Earlier this week there was a report on the rapid growth of broadband high-speed internet hook-ups during the last year. The numbers are impressive and speak to the widening demographic and economic base of broadband users. According to a survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, broadband adoption increased 59% among households with […]
[Regular readers of this blog have read a lot about recent, current and coming disintermediation. Whether it be the travel business, stock brokerage, media, real estate or insurance it is clear that in this major historical period of transformation, the Internet has brought about clear disintermediation. Practically any industry will have some structural change due […]
Science fiction can be extremely thought provoking, particularly to one who thinks about the future. There are novels that are fantastical and take place centuries in the future in galaxies ‘far far away’, populated by weird creatures and other worldly landscapes. Then there are the many novels that are more conceptual, set slightly in the […]
Yesterday we looked at how Media has been disintermediated and transformed during the past 30 years. Today we look at two industries that are on the threshold of some degree of disintermediation. Using the four part definition of the term , it is clear that real estate and insurance are going to be reorganized from […]
In the last post on disintermediation , I gave a deeper definition and current meaning to the term: 1. Disintermediation is the removal of the intermediary or entity 2. If the intermediary remains in place, it will be drained of any excess compensation 3. Industries that hold information hostage for financial gain will be disintermediated. […]
The “Remember When Gas Was Cheap?” post on 4/20/06 provoked a lot of response. That post looked back at the rise of gas prices, written from the future perch of 4/20/09. In that futuristic look back to see how gas went from $3.00 in April, 2006 to the $7.33 price in April, 2009, I wrote […]
“The future, what’s that?” -Belisario, one of a group of hunter-gatherers who left the Columbian jungle to join the modern world This was the “Quotation of the Day” from yesterday’s New York Times. It was lifted from the remarkable front page article about the Nukak-Maku and that a group of almost 80 of this Stone Age […]
[Reader note: in the short life of this blog your feedback has been important. There have been two format suggestions that have been made several times. First, people have said they like the orginal ideas, depth of content and the writing. Second they have said that they often do not have the time to read […]
The issue of energy and the systemic societal addiction to petroleum around the world is at the top of the list of important issues we now face. It, more than any other current issue affects how the future of humanity will be written. As stated in the ‘blog origins’ section of this site, I believe we […]
I want to take a momentary break in the discussion of the future price of oil, disintermediation and the Future of Today to express a personal message of thanks. Yesterday this blog received kind words of recommendation from Stephen J. Dubner on the www.freakonomics.com web site. As practically any reader with any amount of world […]