human communication. It has changed the ways in which we interact(witness its new Timeline interface); it has redefined the way we share--personal info, pictures(more than 250 million a day), and now news, music, TV, and movies. With access to the "Likes" ofmore than 800 million people, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has an unequaled trove of data on individualconsumer behavior that he can use to personalize both media and advertising.Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google dont recognize any borders; they feel no qualms aboutmarching beyond the walls of tech into retailing, advertising, publishing, movies, TV,communications, and even finance. Across the economy, these four companies are increasinglysetting the agenda. Bezos, Jobs, Zuckerberg, and Page look at the business world and justifiablyimagine all of it funneling through their servers. Why not go for everything? And in theircompetition, each combatant is getting stronger, separating the quartet further from the rest of thepack.Everyone reading this article is a customer of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Google, and mostprobably count on all four. This passion for the Fab Four of business is reflected in theblogospheres panting coverage of their every move. ExxonMobil may sometimes be the worldsmost valuable company, but can you name its CEO? Do you scour the Internet for rumors about itsnext product? As the four companies encroach further and further into one anothers space,consumers look forward to cooler and cooler products. The coming years will be fascinating towatch because this is a competition that might reinvent our daily lives even more than the four havechanged our habits in the past decade. And that, dear reader, is why you need a program guide to thebattle ahead.1) The Road MapAmazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google do not talk about their plans. Coca-Cola would tweet itssecret formula before any of them would even hint at whats next. "That is a part of the magic ofApple," says new CEO Tim Cook.That secrecy only fuels the zeal of those bent on sussing out their next moves. And it is certainlypossible to decode the Fab Fours big-picture strategic ambitions: Over the next few years, each willinfiltrate, digitize, and revolutionize every corner of your life, taking a slice out of each transactionthat results. This is a vision shared by all four, and it hinges on three interrelated ideas.First, each company has embraced what Jobs has branded the "post-PC world"--a vision of dailylife that is enabled by, and comes to depend on, smartphones, tablets, and other small, mobile, easy-to-use computers. Each of these companies has already benefited more than others from thisproliferation of mobile, a shift that underlies their extraordinary gains in revenue, cash reserves, andmarket cap.The second idea is a function of the fact that these post-PC devices encourage and facilitateconsumption, in just about every form. So each of these giants will deepen their efforts to serve upmedia--books, music, movies, TV shows, games, and anything else that might brighten your lonelyhours (theyre also socializing everything, so you can enjoy it with friends or meet new ones). Butits not just digital media; they will also make the consumption of everything easier. The new $79Kindle, for example, isnt just a better reading device; it integrates Amazons local-offers product.The Fire will be accompanied by a tablet-friendly redesign of Amazon.com that will make it easierfor you to buy the physical goods that the company sells, from pet food to lawn mowers. Whereverand whenever you are online, they want to be there to assist you in your transaction. 18

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All of our activity on these devices produces a wealth of data, which leads to the third big ideaunderpinning their vision. Data is like mothers milk for Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.Data not only fuels new and better advertising systems (which Google and Facebook depend on)but better insights into what youd like to buy next (which Amazon and Apple want to know). Dataalso powers new inventions: Googles voice-recognition system, its traffic maps, and its spell-checker are all based on large-scale, anonymous customer tracking. These three ideas feed oneanother in a continuous (and often virtuous) loop. Post-PC devices are intimately connected toindividual users. Think of this: You have a family desktop computer, but you probably dont have afamily Kindle. E-books are tied to a single Amazon account and can be read by one person at atime. The same for phones and apps. For the Fab Four, this is a beautiful thing because it means thateverything done on your phone, tablet, or e-reader can be associated with you. Your likes, dislikes,and preferences feed new products and creative ways to market them to you. Collectively, the FabFour have all registered credit-card info on a vast cross-section of Americans. They collectpayments (Apple through iTunes, Google with Checkout, Amazon with Amazon Payments,Facebook with in-house credits). Both Google and Amazon recently launched Groupon-like daily-deals services, and Facebook is pursuing deals through its check-in service (after publicly retreatingfrom its own offers product).It would be a mistake to see their ambitions as simply a grab for territory (and money). These fourcompanies firmly believe that they possess the ability to enhance rather than merely replace ourcurrent products and services. They want to apply server power and software code to make everytransaction more efficient for you and more profitable for them.2. The Inevitable WarHardware. Media. Data. With each company sharing a vision dependent on these three big ideas,conflict over pretty much every strategic move seems guaranteed. Amazon, for example, needs abetter media tablet to drive more customers to its Kindle, MP3, and app stores. But how to avoid anHP-like disaster? The Kindle Fire has just a 7-inch screen, rolls up all of Amazons streamingservices, and retails for a mere $199, thus slotting into a price and feature niche just between aniPhone and an iPad. Who knew there even was a niche there? Apple doesnt believe that niche exists(see the next section), but you can bet it will if the Kindle Fire succeeds.Why Facebook Will WinEverything is social--and Zuckerberg hasnt even gone public yet.Continue >>When Google introduced its new social network Google+, it was seen, rightly, as a challenge toZuckerbergs Facebook. But at its core, Google+, along with +1, Googles version of the like button,should be understood as a product that will generate more data about what users like. Those dataimprove search algorithms and other existing services, and can even lead to new products. SoGoogles search for self-improvement is what has brought it into direct competition with Facebook.Why did Zuckerberg flirt with a "Facebook phone" earlier this year? (HTC released a handset calledthe Status that included a built-in button that let users post to the social network with one click.)While Facebook is the most-downloaded app on the iPhone and acts as a central contacts repositoryfor millions of Android, Windows, and BlackBerry devices, its rivals all have competing socialnetworks that could siphon away users. Most strikingly, Apple has integrated Twitter throughoutiOS 5, letting you tweet from any app, a feature clearly aimed at dulling Facebooks mobile growth.Page now has Google+. Amazons Kindle has a social network that connects readers of the same 19

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book. Zuckerberg needs to maintain a direct line to the pockets of Facebook members, and thatswhy you can discount his repeated dismissal of rumors that hell enter the hardware business.The torrent of news and rumor surrounding these companies and their initiatives is alreadyoverwhelming, and its only going to grow stronger. But viewing their moves through the lens ofhardware, media, and data is the first step toward understanding their strategies.3) The Profit GameLate in 2010, Jobs made a surprise visit to Apples quarterly earnings call. The purportedreason was to celebrate Apples first $20 billion quarter, but Jobs clearly had something else on hismind: Android. At the time, Googles free mobile operating system was beginning to eclipse theiPhones market share, and Jobs was miffed. He launched into a prepared rant about Androidsshortcomings. "This is going to be a mess for both users and developers," he said, citing theinevitable complications that arise from the fact that Android phones look and work differentlyfrom one another. As for the crop of 7-inch Android tablets being developed to take on the iPad?"DOA--dead on arrival," Jobs asserted. (Jeff Bezos, for one, has ignored Jobss perspective.)What Jobs didnt say in his outburst, though, was how little Androids market share matters toApple. According to Nielsen, Android now powers about 40% of smartphones; 28% run ApplesiOS. But heres the twist: Android could command even 70% of the smartphone business withouthaving a meaningful impact on Apples finances. Why? Because Apple makes a profit on iOSdevices, while Google and many Android handset makers do not. This is part of a major strategicdifference between Apple and the other members of the Fab Four. Apple doesnt need a dominantmarket share to win. Everyone else does. The more people who use Google search or Facebook, themore revenue those companies can generate from ads. Amazon, too, depends on scale; retail is alow-margin business dependent on volume.Apple, on the other hand, makes a significant profit on every device it sells. Some analysts estimatethat it books $368 on each iPhone. You may pay $199 for the phone, but thats after a subsidy thatthe wireless carriers pay Apple. Google, in contrast, makes less than $10 annually per device for theads it places on Android phones and tablets. Thats because it gives away the OS to phone makers aspart of its quest for market share. Googles revenue per phone wont go up after the Motorolapurchase closes--Motorola Mobilitys consumer-device division has lost money the past fewquarters. So despite Googles market-share lead, Apple is making all the money. By some estimates,its now sucking up half of all the profits in smartphones.Making a lot of profit on every device has always been Apples MO, but in recent years it has addedsomething extra to this plan. In the past, Apples profit margins were a function of higher prices--thecompany sold computers at luxury price points and booked luxury profits. But in smartphones andtablets, Apple has managed to match mass-market prices and still make luxury profits. This neattrick is the work of new CEO Cook, who, during his years as COO, mastered the global productioncycle. He did so by aggressively using cash to bolster the power of Apples considerable scale;several times over the past few years, hes dipped into the companys reserves to secure long-termcontracts for important components like flash memory and touch screens. Buying up much of theworlds supply of these commodities has one convenient added benefit: It makes them moreexpensive for everyone else.One of Cooks great challenges will be to maintain this edge. While Amazon will continue to pursueaudience at the expense of profit margins, Google (and eventually Facebook) will try to make likeApple and increase profits. When Googles only goal was to proliferate Android software, it couldlive with that sawbuck per phone, per year. But with Motorola, Google now has a direct stake in the 20

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profitability of Android devices. Developing, marketing, and distributing attractive phones andtablets requires a much more substantial investment than selling software. Google has pledged torun Motorola as a separate entity, but its shareholders wont stomach a series of money-losingquarters that could depress Googles earnings or stock. In short, now that Page is in the hardwarebusiness, hes going to have to start thinking about phones the way Cook does.The Dangerous DecoysFor a onetime agricultural hub thats been turned into suburbia, Silicon Valley is home to anawful lot of talk about moats these days. Warren Buffett deserves credit for the metaphor, whichdescribes the companies hes most interested in pursuing--ones with huge revenues (a castle ofmoney) whose businesses are protected by unbeatable competitive advantages (or very wide moats).The Fab Four all have moats to rival those at Angkor Wat.As a result of these wide moats, these companies generate so much money that they can spendfreely on new ventures; and in some cases, theyre willing to do so even if the business wont everbring the kinds of gains theyre used to. Look at Apples efforts in e-books: Does the company reallywant to overthrow Amazon or is it simply trying to offer one more reason to buy iPhones and iPadsand, thus, guard its cash cow? When Google invests billions to build smartphones and a new socialnetwork, is it really trying to topple Apple and Facebook--or is it simply building a wider moat toprotect its core interest, search revenue? "We dont do things that we dont think will generate reallybig returns over time," says Larry Page. But if a possibly unprofitable social network beefs upsearch revenue? Thats just fine.These ventures are decoy threats that tax a rivals resources. Google+ will be hard-pressed to evermatch Facebooks global reach, but it will certainly keep Zuckerberg and his engineers on their toes.Indeed, it already has. Facebook has clearly copied the most-lauded Google+ features, such as fine-grained privacy controls and smart groupings, and pushed new ideas such as Timeline and auto-sharing. Zuckerberg has to do this--he simply must eliminate any incentive for leaving Facebook.And Page knows that the more time Zuckerberg worries about Google+, the less time and fewerresources Facebook has to build a search engine that will threaten Google. Such is life in SiliconValley, especially when companies have money to burn. Every offensive move is also a defensivemove--and every move has potential. You never know whats going to hit big in tech. So if you can,why wouldnt you try everything?The Living RoomIn the spring of 2010, Rishi Chandra, a Google product manager, took to the stage at thecompanys developer conference to announce Googles next victim: the TV business. Chandradescribed television as the most important mass medium that hadnt yet been breached by the digitalworld. Four billion people watch TV; in the U.S. alone, the medium generates $70 billion a year inadvertising revenue. Google, Chandra promised, was going to "change the future of television." Heturned on a prototype of Googles new device, a set-top box called Google TV that would bring theweb to the tube--and thats when things got awkward. His Bluetooth remote didnt work. Chandraand his team called for the guys backstage, who blamed the problem on all the phone signalsfloating about the room. Several minutes passed while engineers fiddled furiously with the device,the scene playing out like the worst Curb Your Enthusiasm episode ever. Engineers fixed theproblem, but like a racehorse stumbling out of the starting gate, Google TV never recovered.Released a few months later, the product was panned and sold quite poorly. 21

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Why Google Will WinIts CEO is daring, decisive--and willing to wait for his big bets to pay off.Continue >>Each of the Fab Four believes that it can somehow define the future of television, when that flatpanel in your living room (and every other device you own) is connected to the web, pulling in thevideo you want at the moment you want it. With the universe of choice now available, the moribundchannel grid will need to be revolutionized with a fresh interface for finding programs. Socialsignals--such as indications of what shows your friends are watching and hints as to what showsyou might like given those friendships--will be part of the mix, as will live conversations withfriends watching the same show. And the advertising will be more targeted and relevant. Each of theFab Four wants a piece of this. The honey pot? Not only that $70 billion in domestic ad revenue butalso $74 billion in cable-subscriber fees.Thats the idea anyway. So far the Fab Four is the Failed Four when it comes to TV. There are manyreasons for this, starting with the fact that they are trying to unseat entrenched players who arefiercely protective of the business model theyve relied on for decades. Network execs, for example,had no intention of handing Google the right to give Google TV customers access to the full-lengthshows that are currently available for streaming only on their own network websites. Not without alot more money, anyway, given that their online ad revenue is a fraction of their TV take. Googleapproached its negotiations with the networks with arrogance, and the networks responded byblocking access.Then theres the fact that none of the Fab Four want to think of itself as being in the TV business--rather, each sees television as a means to an end. For instance, Amazon offers free streaming moviesand TV as an incentive to join Prime, a service that offers a years worth of free two-day shipping(on most purchases) for $79. Bezos has recently made deals to bolster his video library. He paidCBS a reported $100 million to offer old Star Trek and Cheers episodes, among other things, for 18months. And he made a similar partnership with Fox. "Were just getting started," Bezos said at theKindle rollout event in late September. But on balance, Prime is not a way to give the people lots ofgreat TV; TV is a way to get people to Prime.And creating next-generation television hardware has proved difficult. Apple TV, a box that first andforemost connects your iTunes video library to your TV, has been remade several times since its2007 debut and is still a product for early adopters. Even Jobs and Cook have dismissed it as "ahobby" for the company.Still, the massive, old, and profitable business of television does seem ripe for disruption, perhapsthrough the invention of some magical device. Cook had barely erased "interim" from his CEO titlebefore analyst and media speculation began that his first bravura move as CEO would be an honest-to-goodness Apple-branded television set, perhaps as early as Christmas 2012 (cue fanboyswooning). The dreamers note that Apple could create an Internet TV that would merge webservices and standard broadcasts; it does, of course, already make the worlds best remote controlsin the iPhone and iPad.But dont hold your breath for iTV. Of all four companies, Apple is the one that provokes the mostrumors. Thats been the case for years; iPhone whispers started around 1999, but the product didntgo on sale until 2007. And selling TV sets is almost a commodity venture, so Cook will either haveto master a new supply chain or deliver so much magic that customers will pay a significantpremium. 22

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While Apple is the focus of all the next-gen TV rumors, the most interesting player in this spacemight be the most overlooked: Facebook. CEO Zuckerberg has made deals with several studios torelease streaming movies and TV pilots on the site. But Facebooks real strength is in facilitating theconversation surrounding TV. Every show and star has a fan page, and Facebook knows exactlywhat each of its 800 million users like and dont like. Millions of people watch TV with a computer,tablet, or smartphone beside them, so they can chat with friends around the globe about the showtheyre watching. At Facebooks f8 developers conference in late September, it integrated Hulu andNetflix (the latter in 44 countries, though not in the U.S.) and made it seamless to share what yourewatching. Sure, this will allow Facebook to create an even more engaging experience for its users,but this also taps a new gold mine of data thats invaluable to advertisers and the entertainmentstudios. Why not make it easy for Facebook users to click like during their favorite moments of ashow, and monitor that activity? Nielsen, whose 61-year-old TV ratings are the linchpin of its $5billion global research business, is built on extrapolating information from small samples, so what ifadvertisers and studios could pay to get actual data on actual individuals? With one trivialtechnological shift, Facebook could remake the TV business without even touching the remote.The Next Steve JobsIn 2005, Google bought Android, a tiny company led by Andy Rubin, who at his previous startupcreated a proto-smartphone that was marketed as the T-Mobile Sidekick. At that point, the Androidteam had spent two years working on what it thought would be the next killer mobile platform; itspent two more years building out its vision at Google. In 2007, a few images of Android hardwareand software leaked online. They landed with a thud. Androids revolutionary phone smacked of aBlackBerry knock-off--hard buttons on the bottom, a small screen on top, ugly all over. There wereno touch gestures; to point to something, you used a hardware direction button. There was nothingnovel about the on-screen user interface--to choose something, you navigated through nestedmenus, a concept that harked back to Windows 95. Android circa 2007 is the nightmare vision oftech: Its what smartphones would look like if it werent for Steve Jobs."A big piece of the story we tell ourselves about who weare is that we are willing to invent," says Amazon CEOJeff Bezos. "And, very importantly, we are willing to bemisunderstood for long periods of time."Todays Android--the touch gesture, app-enabled operating system thats helped make smartphonesthe majority of all new phones sold in the United States--is testament to Googles engineeringprowess and marketing acumen. But it is also, obviously, a direct descendant of the iPhone. AfterRubin and his team saw what Jobs had cooked up, they remade Android in Apples image. And theywerent alone: Almost every smartphone thats come along since borrows major and minor featuresfrom Apple. (Ironically, the most original mobile platform is the one developed by Microsoft, of allcompanies--Windows Phone.) Apples brilliant reinvention of the cell phone, and its equallybrilliant invention of the modern tablet, are the reasons Amazon built an app store, the reasonsFacebook is rumored to be flirting with making a smartphone, the only reason that any company iscompeting in those particular hardware businesses. This is what has been amazing about Steve Jobs:Nurturing the next great thing in tech wasnt simply the most important thing for Apple. It has beenthe most important thing for the entire tech industry.And that is why the industrys next Steve Jobs is . . . Steve Jobs. Thanks to its founder, Apple has along-term product road map in place--keep making better iOS products, keep bringing innovationsit discovered in the mobile world to the Mac--and you can bet that Cook and his rivals will follow 23

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Jobss path for the foreseeable future. We know Cook is an operational genius. Anyone who claimsto know if he is a visionary is lying.Over the next two years, Bezos, Page, and Zuckerberg will gingerly start to vie for Jobss innovator-in-chief mantle. (One way to consider this battle among the Fab Four is as a fight for this honor.) Ofthem, Bezos has the best record with new products. Amazon Web Services and the Kindle were trueinnovations that changed and inspired the rest of the industry. (According to some reports, evenApple relies in part on Amazons cloud infrastructure for its iCloud service.) Bezos also seems themost temperamentally attuned to the creation of Next Big Things. "A big piece of the story we tellourselves about who we are is that we are willing to invent," he told investors at Amazons annualmeeting this summer. "We are willing to think long-term. We start with the customer and workbackward. And, very importantly, we are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time."Page, too, has the "think different" gene, and his CEO stint has been characterized by swift, decisiveaction to reinvigorate the company. He has impressively bet on Android, YouTube, and Chrome,and "we have some new businesses--Google+, Commerce, and Local--that we are really excitedabout and are pretty early stage," Page told analysts over the summer. There is another way oflooking at this, though--as an example of Pages reactive streak. In the past, when Google offered anew take on an old thing--see Gmail or Google Maps--the search companys version was soradically novel that it instantly rendered the incumbents obsolete. Thats not true of Google+, forexample. Googles social network has earned praise for an elegant interface and some innovativefeatures, but it clearly mimics Facebook and Twitter, rather than offering something wholly new.Page has tied every Googlers bonus, even those not working on social, to Googles ability to beatFacebook. So while the Google CEO can be seen as making big, bold moves, he might also appearto be spending an awful lot of time fretting about beating something old.As for Zuckerberg . . .The Age Of ZuckIn some ways, its unfair to compare Facebook to Amazon, Apple, and Google. WhileFacebooks growth is impressive, its actual numbers barely register next to the other three:Facebook is reported to have made $1.6 billion during the first half of 2011 (about double what itmade in the first half of 2010), but Apple makes that much in nine days. Facebooks only directcompetition with these companies is Google in the global $24 billion online display-advertisingbusiness, an arena that Google believes will be a $200-billion-a-year market in the next few years.As a private company, Facebook can shield itself from scrutiny (an advantage that Bezos, Cook,and Page would dearly love), but being private has also hampered Facebook. It lacks the capital theothers have to make major strategic acquisitions, or to finance the production of factories that wouldmake a Facebook device.Why Amazon Will WinIts retail engine keeps humming, and its ambitions feed the beast.Continue >>Zuckerbergs ambitions will only be fully realized after Facebook goes public. Its path will thenlikely mirror Googles post-IPO trajectory--it will evolve from a company with one product into amany-tentacled beast that uses its newfound capital to disrupt all of its rivals. Zuckerberg isnt givento Jobsian rants, but when he discusses how the web will shift over the next few years, he can soundlike a hoodie-burning revolutionary. "Just like Intel with Moores law, our development is guided bythe idea that every year, the amount that people want to add, share, and express is increasing," he 24

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proclaimed at f8 in late September. "We can look into the future and we can see what might exist--and its going to be really, really good." Zuckerberg is even maturing into a capable presenter.Compared to Bezos, Cook, and Page, hes most adept at mimicking Jobss singular skills, and comesoff as infectiously visionary when unveiling a new product.From search to ads to phones to tablets to TV to games, Facebook aims to be in everything. In somecases, as with music or gaming, it will partner with others to serve its massive audience. But overtime, look for Zuckerberg to build his own products. Search is the most provocative example.Facebooks partnership with Bing already shows off links that your friends liked; Facebook Searchcould go even deeper, sorting the web according to your social interactions. It would use everythingit knows about you to decipher your queries in a way that Google cant muster. Type in "jobs" andFB Search would know youre looking for news on the Apple founder and not employment. (Itknows you have a job; it even knows how often you goof off there.)Zuckerbergs app strategy is also ambitious and intriguing. At f8, he debuted a new class ofFacebook media apps that let Facebook users read, watch, and listen to content without ever leavingthe site--and share it seamlessly. Hes lured impressive media partners such as The Wall StreetJournal, Spotify, and Netflix. If Zuckerberg can bring those apps to the social networks mobileproduct, hell have a winner on his hands: an app ecosystem that works on every phone and tablet,rather than on just one companys devices, and one that captures the next generation of mobiledevelopers (not to mention all those Facebook credits). Watch out, Apple: Zuck is coming for you.The Phone BarrierOne industry stands directly between the Fab Four and global domination. Its an industry thatfrustrates you every day, one that consistently ranks at the bottom of consumer satisfaction surveys,that poster child for stifling innovation and creativity: your phone carrier. And your cable or DSLfirm. For Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, the worlds wireless and broadband companies area blessing and a curse. By investing in the infrastructure that powers the Internet, theyve made thefour firms services possible. But the telcos and cable companies are also gatekeepers to customers,and Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook would love to cut them out of the equation. In the longrun, they actually stand a shot at doing so.While Google has historically had a difficult relationship with the telcos, that will have to change asthe company keeps pushing Android into the market. That leaves Apple as the thorn in the carriersside. Before the iPhone, carriers routinely prevented smartphone users from installing their ownapps, and they regularly disabled hardware features that competed with their revenue streams.(Verizon once crippled BlackBerrys GPS system because the carrier sold its own subscriptionlocation plan.) The iPhone forever changed this culture: It conditioned phone users to expect todownload any apps they choose (actually, any app approved of by Apple). Carriers can no longertell you that you cant run, say, Skype, or an app that gives you free text messages. Buy asmartphone, and youve earned that right. Apples move to expand its carrier lineup in the U.S. is thenext great front in the battle with communications companies. Now that you can get the iPhone onAT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, carriers will be forced to compete with one another on network speed,price, and customer service. This will be a first: Back in 2009, when Apple unveiled "iPhonetethering"--the ability to use your phones network connection to surf the web on your computer--AT&T took a year to implement the service, while other carriers around the world launched itinstantly. But if AT&T dithers now, you can go somewhere else. 25

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The best tech companies stay at their peak for a decadeat most. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google havethe potential to be exceptions.Thats small potatoes compared to some potential breakthroughs. All but Amazon have avideophone service: Apples FaceTime, Google+ Hangouts, and Facebooks Skype integration.Apples iMessage and Facebooks Messenger, which offer text, photo, video, and group messaging,intend to get people to route all of their communications through the Internet rather than thecarriers. If either takes off--and, given that iMessage will be built into the next iPhone andMessenger will be available to every Facebook user on iPhone and Android, they both seem sure tobe hits--theyll stand a good chance at replacing SMS, which is highly lucrative for carriers, as thestandard for mobile conversations.In a larger sense, all these companies have devalued the idea of talking on the phone; paying forminutes is passé when you can text, IM, and video chat instead. Now we all just pay for data,delivered via high-speed networks that might be built around and between what the carriers offer.(Of course, the Fab Four seems to assume retailers and municipalities will build those networks toenable their vision--anyone but them.) Verizon is a $100 billion company built on dumb pipes, anddumb pipes may not make for a smart business model for the long run.The Bank HeistThe other outfit standing between you and the Fab Four is one that barely registers: your credit-card company. When you buy something through iTunes, the Android Market, Amazon, orFacebook, the credit-card company gets a small cut of your payment. To these giants, the cutrepresents a terrible inefficiency--why surrender all that cash to an interloper? And not just anyinterloper, but an inefficient, unfriendly one that rarely innovates for its consumers. These credit-card giants seem ripe for the picking.While this attack is less mapped out than the one on your phone and cable company, heres how thescenario would play out. The first step is getting consumers used to the idea of paying by phone.The second step is to encourage consumers to link their bank accounts directly to their devices, thuseliminating the credit-card middleman. For example, Google just launched Wallet, a service thatallows you to pay for purchases by waving your phone at a merchant paypad. Google is not billingthe system as a credit-card killer; in fact, its partnering with MasterCard and Citi on Wallet. But ifcustomers embrace Wallet to make payments, Google could add services that make it the centralrepository of all our coupons and other special deals, taking a bite out of the likes of Groupon andLivingSocial (in which Amazon is a major investor). The move is so ambitious that its alreadyrattled the leader in online payments: PayPal sued Google just hours after the Wallet announcement,back in May, claiming that Google stole its intellectual property when it poached Osama Bedier, aformer exec who now runs Googles payment project.Both Amazon and Facebook could transform their online-payments services into similar walletlikemobile apps, while Facebook could create a significant PayPal rival in web commerce if it rolledout payments as part of Facebook Connect. Apple has a very different, but potentially moredisruptive, shot at this market. The company has long been rumored to add near-field-communication chips--which allow for waving your phone to pay--into its phones. If it does, anApple payments system would have two advantages over everyone else. First, the iTunes databaseof customers is huge. Second, theres the iPad, which is fast gaining traction as a next-gen cashregister in small businesses around the country. This sets up Apple to own both sides of potentiallymillions of transactions: Go to your coffee shop, wave your iPhone against the cashiers iPad, and 26

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voilà, youre done. Multiply that by every hipster in America and you see the scale of Applesambition.The Hit MenSo who could derail these best-laid plans? Well, lets start with the lawyers, of course. Over thepast year, the tech industry has become an increasingly ugly place, with Apple, Google, Microsoft,Amazon, and just about every handset maker joining a legal scrum over patents. Everyone is suingeveryone else, while the government, spurred on by the likes of, yes, Microsoft, is considering anantitrust suit against Google. None of this bodes well. Over the summer, Apple succeeded in gettingSamsungs Galaxy tablet (which runs Android) banned from release in Germany and delayed itslaunch in Australia. This is part of a global fight about design and Android, complicated by the factthat Samsung is Apples largest component supplier.The Samsung suits were also the most significant sign that Google may have a problem with theintellectual property underpinning Android, since its "free and open" operating system is forcing itsdevice makers into expensive courtroom battles over their Android phones and tablets. This, in turn,has set off a buying frenzy of global patents that might have anything to do with transmittingmobile data. A coalition that included Apple and Microsoft spent $4.5 billion to outbid Google for astash of 6,000 mobile-related patents from Nortel. Page responded by spending $12.5 billion forMotorola and its slug of 17,000 patents, and by then making two deals with IBM for more than2,000 patents in all (the purchase price was not disclosed).All these patent suits could stifle innovation. Most new devices are so complicated--touching on somany specialized areas, from intricate chip design to battery placement to touch-screen dynamics--that its impossible for any companys devices to be wholly original. Tech companies used to letminor patent violations slide, but the rise of patent-hording trolls has changed this. Now everyonesinstinct is to sue.Its almost as if theyd never studied Microsofts decline in relevance. The software giant neverresumed its place as an agenda setter after its antitrust trial in the late 1990s. The suit consumed somuch time and brainpower that the company fell behind on a decades worth of trends. Thats therisk in todays patent wars: The more time Page spends defending Android, the less effort he putsinto making sure Google is actually inventing new stuff.Tech companies are ephemeral enterprises, with a built-in obsolescence much like their products.The best firms stay at their peak for a decade tops; most get snuffed out before anyone even noticesthem. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have the potential to be exceptions to this rule. TheirCEOs are driven, disciplined, and relatively young (Cook, the oldest, will be 51 in November). Allbut Cook are founders, and their personalities are such that they seem unlikely to get tired or boredby their empire building. Their market caps and strong revenue growth should allow them toneutralize other would-be rivals--witness Bezos acquiring Zappos and Quidisi (Diapers.com) beforeeither could become a threat.As our modern oligarchy, and as individual companies, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google willnot last forever. But despite this oncoming war, in which attacking one another becomes standardoperating practice, their inevitable slide into irrelevancy likely wont be at the hands of one of theirfellow rivals. As always, the real future of tech belongs to some smart-ass kid in a Palo Alto garage. 27

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infographic retrieved from http://alltopstartups.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fab-four-infographic.jpg on March 6, 2012Mission Statements of the Fab FourApple: Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators,creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software andInternet offerings.Facebook: Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open andconnected.Google: Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible anduseful.Amazon: Amazon’s vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where peoplecan come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online. (They list this as their mission as acombination mission/vision on their site). 28

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SOCIETY 29

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Is Social Media Actually Making Us Less Connected?Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/03/01/social-media-less-connected/?WT.mc_id=en_my_stories&amp;utm_campaign=My%2BStories&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter on Marrch 1, 2012LONG BEACH, Calif. – Checking email during meetings. Shopping on your smartphone inthe middle of class. Texting at funerals. These are a few of the examples that MITprofessor Sherry Turkle offered during her TEDTalk on Thursday, in which she argued that“technology is taking us places we don’t want to go.”Turkle, a psychologist who leads MIT’s Initiative on Technology and Self, believes thatwhile our constant communication and social media engagement does make us moreconnected, it’s coming at the sacrifice of real conversation.And she thinks that will have some serious consequences for our relationships, our self-perceptions and our emotions.One major issue, she said, is that when we text, email or post to a social networking site,we’re able to project ourselves as we want to be seen. “We get to edit, we get to delete,and that means we get to retouch.”Inversely, Turkle notes that a face-to-face conversation “takes place in real time and youcan’t control what you’re going to say.”Further, with our phones at our constant disposal, Turkle says we’re only paying attentionto the things we want to pay attention to. And that leaves us increasingly disconnectedfrom our friends, family and co-workers as we simply turn to our devices when aconversation no longer interests us.This creates a situation that Turkle said makes us, “expect more from technology and lessfrom each other.” In the long run, she thinks technology is ultimately headed towardscreating a Siri-like program that can offer “companionship without the demands offriendship.”There’s certainly plenty of data that supports Turkle’s argument. Surveys showing thatwe’re increasingly texting and social networking during meal time or in the bedroom havebecome commonplace.But what’s to be done about it? Turkle isn’t calling for a return to the dark ages of pre-smartphone life. Rather, she says it’s time for us to have a more self-aware relationshipwith technology. And in turn, we should do things like create sacred places at home and atwork where we leave the devices out.Turkle’s remarks drew an emphatic standing ovation from the TED crowd. But we want toknow what you think: Does technology threaten the quality of our relationships andpersonal development, or are such fears an overblown perception of a generation thatdidn’t grow up with digital? Let us know in the comments. 30

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Monday, Mar. 27, 2006genM: The Multitasking GenerationBy Claudia WallisRetrieved From http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1174696,00.html on March 5, 2012Its 9:30 p.m., and Stephen and Georgina Cox know exactly where their children are. Well, theirbodies, at least. Piers, 14, is holed up in his bedroom--eyes fixed on his computer screen--where hehas been logged onto a MySpace chat room and AOL Instant Messenger (IM) for the past threehours. His twin sister Bronte is planted in the living room, having commandeered her dads iMac--as usual. She, too, is busily IMing, while chatting on her cell phone and chipping away athomework.By all standard space-time calculations, the four members of the family occupy the same three-bedroom home in Van Nuys, Calif., but psychologically each exists in his or her own little universe.Georgina, 51, who works for a display-cabinet maker, is tidying up the living room as Bronteworks, not that her daughter notices. Stephen, 49, who juggles jobs as a squash coach, fitnesstrainer, event planner and head of a cancer charity he founded, has wolfed down his dinner alone inthe kitchen, having missed supper with the kids. He, too, typically spends the evening on his cellphone and returning e-mails--when he can nudge Bronte off the computer. "One gets obsessed withones gadgets," he concedes.Zooming in on Piers screen gives a pretty good indication of whats on his hyperkinetic mind. O.K.,theres a Google Images window open, where hes chasing down pictures of Keira Knightley. Goodones get added to a snazzy Windows Media Player slide show that serves as his personal e-shrine tothe actress. Several IM windows are also open, revealing such penetrating conversations as this onewith a MySpace pal:MySpacer: suuuuuup!!! (Translation: Whats up?)Piers: wat up dudeMySpacer: nmu (Not much. You?)Piers: sameNaturally, iTunes is open, and Piers is blasting a mix of Queen, AC/DC, classic rock and hip-hop.Somewhere on the screen theres a Word file, in which Piers is writing an essay for English class. "Iusually finish my homework at school," he explains to a visitor, "but if not, I pop a book open onmy lap in my room, and while the computer is loading, Ill do a problem or write a sentence. Then,while mail is loading, I do more. I get it done a little bit at a time."Bronte has the same strategy. "You just multitask," she explains. "My parents always tell me I cantdo homework while listening to music, but they dont understand that it helps me concentrate." Thetwins also multitask when hanging with friends, which has its own etiquette. "When I talk to mybest friend Eloy," says Piers, "hell have one earpiece [of his iPod] in and one out." Says Bronte: "Ifa friend thinks shes not getting my full attention, I just make it very clear that she is, even thoughIm also listening to music."The Coxes are one of 32 families in the Los Angeles area participating in an intensive, four-yearstudy of modern family life, led by anthropologist Elinor Ochs, director of UCLAs Center onEveryday Lives of Families. While the impact of multitasking gadgets was not her original focus,Ochs found it to be one of the most dramatic areas of change since she conducted a similar study 20 31

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years ago. "Im not certain how the children can monitor all those things at the same time, but Ithink it is pretty consequential for the structure of the family relationship," says Ochs, whose workon language, interaction and culture earned her a MacArthur "genius" grant.One of the things Ochs team of observers looks at is what happens at the end of the workday whenparents and kids reunite--and what doesnt happen, as in the case of the Coxes. "We saw that whenthe working parent comes through the door, the other spouse and the kids are so absorbed by whattheyre doing that they dont give the arriving parent the time of day," says Ochs. The returningparent, generally the father, was greeted only about a third of the time, usually with a perfunctory"Hi." "About half the time the kids ignored him or didnt stop what they were doing, multitaskingand monitoring their various electronic gadgets," she says. "We also saw how difficult it was forparents to penetrate the childs universe. We have so many videotapes of parents actually backingaway, retreating from kids who are absorbed by whatever theyre doing."HUMAN BEINGS HAVE ALWAYS HAD A CAPACITY to attend to several things at once.Mothers have done it since the hunter-gatherer era--picking berries while suckling an infant, stirringthe pot with one eye on the toddler. Nor is electronic multitasking entirely new: weve been drivingwhile listening to car radios since they became popular in the 1930s. But there is no doubt that thephenomenon has reached a kind of warp speed in the era of Web-enabled computers, when it hasbecome routine to conduct six IM conversations, watch American Idol on TV and Google the namesof last seasons finalists all at once.That level of multiprocessing and interpersonal connectivity is now so commonplace that its easyto forget how quickly it came about. Fifteen years ago, most home computers werent even linked tothe Internet. In 1990 the majority of adolescents responding to a survey done by Donald Roberts, aprofessor of communication at Stanford, said the one medium they couldnt live without was aradio/CD player. How quaint. In a 2004 follow-up, the computer won hands down.Today 82% of kids are online by the seventh grade, according to the Pew Internet and AmericanLife Project. And what they love about the computer, of course, is that it offers the radio/CD thingand so much more--games, movies, e-mail, IM, Google, MySpace. The big finding of a 2005 surveyof Americans ages 8 to 18 by the Kaiser Family Foundation, co-authored by Roberts, is not that kidswere spending a larger chunk of time using electronic media--that was holding steady at 6.5 hours aday (could it possibly get any bigger?)--but that they were packing more media exposure into thattime: 8.5 hours worth, thanks to "media multitasking"--listening to iTunes, watching a DVD andIMing friends all at the same time. Increasingly, the media-hungry members of Generation M, asKaiser dubbed them, dont just sit down to watch a TV show with their friends or family. From aquarter to a third of them, according to the survey, say they simultaneously absorb some othermedium "most of the time" while watching TV, listening to music, using the computer or evenwhile reading.Parents have watched this phenomenon unfold with a mixture of awe and concern. The Coxes, forinstance, are bowled over by their childrens technical prowess. Piers repairs the family computersand DVD player. Bronte uses digital technology to compose elaborate photo collages and create adocumentary of her fathers ongoing treatment for cancer. And, says Georgina, "they both makethese fancy PowerPoint presentations about what they want for Christmas." But both parents worryabout the ways that kids compulsive screen time is affecting their schoolwork and squeezing outfamily life. "We rarely have dinner together anymore," frets Stephen. "Everyone is in their ownlittle world, and we dont get out together to have a social life."Every generation of adults sees new technology--and the social changes it stirs--as a threat to therightful order of things: Plato warned (correctly) that reading would be the downfall of oral tradition 32

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and memory. And every generation of teenagers embraces the freedoms and possibilities wroughtby technology in ways that shock the elders: just think about what the automobile did for dating.As for multitasking devices, social scientists and educators are just beginning to assess their impact,but the researchers already have some strong opinions. The mental habit of dividing ones attentioninto many small slices has significant implications for the way young people learn, reason,socialize, do creative work and understand the world. Although such habits may prepare kids fortodays frenzied workplace, many cognitive scientists are positively alarmed by the trend. "Kids thatare instant messaging while doing homework, playing games online and watching TV, I predict,arent going to do well in the long run," says Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neurosciencesection at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Decades ofresearch (not to mention common sense) indicate that the quality of ones output and depth ofthought deteriorate as one attends to ever more tasks. Some are concerned about the disappearanceof mental downtime to relax and reflect. Roberts notes Stanford students "cant go the few minutesbetween their 10 oclock and 11 oclock classes without talking on their cell phones. It seems to methat theres almost a discomfort with not being stimulated--a kind of I cant stand the silence."Gen Ms multitasking habits have social and psychological implications as well. If youre IMingfour friends while watching That 70s Show, its not the same as sitting on the couch with yourbuddies or your sisters and watching the show together. Or sharing a family meal across a table.Thousands of years of evolution created human physical communication--facial expressions, bodylanguage--that puts broadband to shame in its ability to convey meaning and create bonds. Whathappens, wonders UCLAs Ochs, as we replace side-by-side and eye-to-eye human connectionswith quick, disembodied e-exchanges? Those are critical issues not just for social scientists but forparents and teachers trying to understand--and do right by--Generation M.YOUR BRAIN WHEN IT MULTITASKSALTHOUGH MANY ASPECTS OF THE networked life remain scientifically uncharted, theressubstantial literature on how the brain handles multitasking. And basically, it doesnt. It may seemthat a teenage girl is writing an instant message, burning a CD and telling her mother that shesdoing homework--all at the same time--but whats really going on is a rapid toggling among tasksrather than simultaneous processing. "Youre doing more than one thing, but youre ordering themand deciding which one to do at any one time," explains neuroscientist Grafman.Then why can we so easily walk down the street while engrossed in a deep conversation? Why canwe chop onions while watching Jeopardy? "We, along with quite a few others, have been focusedon exactly this question," says Hal Pashler, psychology professor at the University of California atSan Diego. It turns out that very automatic actions or what researchers call "highly practiced skills,"like walking or chopping an onion, can be easily done while thinking about other things, althoughthe decision to add an extra onion to a recipe or change the direction in which youre walking isanother matter. "It seems that action planning--figuring out what I want to say in response to apersons question or which way I want to steer the car--is usually, perhaps invariably, performedsequentially" or one task at a time, says Pashler. On the other hand, producing the actions youvedecided on--moving your hand on the steering wheel, speaking the words youve formulated--can beperformed "in parallel with planning some other action." Similarly, many aspects of perception--looking, listening, touching--can be performed in parallel with action planning and with movement.The switching of attention from one task to another, the toggling action, occurs in a region rightbehind the forehead called Brodmanns Area 10 in the brains anterior prefrontal cortex, accordingto a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study by Grafmans team. Brodmanns Area 10is part of the frontal lobes, which "are important for maintaining long-term goals and achieving 33

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them," Grafman explains. "The most anterior part allows you to leave something when itsincomplete and return to the same place and continue from there." This gives us a "form ofmultitasking," he says, though its actually sequential processing. Because the prefrontal cortex isone of the last regions of the brain to mature and one of the first to decline with aging, youngchildren do not multitask well, and neither do most adults over 60. New fMRI studies at TorontosRotman Research Institute suggest that as we get older, we have more trouble "turning downbackground thoughts when turning to a new task," says Rotman senior scientist and assistantdirector Cheryl Grady. "Younger adults are better at tuning out stuff when they want to," saysGrady. "Im in my 50s, and I know that I cant work and listen to music with lyrics; it was easierwhen I was younger."But the ability to multiprocess has its limits, even among young adults. When people try to performtwo or more related tasks either at the same time or alternating rapidly between them, errors go wayup, and it takes far longer--often double the time or more--to get the jobs done than if they weredone sequentially, says David E. Meyer, director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory atthe University of Michigan: "The toll in terms of slowdown is extremely large--amazingly so."Meyer frequently tests Gen M students in his lab, and he sees no exception for them, despite their"mystique" as master multitaskers. "The bottom line is that you cant simultaneously be thinkingabout your tax return and reading an essay, just as you cant talk to yourself about two things atonce," he says. "If a teenager is trying to have a conversation on an e-mail chat line while doingalgebra, shell suffer a decrease in efficiency, compared to if she just thought about algebra until shewas done. People may think otherwise, but its a myth. With such complicated tasks [you] willnever, ever be able to overcome the inherent limitations in the brain for processing informationduring multitasking. It just cant be, any more than the best of all humans will ever be able to run aone-minute mile."Other research shows the relationship between stimulation and performance forms a bell curve: alittle stimulation--whether its coffee or a blaring soundtrack--can boost performance, but too muchis stressful and causes a fall-off. In addition, the brain needs rest and recovery time to consolidatethoughts and memories. Teenagers who fill every quiet moment with a phone call or some kind of e-stimulation may not be getting that needed reprieve. Habitual multitasking may condition theirbrain to an overexcited state, making it difficult to focus even when they want to. "People lose theskill and the will to maintain concentration, and they get mental antsyness," says Meyer.IS THIS ANY WAY TO LEARN?LONGTIME PROFESSORS AT UNIVERSITIES around the U.S. have noticed that Gen M kidsarrive on campus with a different set of cognitive skills and habits than past generations. In lecturehalls with wireless Internet access--now more than 40% of college classrooms, according to theCampus Computing Project--the compulsion to multitask can get out of hand. "People are going tolectures by some of the greatest minds, and they are doing their mail," says Sherry Turkle, professorof the social studies of science and technology at M.I.T. In her class, says Turkle, "I tell them this isnot a place for e-mail, its not a place to do online searches and not a place to set up IRC [Internetrelay chat] channels in which to comment on the class. Its not going to help if there are paralleldiscussions about how boring it is. Youve got to get people to participate in the world as it is."Such concerns have, in fact, led a number of schools, including the M.B.A. programs at UCLA andthe University of Virginia, to look into blocking Internet access during lectures. "I tell my studentsnot to treat me like TV," says University of Wisconsin professor Aaron Brower, who has beenteaching social work for 20 years. "They have to think of me like a real person talking. I want tohave them thinking about things were talking about." 34