1. It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future! CSE5060: Multimedia Applications on the Web Lecture 12 Dan Eaves

2. These few slides are intended to help us get talking, not to outline positions or solutions…

3. Kondratiev Waves

4. One Set of Waves – Start Points The Industrial Revolution--1771 The Age of Steam and Railways--1829 The Age of Steel, Electricity and Heavy Engineering-- 1875 The Age of Oil, the Automobile and Mass Production- -1908 The Age of Information and Telecommunications-- 1971 According to this theory, we are currently at the turning-point of the 5th Kondratiev.

5. Does this give us a framework for prediction? What are alternatives for the short- to mid- term? – Extrapolate? (Web % of total economic transactions will continue to grow at present rate) – Catch trends (e.g., iPod)? – Catch new technologies (e.g., public talk spaces)? – Surveys and/or focus groups? – Needs analysis? – Is the likely success of a prediction predictible?

6. What Might be the Next Wave? Biotechnology?

7. Do Large Time-Scale Trends Matter for Short Term Business Investments? “In the long term, we are all dead”, Lord Keynes Is picking 5 year evolutionary paths in web/multimedia computing too easy or too hard?