If you’re not aware, the term Internet of Things refers to the interconnection of everyday objects (large and small) via an array of sensors and radio tags that would allow for a vastly “smarter” world empowered through technology. The amount of information that would be generated is staggering, but innovators will find opportunities to leverage this data (in conjunction with data from your social profile) to create amazing experiences in every day life delivered through this new found insight.

Imagine how a person’s lifestyle enhanced through digital experiences might change if devices, applications, or even marketing experiences were able to pull from a massively expanded pool of data delivered by understanding the current state of things they interact with such as their car, their personal electronics and appliances, the buses their kids go to school on, all the items in their refrigerator, and even their clothing. If each of these items were tagged and at minimum reporting their “identity” and location but potentially even sharing their operating status, power consumption, fuel level, capacity, current activity, or history of use computer logic could understand and make intelligent and highly relevant recommendations based on these factors that could be used to enhance any digitally enabled experience.

Let’s re-imagine a great marketing as a service example from recent memory: Fiat’s Ecodrive. Fiats’s brilliant Ecodrive system allowed your car to monitor your driving behavior and via their website was able to make driving recommendations on improving your driving style to increase fuel efficiency. Unfortunately it wasn’t real time or wirelessly driven but it did demonstrate a clear value to consumers and marketers how rich insight into your behaviors could create valuable experiences. Now imagine if experiences like that were all around us and operating in realtime without the need for thumb drives etc.
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Everyone by now must have had a discussion about future of books, magazines, newspapers, etc. You’ve probably seen Wired on the iPad, the Sports Illustrated Tablet Demo, any many more.

IDEO, respected company for their innovation and product design, came up with 3 concepts for the future of the book.

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At its Open Innovation Experiment, Swedish software technology and design company TAT (The Astonishing Tribe) released a spectacular video showing a glimpse of possible screen technology of the future. They predict that we will have malleable screens, screens that are built into mirrors connected with Wi-Fi, e-ink touch screens and several others that can only be imagined at the moment.

Take a look at their video to see this inspired view of what comes next:

[via Swiss-Miss]

Perhaps one of the best features of Facebook Places was not released with the initial launch … Looking back at the Facebook Places official video, the most compelling selling point is that Facebook helps you digitalize your memories. The fact that you can geo-tag and timestamp photos, videos, and comments, allows you to live back any memories, knowing what you saw, how you felt, who you were with …

Imagine if you were in Hawaii for your honeymoon, taking a cruise to all the different islands … now imagine if each photo had a geo-tag, and a time stamp, and you could comment and add your thoughts and feelings … Facebook places would be the platform to help you re-live this experience, follow your path or trace … but also, what if you come back 5 years from now, to the same place … how nice would it be to match it to your previous experiences? Or how about you go to Disney parks, and you need advice on the rides for your new kids … you can see comments your friends made in previous experiences, recommendations, reviews … ditto for restaurants … you get the point.

Facebook hasn’t made it official, but while I was lecturing last night at the Miami Ad School, I checked in, later on visited the place page, and I noticed that there’s a section titled “Photo Memories“.

Geo-tagging rich content is a huge differentiator against the currently actively vocal by desperation Dennis Crowley, Foursquare’s CEO. Let the memories begin.

And you thought my giant robot prediction was crazy....

Earlier this month I was able to visit CeBIT, the world’s largest technology show case, in Hannover, Germany. The exhibition space is absolutely enormous totally over 5,000,000 square feet. Imagine the biggest convention center building you’ve ever seen then imagine at least 20 buildings of that size and you’ll have an idea of how big CeBIT is.

I was able to meet some brilliant people from around the world, speak on a panel about social media, and be exposed to some great bleeding edge technology. All in all it was a great couple of days (even though I missed my flight on the way back).

Most buildings were focused on one subject that included green technologies, security, enterprise network technology, mobile, GPS, computers, gaming, or my personal favorite “the future parc”. The future parc was focused on innovative new technologies whether they had been productised or not. You could look at technologies at an early stage with the potential that you might see a new opportunity for it’s use.

I’ve highlighted some of my favorite items below that I saw during the conference. Some are really far out and some are fairly simple – I hope you enjoy the quick summary.

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