A Predictor of Technology Trends
Horace Dediu, founder and author of market-intelligence blog Asymco.com, tracks technology trends for a living. A former business development executive at Nokia Corp., he’s garnered a following discussing topics such as why Nokia’s Symbian operating system lost ground and the continued rise of Apple. Asymco.com has attracted more than three million views since launching in June, Mr. Dediu says. The site has also spawned a sister Chinese blog with simplified Chinese translations of Asymco posts.
“I felt there was something I could contribute to the online reporting of the market,” Mr. Dediu said in an email. “Those who reported did not analyze and those who analyzed did not report.” The Helsinki-based writer, recently in Hong Kong for the city’s electronics fair as well as a conference on the tablet and smartphone revolution, wanted to learn more about Asian mobile markets, as he believes that mobile technology will become ever more localized. “Apps will evolve to match local taste because they are entertainment products.
The most popular category of apps is lifestyle, and if you study the entertainment industry, much of the content is localized,” he says. Even the way people use their smartphones depends on how the devices were introduced to each local market, he says. In the U.S., where most people had Blackberrys before iPhones, phones are primarily considered communication tools. But in Asia and Europe, where phones had cameras and music players for many years, user behavior revolves more around these gadget features. “It’s not going to be a homogenous cultural phenomenon,” he says.
To discover what Mr. Dediu has on his radar in the tech world, please click on the SOURCE below.