Technology: 100 years of past predictions (sort of) - video
So we’ve launched our first YouTube video which rapidly charts the computing technology milestones of the last 100 years and asks, ‘where are we heading next?’. We’re really excited about it and it was fun to create. Check out our YouTube channel PredictionTV (cheesy but ‘Nostradamical’ was taken…).
The concept
We wanted to ask, ‘what have been the key milestones in computing technology over the last 100 years that have lead to where we are now and where we are heading?’ Think iphone, Atari, ARPNET, microchips, robotics, code breaking, etc… At Nostradamical.com we’re all about predictions.
We also had a little fun thinking about the key milestones that could happen over the next few years from now. For instance, at Google’s current rate of growth how much power will they need by 2015? When will Facebook reach 1 billion users (they recently hit 175 million)?
Going back in time…
We had some fun phrasing the questions you would have asked had you had Nostradamical.com earlier in the last century (yes we know that was not possible). For example, “is the Sony Walkman just a teenage fad?” . Apple and Microsoft have both had interesting milestones over the last 20 years. One of favourite past quotes supposedly attributed to Bill Gates in 1981 was, “640K ought to be enough for anybody“. Although Gates apparently disputes this.
Thanks to…
I big thanks to PBS.org, About.com, and Computerhistory.org for their great sites on computer history. We also found some useful info at http://www.brainyhistory.com/ which helpfully lists out the detailed history of each year - thanks guys.
Like it? Please comment the video and checkout current technology predictions from our members.
Get ahead of the curve: 8 useful social search tools
At Nostradamical.com we’re all about predictions - predictions on future events, world affairs and hot topics on the public’s mind. So naturally we’re interested in the whole social search and ‘real time search’ debate.
We’ve listed out some real time & social search resources currently available that give users the ability to monitor what’s on mind of internet users the world over. The debate continues over Twitter’s overall dominance of real time search.
One Riot
Firstly our fav is One Riot - currently in Alpha. What’s cool about One Riot is that without even searching you can get the hot topics of the day right off the front page. And they are actual topics, not random keywords. Nice work guys. Check out their blog for more discussion on the week’s hot topics.
SamePoint
SamePoint.com is a social search engine that categorises Social Mentions, Discussion Points, Bookmarks, Wikis, Network,s B2B Networks, Groups, Life Casting, MicroBlogs, Reviews, Podcasts, Documents, Video, Images, News and Web. It has a Google Trends-like page that lists current trends.
SocialMention
SocialMention.com has a nice clean interface and presents social search results across a variety of sources from blogs to social networking data. You can get RSS feeds on your results. For example you can track our own mentions right here. Again, they have a nice trends page here.
Facebook Lexicon
Facebook’s own tool - Lexicon - is quite interesting to use but actually lacks the visual interest and punch of something like SocialMention.com. It feels like more of an experiment than a useful tool.
Twitter - Twist
Twist, the app from Flaptor indexes current trends from Twitter and allows users to monitor ‘keyword frequency’ inside the Twitter cloud. It’s interesting to compare the frequency of words like ‘twitter’ against ‘facebook’. However a look at the top 10 most popular terms yields some bizarre entries like ’sunday’ and ‘monday’. Given I am checking this on a Monday morning I guess Twitters are tweeting about their weekend activities and being back at work on a Monday. But, this is not really giving us an insight into ‘hot topics’, but rather ‘hot words’.
Google Trends
Google Trends, as you would expect is a heavyweight offering from Google with plenty of drill down functionality. You can compare search trends my topic, location, etc which gives detailed insights into specific terms and related words. My favourite page is the ‘hot trends’ page which gives a list of hot terms for the day. If you don’t know where to start this is a good place.
Twingly
Twingly has a nice microblog search function similar to SocialMention but with more limited functionality.
Delver
Worth mentioning also is Delver which is a social search page based more around your own network. Great for keeping in touch with hot trends in your immediate social universe.
Between these tools you can get a real feel for what’s out there. However the real ‘real time’ search market is yet to be fully harnessed with clear trending information and meaningful insights. Let’s keeping watching this space.
If you recommend more tools please let us know!
Crowd Gazer: Who’s predicting what in Feb ‘09?
Welcome to ‘Crowd Gazer’, the monthly roundup of who is predicting what at Nostradamical.com and what trends we are seeing from our user community. All predictions and forecasts at Nostradamical.com are created by you, the public.
Up, up and away!
So January saw us off to our public launch with a great response through AllMyFaves and TechCrunch. We had a great sign-up response and some fantastic predictions posted by our new members.
So what’s cooking on the Nostradamical.com prediction stove in February 2009?
In Technology:
Twitter’s future seems secure from Facebook, whilst Steve Jobs looks like he’ll keep on truckin’ at Apple for the time being. Go Steve, go!
It looks like Power.com’s future in 2009 is tenuous for the moment and AOL doesn’t appear to be a future player according to our forecasters.
This month’s announcement of Amazon Kindle 2 looks shaky with so many other iPhone, smartphone and netbook options out there. It’s a great product though.
In Entertainment & Celebrity:
There is a strong chance Heath Ledger will get a posthumous Oscar for his fantastic performance in The Dark Knight. Not long now until the Oscars. Let’ face it, it would be a great award for a great actor.
With the start of Lost Season 5 this month it looks like our forecasters think John Locke - the leader of the ‘Others’ is not actually dead. A no-brainer we’d say given he’s one of the main characters. Still it’s great to see Lost back on TV.
This month saw some hot activity around Taylor Swift’s rise up the US charts with her song Love Story - clearly user Heatwave is a big fan. Sadly the prediction of a number 1 slot was wrong. Better luck next time.
Lastly, and of our favourites…we’re tracking Rick Astley’s potential chart comeback with interest. Could this be our first self-fulfilling prediction?
In Sport:
In the US we’re seeing some interest in the Florida Gators repeating as National Champions in the 2009/2010 season. Oh and we got the NY Giant’s Super Bowl prediction wrong this time. Who wants to make next year’s Super Bowl prediction now? Be our guest.
In Europe this month sees the Rugby Six Nations tournament reach blistering levels of excitement as Wales are tipped to repeat their success last year as Grand Slam Winners.
In Business it’s all doom and gloom with various predictions on collapses and acquisitions. Could Fiat be in total control of Chrysler by the summer? Will the Bank of England’s base rate hit 0% by the summer? Oh and while we’re on the subject, let’s go all out…will the US economy collapse in 2010? I think it has already?
As for the Yahoo-Microsoft relationship our forecasters don’t think Yahoo will survive 2009 without being sold. What do you think?
In World Affairs:
In World Affairs we’ve seen a lot of activity around the Iran / Israel political debate. What are the chances Iran will send nukes into Israel this year? Gladly unlikely. Oh, and will Israel attach Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2009? Unlikely, but scary as hell.
Lastly, in Evil:
In Evil we have two of our favourite predictions. Firstly is seems fairly unlikely that Osama Bin Laden will be found this year again. Where is this guy?
And looking longer term we’re happy to see some creativity sparking with a prediction on whether or not the world will end on December 21st 2012 as ‘hyped’ by various sources. At least this one will be easy to confirm!
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