As we have commented before in this blog, the web search term ‘next big thing’ is one remarkably simple yet powerful method corporate IT professionals can use, to scan the horizon for technologies and concepts entering and rising up the hype cycle.
Today I spent an hour browsing Google and Bing news search results for this key phrase much beloved by journalists. Here are the best results.
- ’4G’ suggests SignOn San Diego
- ‘Bloom Boxes’ suggests the Canadian Journal of Commerce
- ‘The Apple iPad’ suggests USA Today
- ‘NFC m-commerce coupons’ suggests International Supermarket News
- ’3D smartphones’ suggests BNET
- ‘Hybrid Events’ suggests VirtualEdge.org
- ‘Social games’ suggests JoongAng Daily
- ‘Geolocating’ suggests my FOX Houston
- ‘ZigBee in Cellphones’ suggests ITWire
- ‘Conversion Optimisation’ suggests Multilingual Search
Of course, some of these won’t be news to you and you may be surprised that some of them are news to anyone. But ‘new’ is a concept relative to your position in the market. The media outlets in this listing serve very different audiences – some niche, some general – and in different geographies. The point is to keep a watch outside your immediate domain, to understand what others are seeing and to assess how they are being influenced.