We first did this list in August 2007, at which point Evolution of Dance by comedian Judson Laipply was number 1 with nearly 56 million views (it's now outside the top 10). The next update was September 2008, when Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend pop music video was number 1 with 103 million views. In January 2010, Charlie bit my finger - again ! was number 1, with 148 million views. By the beginning of January 2011, Justin Bieber was at number 1 with over 400 million views for Baby.

Here is the top 10, as of February 2012:

2. Jennifer Lopez - On The Floor ft. Pitbull; 463,245,100 views

3. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance; 438,181,560 views

4. Shakira - Waka Waka(This Time for Africa); 435,406,537 views

5. Eminem - Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna; 419,238,359 views

6. Charlie bit my finger - again !; 403,885,492 views

7. LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem ft. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock; 338,476,990 views

8. Parto in un letto; 324,131,517 views

9. Eminem - Not Afraid; 305,724,343 views

10. Justin Bieber - Never Say Never ft. Jaden Smith; 290,917,758 views

Editor's note: this is a longer version of ReadWriteWeb Editor-in-chief Richard MacManus' article for the SAY Media newsletter. The newsletter is delivered weekly and features SAY Media's take on media, culture, venn diagrams and the occasional Kubrick homage. You can sign up for it here.

Over half of all devices at this year's CES, the world's largest consumer electronics trade show, were Internet connected. Nearly 60% of those were non-traditional computing devices such as TVs, cars, refrigerators and washing machines. Connected devices are proliferating throughout our homes and the world around us. Which means consumers are about to become a whole lot more connected to the world.

Reaching Consumers in Their Connected Cars

At this year's CES, car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Ford and Audi were touting new media and communications features. Commonly referred to as a connected car, the prevailing trend is to integrate smartphone apps into the car's dashboard. This enables drivers and passengers to listen to online music, access news and other content, stream video and more.

To give you an indication of how pervasive the trend of connected cars is becoming, look at the evolution of Ford.

The American firm first introduced Internet technology inside its cars with Sync, launched in 2007. Sync is voice-activated technology which connects your smartphone and MP3 player to your car's dashboard and steering wheel. There are currently 4 million Ford cars in North America that have Sync running. The latest evolution of Sync is called MyFord Touch, an in-car communications and entertainment system which makes it even easier for drivers to consume Internet content.

In short, the connected car is going mainstream. In Ford's newest hybrid car, the 2013 Fusion, one of the main features is its connection to the Internet.

Connected cars are set to ramp up rapidly in the coming years. The GSMA predicts that the automotive sector will account for 1.4 billion (nearly 6%) of the world's 24 billion connected devices by 2020. If you're a marketer or publisher, that's a platform you'll want to be on!

Internet TVs & Personalized Media

For the consumer, it's all about personalizing one's media experience. The TV is another device where this trend is playing out.

While popular TV network shows such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad will continue to reach a large swath of people, Internet TV opens up opportunities for new types of video content to emerge and become popular too. Formats will evolve. We'll see TV stars and brands creating their own YouTube channels and releasing short bursts of content to the Web. But also, we'll see web applications arise that mix TV content with Internet programming. This is fertile ground for publishers to innovate and for marketers to latch onto to reach niche audiences.

The rise of Internet TV was evidenced at this year's CES by Samsung's announcements.

Samsung is the world's No. 1 TV brand and it launched significant upgrades to its Smart TV product line. Samsung's 2012 model TVs will enable users to consume a mix of traditional TV programming and Web apps. The devices are ready, now it's time for new types of content and apps to bloom.

The next big thing in computing isn't a new model smartphone or laptop. It's the Internet empowering everything else around us. Our cars, TVs and many other devices. Which means we all need to think about engaging digital Internet experiences for the car, TV and every device imaginable - because that's where audiences are heading.

Convergence. Remember that word from the dot com era? Well, it's back and this time it actually has substance. Convergence in the 90s meant combining old media with new media, a.k.a. the Internet. The 2000 merger of AOL and Time Warner was a failed $200 billion attempt at convergence. But fast forward to 2012 and convergence is happening for real this time, thanks to Internet-connected devices in the house and a rapidly growing app ecosystem. Entertainment now flows freely through home networks, to multiple devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones and television sets.

According to one research firm, 2012 will be when convergence really hits its stride. A new report by IMS Research states that 2012 will be when the consumer electronics industry "finally realizes the promise of multi-screen content consumption."

It's not just Web connected hardware which is proliferating. Software is also finally fulfilling the long-held promise of convergence. We saw a great example earlier today, with version 3.0 of the video aggregator app Showyou being released. ReadWriteWeb's Jon Mitchell described it as "the remote control for web video."

The beauty of Showyou is that you can watch videos on a variety of devices: PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle Fire, Apple TV. While I was eating my lunch today, I sat down in the living room and opened both my iPad and TV. I surfed to a music video on Showyou that I like and pressed the Apple "airplay" button on the iPad to transfer the video to my TV (via Apple TV).

I'm not entirely convinced that 2012 will be the year when this multi-screen promise is realized. During my lunchtime, I fiddled around a bit with Airplay before I got it working. Also home networks are not particularly user friendly for non-technical people. 2012 may well be a tipping point, when convergence within the home begins to take off. But we're not at the point of great user experiences yet.

In its report, IMS Research noted that an apps ecosystem for devices like the TV will be a key enabler of convergence in home entertainment. It also pointed to the growing amount of digital content available to consumers and "the changing habits of consumers regarding accessing, consuming and sharing digital content."

IMS Research predicts that the market for IP-enabled CE devices will grow from 2.2 billion devices shipped in 2011 to 3.5 billion in 2016. Note that this is just for home entertainment and portable consumer electronic devices. We reported last week that mobile industry group GSMA is predicting growth from 9 billion to 24 billion Internet-connected devices worldwide. The GSMA's figures include things like connected cars and IP-enabled washing machines.

Have you begun to consume entertainment in your home across multiple screens? If so, let us know in the comments what your current favorite household apps are.

Over the coming decade, we're going to see a lot of new Internet-connected household devices that will literally change the way you live. A great example is a new device from a very well-funded startup called Nest Labs. At the end of 2011, the company released a Web-enabled thermostat called the Nest. Yes, a thermostat. It was designed by the man who invented the iPod for Apple, Tony Fadell.

The idea behind Nest was directly inspired by the revolution in smartphones, which transformed the mobile phone into a full-fledged mobile computer. Nest labs co-founder Matt Rogers explained in a blog post how he and Fadell aim to do the same for the thermostat:

"The gap between the consumer experience in mobile products and the ones in our homes is enormous. I've been a programmer my entire life and could not program a thermostat for the life of me. I looked at it and thought, this beige plastic box cannot be the best our generation can come up with. Surely, there must be a better way."

So other than the elegant design of Nest (another of the 5 signs of a great user experience), what makes the product different from the traditional thermostat? The main difference is that Nest is powered by 6 sensors and proprietary algorithms, which enables it to "learn" your living habits and adjust the temperature automatically throughout the day and night. The company claims that Nest will have created a personalized temperature schedule for you after just one week of use. Nest has WiFi, which enables it to monitor weather patterns. You can also control it via an iPhone app or on the Web.

Nest is a lot more expensive than the traditional thermostat you'd buy from your local hardware store. It costs $249, plus an installation fee of $119 if you want to get it professionally installed (which All Things D's Katherine Boehret learned is a good move). The idea is that Nest will save you money on your energy bills. Note that Nest is currently sold out, but you can add your name to an email list to be notified of availability.

The thermostat is the first home device out of Nest Labs, but it intends to expand to other devices. In a CES video interview with Techcrunch, Nest Labs co-founder Matt Rogers noted that "there are lot of things in the home that have not been changed in 20-30 years." The smoke alarm is one example of a device ripe for Internet connection, given that it operates via sensors.

It remains to be seen whether Nest can capture a large chunk of the thermostat market, especially given its high price relative to traditional thermostats. But there's no doubt that this is where household devices like the thermostat are heading.

Using data and the Web to learn your living patterns and change your life for the better. Get used to that, because it's what the next generation of home appliances will do.

Photo credit: Seth Frankel, via Nest.com

In short, Path has a great user experience. That isn't the deciding factor on whether a tech product takes off. Ultimately it comes down to how many people use it and that's particularly important for a social app like Path. Indeed it's where Path may yet fail, but the point is they have given themselves a chance by creating a great user experience. In this post, we outline 5 signs that the tech product or app you're using has a great UX - and therefore has a shot at being the Next Big Thing.

A great user experience isn't just about the user interface, but it helps a lot. While I'm not a regular Path user, today I opened it up and browsed for a bit. To like an item on Path, you click a little smiley icon in the top right. If you really, really like an item, you can make it a heart icon. There are three other options: a winky face, a surprised face and a sad face. So Path has cleverly created 5 different types of 'like' using subtle but obvious icons. This is something that Facebook hasn't yet cracked; it only has one style of 'like' and many people have argued for a 'dislike' option, at the very least.

2. Addictive

A nice design is one thing, but you also need to see value in it. It must either solve a problem for you, or be a pleasurable distraction. Time and time again. In other words, it must be addictive. One of the current trendy services on the Web is Pinterest, an online pinboard that has become an addiction for many. In a text-heavy social Web, Pinterest has nailed the concept of a completely visual user experience. It solves a problem, because it gives you a place to store images around topics - such as the very popular wedding dresses section. It brings you back every day, if you get hooked.

3. Fast Start

The Kindle Fire as a product is not as aesthetically pleasing as the iPad 2. The Fire is rectangular and small, looking a bit like the iPad's runty little brother. But what the Kindle Fire does better than the iPad is get the user started - and hooked - straight out of the box. With the iPad, you need to connect to iTunes or manually set up your account to get things started, which can often be a time consuming and awkward experience for newbies. But if you buy the Kindle Fire from Amazon, it comes pre-loaded with your Amazon profile. This enables most users to start downloading content as soon as they switch the device on for the first time.

Note that the rest of the Kindle Fire's user experience is not always pleasurable. But the start up is one part that is.

4. Seamless

With so many Internet-connected devices and screens nowadays, it's important to have a consistent experience. One recent example of this for me is the online music app Rdio. It only just became available in my country, but I was immediately impressed by the consistent user interface between Rdio's iPhone app and the desktop app on my computer. Rdio takes that seamlessness a step further though, in allowing you to download whole albums onto your mobile device so that you can listen to them offline. It would've been easy for Rdio to get that functionality wrong, for example by enabling download on 3G and giving you a huge cellphone bill. But by default, Rdio only downloads songs onto your mobile phone using WiFi (you can turn on 3G download if you think you can afford it). It's the little details like that which make a great user experience.

5. It Changes You

Arguably the most outstanding tech products are ones that revolutionize the way we do things. The iPhone and iPad are two high profile examples from recent years. Twitter is another. These are products that create a brand new user experience, or change old habits in a good way.

When I asked for examples of a great user experience over on Google+, Chris Brogan commented that FitBit has changed the way he manages his fitness. "The information it gathers is useful," said Chris, "plus the way it's displayed to me challenges me to do more with it."

Having an overall great user experience is difficult to pull off. Some of the products mentioned above only get part of it right, for example Kindle Fire and Path. I even said that the iPad, an otherwise glorious product, is slightly disappointing in the start up.

What products or apps have given you a great user experience recently? We'd love to hear about what's making you happy.

As more and more devices in your home get connected to the Internet, the user experience becomes increasingly important. It's hard enough to use your PC sometimes, let alone fiddle with the remote on your Internet connected TV! So over the coming months we'll be exploring the world of User Experience design (a.k.a. UX design). We'll be interviewing UX experts and reviewing products that get it right - and some that get it wrong. We'll start by looking at how the user experience of televisions is becoming more interactive and what this will mean to your TV consumption habits.

As the likes of Samsung and Sony add even more content to their TVs, via the Internet, it makes no sense to add even more buttons to the remote. The solutions are twofold: make use of other, more natural, UI controls (in particular gestural); and personalize the TV for each user.

In a session at UX Week 2011 last August, Brian Stone from Ohio State University noted that up till now, TV manufacturers have mostly been concerned with hardware improvements: bigger screens, new types of displays (the latest trend being OLED), 3-D, and so on. He argued that what's really required with Internet TV is improvements in user experience. That's because on the Internet, people interact with content and applications a lot more than they do with traditional TV programming.

One solution is to introduce more gestural interactions. Stone showed a project he set up around fantasy football, which used a gestural interface to try and "reduce things to a very simple palette of interactions." [see 7:30 onwards in the video above for a demo]. Indeed, TV manufacturers are already introducing these features. Samsung's new line of smart TV sets feature voice and gesture control, as well as facial recognition.

Another way to make the Internet TV user experience better is to personalize it. Stone showed a project that presented content personalized to the user, allowing them to interact with the TV via their smartphone, tablet, Wii remote or the gestural UI of Xbox Kinect. The navigation in that example was personalized, presenting only channels that the user frequently watches. It also gave her suggestions for relevant content. [see 9:30 mark onwards in the video above]

It's not just TV controls and navigation that will need to improve for Internet TVs to become a success. An increasingly important part of Internet TVs will be the apps that you access on it. Whether they are existing examples like Facebook and Twitter, or new apps built specifically for TV usage, app designers have to get the "10-foot user experience" right (the typical distance between a user and their TV).

While the user experience of Google TV over 2011 was widely criticized, Google has to its credit formulated a good set of guidelines for TV app development.

In upcoming posts we'll explore specific examples of UX design in TVs, as well as a myriad of other Internet connected devices. A great user experience is key to success in this new connected world. You only need to look at Apple for proof of that!

Image credit: alepouda

GSMA predicts there will be 24 billion connected devices in the world by 2020. That's up from 9 billion today. It identified car connectivity as an especially important product category to watch.

The trend towards increasing connectivity in devices will accelerate in upcoming years. As one example, GSMA predicts that more than 40% of vending machines will be connected by 2020. It estimates that connected devices will be a US$1.2 trillion market by 2020.

GSMA also listed some less traditional connected products seen at CES:

• A smart window pane with built-in apps, including computerized "blinds".
• Connected, roaming vacuum cleaners.
• Tablets built for underwater computing or designed for home and office video surveillance.
• A space-age personal work environment complete with a reclining chair, multiple computer monitors and a connected air filter.

GSMA has come up with a catch-phrase for this trend: "The Connected Life." It defines this as "a world where all technology devices intelligently connect." A more common term is Internet of Things. Either way, everyday products and devices are increasingly getting connected to the Internet.

There are approximately 9 billion connected devices today, according to the GSMA. About 72 percent of those are mobile devices. That figure will drop to 48 percent by 2020.

Put another way, by 2020 the GSMA predicts there will be 24 billion connected devices in the world and over half will be non-mobile devices. These will include connected home devices, healthcare devices and automotive technology.

GSMA is particularly bullish on the automotive sector, which it predicts will account for 1.4 billion connections by 2020. To put that into perspective, in 2011 just 1 percent of the world's 1.8 billion road vehicles were connected. However, by 2020 GSMA expects that figure to reach 14 percent. Car connectivity features will include new in-vehicle applications, phone features and navigation.

We knew the Internet of Things was slowly becoming a reality, but these new statistics and predictions by the GSMA show that commercialization of this trend will be driven by cars, home appliances and healthcare devices.

The answer to the first question, by the way, is Adele, who gained 175,000 followers over the last 24 hours (at time of writing). Adele's popularity on Facebook is mainly due to her female fans; 62% are female and 38% male. The fastest growing TV show is Mob Wives, perhaps thanks to the current "swear jar sweepstakes" promotion on its Facebook Page. This type of data is useful, albeit limited at this point.

The main site, the awkwardly named SocialMedia-live, updates Facebook Page data on 90,000 "big players" every 10 minutes - including Eminem, Coca Cola, YouTube and other very popular brands. A further 1.8 million "medium-sized pages" are updated every 12 hours. The other 36 million or so "little pages" are refreshed every 5 days.

There's a special page for "Hip Fanpages," those Facebook Pages "that have distinguished themselves in terms of layout, navigational ease, interactive fanpage features, etc." Current members include Adidas Originals, Snooki, Livestrong, Star Wars and a German comedian named Linda P. That last pick is a clue that SocialMedia-live hails from Germany.

There are some useful comparison tools, too. Below is a chart comparing the growth of Adele, Jennifer Lopez and Katy Perry over the past 90 days. We can see that the popularity of Adele's Facebook Page spiked in January of this year. She has about 12.6 million fans at time of writing. Meanwhile Lopez is growing faster than Perry. Although note that Perry has more fans than Adele and Lopez combined. She has 37.6 million fans, while Lopez has 8 million. A likely explanation is that Perry is much nearer to peak popularity on Facebook than either Adele or Lopez. Growth rate could also be affected by when the fan pages were started. So, as always, take these statistics with a grain of the proverbial salt.

The big thing missing from SocialMedia-live is search. I could find no way to get statistics about our own ReadWriteWeb Facebook Page, for example. There also seems to be no easy access to the 36 million or so "little pages." Both of those issues severely limits the usefulness of the site for marketers, who would be a prime audience for this data.

But this is a beta site, so we hope it will expand over time. For now, if you're interested in finding out how fast certain brands are growing their Facebook Page fan bases, then SocialMedia-live offers an interesting set of statistics.

What all three of the above car manufacturers, and others like General Motors and Toyota, have in common is that they are leveraging the rapid evolution of smartphone technology - rather than trying to build new Internet devices into their cars.

Today Mercedes-Benz announced "mbrace2," which connects web apps and smartphones to its vehicles. It will include new apps for Facebook, Yelp and Google Local Search. There will also be iPhone and Android smartphone apps that enable users to track car usage, control door locks, see diagnostic information and more. Mbrace2 is expected to be available in 2013 editions of Mercedes-Benz cars.

Audi

This week at CES, Audi announced new features for its Connect system. Audi defines Connect as "networked mobility" for its cars. The new features include a seven-inch 3D screen, improved control wheel and integration of LTE (Long Term Evolution, designed to handle large amounts of data). The A3 will be the first car to get these upgrades, but not for another 18 months or so.

What's more interesting is the next generation of Audi's heads-up display (HUD), which can project information onto the windshield just below a driver's normal field of vision. it reminded the New York Times of the film Minority Report. The system can be used by passengers as well as the driver, for example to look at travel routes.

Ford

Perhaps the car company doing the most with web and smartphone app integration is Ford. The American firm first introduced Internet technology inside its cars with Sync, launched in 2007. Sync is voice-activated technology which connects your smartphone and MP3 player to your car's dashboard and steering wheel. There are currently 4 million Ford cars in North America that have Sync running. The latest evolution of Sync is called MyFord Touch, a "cabin tech" system which we covered at last year's CES. Ford recently announced free upgrades for MyFord.

At CES, Ford announced a new hybrid car called the 2013 Fusion. One of the main features in this car is the integration of Sync and MyFord Touch.

According to Ryan McGee, a technical expert at Ford interviewed by Technology Review, "with Sync we empowered the driver [and] our next leap is into empowering the vehicle." It hopes to do this using Internet technology. In other words, making cars smarter. Use cases include fuel optimization, predicting your travel route on-the-fly, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication (which could help reduce crashes, among other things).

Smartphone as Car Component

All of the systems we discussed above - mbrace2, Audi Connect and MyFord/Sync - are enablers of smartphone applications and content. In other words, the smartphone becomes a component of the car via its connection to the dashboard system.

It still feels like early days for these technologies, but Audi's futuristic heads-up display is an indicator of where the car manufacturers will eventually take us.

The big news from Samsung today was a Smart TV push. The word "smart" here refers to Internet connectivity. Samsung's 2012 model TVs will enable users to consume a mix of traditional TV programming and Web apps. It remains to be seen how well these new Internet features are implemented, because software and user experience have not historically been strengths of Samsung. But the message today was clear: Samsung is doubling down on its core TV leadership and attempting to make the TV the main household Internet device.

Yoon began by noting that Samsung is the world's number 1 TV brand, for the sixth consecutive year. It sold 1.7m TVs in the month of November. He then reiterated that the TV is its primary product and is a hub for all of its other consumer offerings. "While we may have many devices," he remarked, "the heart of this ecosystem is the TV. The TV plays an important role in bringing family members together."

This reminds me a bit of Microsoft's strategy around the PC. Substitute a TV for the PC and you have Samsung's Internet strategy.

Smart TV

Samsung announced today that it is upgrading its TV line with a bunch of "smart" features. Labeled "Smart TV," 2012 model Samsung TVs will feature Smart Interaction, Smart Content, Smart Evolution and Smart Hub.

The idea behind Smart Interaction is to move beyond the traditional TV remote control. Now, viewers will be able to control their TV using face recognition, plus gesture and voice controls. It will be similar to how Microsoft's Kinect works on XBox.

Smart Content introduces social services to Samsung's TVs. Yes, this means apps. Yoon claimed that Samsung Smart TV is already "the leading platform for developers," with 25,000 developers working on the platform. 20 million apps will have been downloaded by the end of this month, he said.

At CES, Samsung introduced some key apps for its platform. One is called Family Story and it allows you to upload photos, videos and memos from mobile devices to your TV. Voice chat is coming in the future. Also, as if to prove that it is a major player now in the Web ecosystem, Samsung announced that Angry Birds will become available on Samsung Smart TVs later this year.

Smart Evolution enables you to upgrade your TV with future functionality, without having to buy a new TV. Basically it is an upgrade slot at the back of the TV and you will be able to insert an "evolution kit" into it. This will be available for all 2012 and beyond TVs.

Smart Hub is a new UI for the Web features and is in HD. Also announced at CES was an upgrade to AllShare, Samsung's cloud connectivity service. AllShare now includes sync for photos and video.

Along with the Smart TV strategy, Samsung announced new television models. These included the ES8000 LED HDTV and the so-called "ultimate TV," a 55-inch Super OLED TV. These and other high-end TVs which Samsung releases will feature an integrated camera, for both video chat and the motion controls.

What about 3D, last year's Big Thing at CES? Samsung hasn't entirely de-focused from it. Although 3D failed to get much interest from consumers, this year Samsung will attempt to drive 3D content through streaming services.

Other Computing Devices

The TV may be Samsung's main weapon, but it was Android-powered smartphones, tablets and laptops that propelled the company to the top rung of Internet device vendors in 2011. At CES, Samsung announced that it sold 300m smartphones worldwide in 2011.

Among the many products Samsung announced today were several new computing devices. It unveiled a new tablet called the Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE. Also the second generation of its "mobile PC" (a high-end laptop) called Samsung Series 9 2012 and a new "ultrabook" (a thin, lightweight laptop) called Samsung Series 5 Ultra.

Finally, the Samsung Galaxy Note, which appears to be halfway between a smartphone and a tablet. Which emphasizes another trend we're seeing these days: it's getting harder and harder to put a line between what is a smartphone, tablet or computer!

Whatever they're called, all of these devices are becoming more integrated into Samsung's Smart TV platform. For example with the Samsung Media Hub, coming to TVs later this year, users will be able to purchase content on their smartphone or tablet and watch it on TV.

Although TV and computing devices are the most high profile products for Samsung circa 2012, its consumer electronics range continues to be varied. Today at CES, the company talked about its latest WiFi cameras, refrigerators and a new connected washing machine (which enables you to control your washing machine using your smartphone).

Samsung announced a lot of products today, but the key thing to focus on is its Smart TV platform. With its traditional strength in the TV market, combined with its relatively new leadership in Android-powered computing devices, Samsung could become a very important company in the Internet ecosystem. Although again, we must caution that to date Samsung hasn't proven itself in software or Internet implementation.

In the comments, let us know your thoughts on what Samsung announced today.

Image credits: The Verge

Kelly's book is a must read for technologists and anybody interested in the future of the Web. In this post I'll explore a few of the main themes of the book, in particular as they relate to the evolving Web. (there won't be any spoilers, for those of you in the middle of reading it or if you haven't yet read it!) Two of the main themes are how technology will evolve and how we - humanity - can guide it and make the best use of it.

The book literally starts from The Big Bang, proceeds through 4 billion years of our planet's evolution, and finally looks ahead to how technology will evolve.

The Technium: a Living System of Technology

Key to the book is a new term that Kelly invents: the technium. He spends about 6 pages explaining the term, but at it's most basic it means a system of technologies. It includes not only what we ordinarily think of as specific technologies (such as cars, radar, computers), but the entire system around technology - culture, art, social institutions, "the extended human" and more.

A key to grokking the technium is that it's a living system, which evolves in a similar way to humans. On page 45, Kelly explains that "the technium can really only be understood as a type of evolutionary life." He goes on to suggest that technology evolves in a mix of inevitable and chance ways, just as humans have done. His point being that we can fairly accurately predict the macro evolution of the technium (that computers will eventually acquire a level of intelligence akin to a human, for example), but not the micro details of that evolution.

We've been writing about the Internet of Things, when real world objects become connected to the Internet, for the past couple of years on ReadWriteWeb. Kelly's book reinforces what a profound change in the Web this is. As everyday objects get connected to the Internet, they almost become 'alive' to us. They might not be able to think for themselves, yet, but billions of 'things' in the world will be able to sense and compute information about the world.

Living With Technology's Increasing Power

On page 254, Kelly writes that "technologies are nearly living things." So we will need to adjust to this and figure out how best to utilize - and live with - technologies. Kelly lists five "proactions" that humanity should take to assess and engage with technologies:

1. Anticipation
2. Continual Assessment
3. Prioritization of Risks, Including Natural Ones
4. Rapid Correction of Harm
5. Not Prohibition but Redirection

At one point he compares technologies to children. As parents we aim to guide our children to reach their potential and contribute something to the world. "We can't really change the nature of our children," Kelly writes on page 257, "but we can steer them to tasks and duties that match their talents." Likewise, he suggests, we can guide and steer technology.

Was The Unibomber Right?

Kelly spends a significant part of the book exploring the moral and ethical issues around an ever more powerful technium. Is it wise for humanity to continue to let technologies evolve, until the technium is more intelligent than humanity?

A whole chapter is devoted to the theories of the infamous Unibomber, Ted Kaczynski. Kaczynski wrote a manifesto about destroying modern technology before it destroys us. He killed 3 people with mail bombs, while attempting to carry out his manifesto. Kelly at first defends Kaczynski's theories, but he ends the chapter by attacking him on a moral level. Kelly writes (page 212-213):

"But despite the reality of technology's faults, the Unibomber is wrong to want to exterminate it, for many reasons, not the least of which is that the machine of civilization offers us more actual freedoms than the alternative [...] so far the gains from this ever-enlarging technium outweigh the alternative of no machine at all."

The Optimistic View of Technology

Ultimately 'What technology Wants' is an uplifting and optimistic book about the future of technology. It contrasts in many ways to another thought-provoking technology book, which I read and reviewed a year ago: You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto; by Jaron Lanier. In that book, Lanier argued that technology reduces our humanity - for example by promoting the 'hive mind' over individual expression. Interestingly, Lanier is quoted on the jacket of Kelly's book. He recommends you read this book, "even though I profoundly disagree with aspects of it."

It's always beneficial to have skeptics about technology, so there's a place for Lanier's arguments. Both of Lanier's and Kelly's books are stimulating and well worth reading. However, I find myself much more swayed by Kelly's theories. Whereas Lanier dismisses the Internet as meaningless in and of itself, Kelly essentially argues that the technium (of which the Internet is a part) is a hugely important evolving system. It's as much a living system as humanity is. That, I suspect, is one of the aspects that Lanier would disagree with. But I find Kelly's theory to be compelling - and helpful as an approach to the increasing power of technology.

The book concludes that technology is ultimately good for humanity. Admittedly that was Kelly's pre-destined outcome - back in November, 2004, when he began writing the book, he blogged: "I sense that overall, technology is a good thing." However the end result of his 7 year quest, the book, compellingly makes that case. I think this line near the end of the book sums it up beautifully:

"How can technology make a person better? Only in this way: by providing each person with chances."

(which incidentally echoes my own thoughts after I read Lanier's book: "[...] Lanier glosses over the benefits of web 2.0 - that it gives everyone who has a computer (and nowadays a smart phone) a publishing platform with which to explore their creativity and have their say.")

I gave Kelly's book 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, because ultimately it provides useful advice on how to think about and deal with technology. Perhaps aspects of the book can be challenged on scientific or philosophical terms, as some have argued. But that seems beside the point. I think we'd all agree that technology is evolving incredibly fast. We need to try and understand the changes. We need strategies to get the best out of technology (and, by extension, ourselves). That's what Kevin Kelly wants; and in my view the book achieves it.

Photo credit: Doc Searls

To celebrate the iPad's one year anniversary, I'm listing out my favorite 10 iPad apps over the past year. I've attempted to put them in some kind of order too. Some apps have had a bigger impact on the way I interact with the Web than others, notably apps that have changed my reading and media consumption habits. Read on to find out how!

Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we're re-publishing some of our best posts of 2011. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2012. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb!

1. Flipboard

I've raved about Flipboard many times, but it really has changed the way I consume RSS feeds. Prior to the iPad, I mostly used Google Reader on my computer (and Bloglines before that) to consume RSS. Over time though, my usage of Google Reader and RSS Readers in general had slipped. I still valued all of the feeds I'd saved in Google Reader and I often searched them to research topics. But as a daily browsing activity, Twitter and Facebook had begun to replace my time spent in Google Reader - as has been the case for many of you, I'm sure.

Flipboard changed that. Now I regularly browse my RSS feeds - and some of Twitter and Facebook - through Flipboard on my iPad. Funnily enough, Flipboard has actually increased my usage of Google Reader again. I have a number of my topical folders from Google Reader in my Flipboard. So Google Reader has in essence become my feed platform, it's just that the user interface has changed. I explored that trend as it relates to smartphone RSS Readers yesterday.

2. Kindle

Just as Flipboard changed my feed reading habits, Kindle changed my book reading. I've read a number of books in the Kindle iPad app over the past year, including novels and biographies. I still read more paper books than eBooks, but the Kindle app has been my first long-term relationship (if I may put it like that) with an eReader.

3. Zinio

A third metamorphosis in my reading habits occurred thanks largely to Zinio, the digital magazine service. I subscribe to a number of magazines in Zinio, mostly art and music related. While the reading experience is often not optimal - most of my subscriptions are simply PDF files of the magazines, so there's limited interactivity - the cost savings alone make this very worthwhile to me. Also it's handy to carry around a back catalog of magazines on my iPad.

4. Instapaper

Instapaper has been yet another driver of change in my reading habits (yes, there's a theme here!). In the 'old days' of RSS Readers, people were obsessed with their Unread count - that is, how many items in the RSS Reader were as yet unread. People would get uptight if their Unread count got too high and an urge to purge would well up. Nowadays most people don't worry themselves with the Unread count, because interesting information comes from too many different places now: Twitter, Facebook, content aggregators like Techmeme, iPhone apps, iPad apps, and so on. This is where Instapaper came into its own, because from most of those places you can click a 'Read Later' button and an item is saved to Instapaper's servers. When you have Internet connectivity, the Instapaper app downloads all of those stories so you can read them offline if need be.

Instapaper has an iPhone app too - no official Android one so far, although there are unofficial apps. However I've mostly used Instapaper on my iPad, because - you guessed it - the iPad has become the device where I now do the bulk of my reading.

5. Evernote

Finally, a non-reading app! Evernote is a note-taking app, that eventually wants to be your online brain. It's been around for much longer than the iPad, but I began to use it more when the iPad came onto the scene. I particularly like the offline feature, because it allows me to update and add to my notes when I'm out and about (I have the WiFi only version of iPad and wireless connectivity is far from a given where I live).

6. Newsy

I wrote about Newsy earlier this week, as an example of a media app that has created a new form of media delivery on the iPad. I enjoy watching a selection of 2-3 minute video news clips over my lunch, or when I need a break from my computer.

Read my interview with the founder, Jim Spencer, to discover more about this innovative news service.

7. Art Authority

I love exploring art and Art Authority is the best and most comprehensive archive of art available for the iPad. It features high quality images of art work from most of the great artists in our history.

I've spent a lot of time with my nose buried in this app.

8. Brushes

Unless you count Evernote, this is the first iPad app on my list that has more emphasis on 'write' than 'read.' That emphasizes that, for me anyway, the iPad has been mostly about consuming content. The iPad is not a great writing tool (although I have been using it more lately for things like real-time note taking from conferences). The first generation iPad didn't even have a camera, so it has always been marketed as a consumer tool more so than a creative one.

An app which does foster creativity though is Brushes, the finger painting app. In all honesty I prefer to do my amateurish painting on paper using acrylic paints, as I spend way too much time on electronic devices as it is. However Brushes is a sophisticated finger painting app and I've (ahem) dipped my finger into it from time to time.

9. YouTube

We're back to consumption now. I have to mention YouTube, as it hosts many of the videos I end up watching - whether they be presentations from tech events, videos of live music, or random videos found via Twitter or Facebook. I don't watch that much online video, but if I do there's a good chance I'll fire up YouTube on my iPad to watch it. The only issue has been that Instapaper doesn't save videos and I've yet to find a good app that does - suggestions anyone?

10. TweetDeck

Like most of you, my usage of Twitter and Facebook has increased over the past couple of years. However I don't tend to interact on either service using the iPad. There are adequate iPad apps for both, but social networking hasn't turned out to be one of my main activities on the iPad.

Friendly is a good app for Facebook and I've largely stuck to TweetDeck for Twitter. I sometimes use the official Twitter iPad app, which is slick too. Of those apps, TweetDeck is probably the one I access the most on my iPad. Although I use my Mac desktop app for TweetDeck much more, followed by the iPhone app.

Conclusion: iPad Really is About Consumption!

There you have it, my favorite 10 iPad apps since the iPad launched one year ago. I'm a little surprised at just how dominant media consumption apps have been for me; and in particular reading apps. It goes to show how much of an impact the iPad has had on my online media consumption habits.

I should add that I still do the bulk of my creation activities on the computer - mostly writing, but also curation on my personal Wordpress.com site and online social networking on various web services. However, the iPad has literally caused a paradigm shift in how I explore and consume content.

Did you get an iPad when it first launched? If so, I'd love to hear about if and how it changed your consumption patterns. Tell me your favorite iPad apps, too!

This is the fifth post in our series looking at how the user experience (UX) of consuming - and producing - media is changing with the increasing popularity of devices other than the PC. So far we've looked at music on smartphones, news apps on the iPad, RSS Readers on smartphones and online radio in cars.

The camera has been a staple of the technology industry since the 19th century. Nowadays, with the huge popularity of smartphones, more people carry and use a camera than ever before. The latest model iPhone - the iPhone 4 - has a 5 megapixel camera, which is more than sufficient for the casual photographer.

As smartphones integrate ever more powerful cameras, what can the traditional camera companies do to compete? While there will always be a market for high-end cameras - specialist devices used by professional photographers - it's that middle and lower end market which is slipping away from the likes of Kodak, Canon, Olympus, Sony and Nikon.

Artefact has created a concept camera for the smartphone age, called the WVIL. That acronym stands for Wireless Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens. As you can see from the photo above, it looks like a normal camera. One obvious difference is that it detaches in two, one part looking very much like a modern day smartphone. Artefact further describes the WVIL as a "new architecture that combines the lens and sensor together into one wireless unit."

The founders of Artefact, Gavin Kelly and Rob Girling, told me that this concept camera gave them "an opportunity to re-think how to interact with our cameras." In the video below, you can see how touchscreen technology is used to provide a new way to interact with your photos. It essentially brings the smartphone user experience to the camera.

This isn't entirely unique, because some high-end cameras - such as the Canon SD3500 - have touchscreen controls. Plus newer digital cameras often have input sensors (e.g. accelerometers, gyroscopes). However, Artefact takes these features a step further, for example by adding apps and social functionality.

Artefact is envisaging new types of software and apps for their camera. Such as software that teaches you better photography by giving you real-time coaching tips. This would use the sensors in the camera, so it knows what you're doing and can then guide you to use a certain technique or feature if appropriate.

Artefact's camera is, like the popular smartphones, built on a software platform that uses touchscreen technology. Other types of apps that Artefact foresees include apps that post-process photos, share images and enhance the camera's functionality.

Finally, this concept brings the social media functionality that smartphones famously have and deposits it into a digital camera. According to Artefact, current digital cameras have limited social functionality.

For power users of photography, having the ability to manipulate and share photos direct from the camera does seem like a compelling feature. The general consumer is already well served currently by apps like Instagram and Foodspotting, so this wouldn't be so compelling to them. Arguably smartphones still have the edge in innovation too, for example with an app like Color that mixes social networking and photography in a new and potentially disruptive way. Also see Camera+, a new photo enhancement app for smartphones.

Will Artefact's SmartCam be implemented by a camera company? The founders told me that early discussions are under way, including with companies not currently in the camera market.

Whether or not this concept - or something like it - is implemented, the current digital camera market seems ripe for innovation. It has to innovate, because the newest smartphones have sophisticated cameras which are 'good enough' for the general consumer. What do you think of Artefact's concept, would it fly with you?

This year I have 5 more predictions (and a bonus silly one). Leave a comment with your own predictions, to see if you can out-seer me!

• 1: Flipboard becomes the breakout news reading app of 2011. While Flipboard continued to expand, it was slow to move onto other platforms. The iPhone app didn't appear until December. 1/2 point.
• 2: eBooks will hit 20% market penetration by the end of 2011. The figure was 9.03% at the end of 2010, according to the Association of American Publishers. I got this one spot on, as AAP's most recent stats put the figure at 20.76%. 1 point.
• 3: Internet of Cars will be the surprise hit of the year. The Internet of Things continued to slowly build and car manufacturers like Ford iterated on their Internet functionality. While I'm tempted to claim Google's driverless car prototype as a win, the reality is that my bullish prediction didn't happen. 0 points.
• 4: Internet TV tips and gets huge consumer uptake. Hmmm, Google TV bombed and Apple TV remains a hobby... for now. Maybe in 2012 it will tip? I'll give myself 1/2 point for the success of TV-focused social apps.
• 5: A major pop music star will do something amazing with web technologies, that blows open the online music scene. While it didn't come from a major current pop star, like Lady Gaga or Kanye West, I believe that we saw a really amazing use of web technologies in Bjork's 2011 album, Biophilia. The album was an iOS app, with an interactive app for each song. OK, it didn't blow open the music scene. But it's a sign of the future. 1/2 point.

Result: 2.5/5. I'm a bit disappointed in that. But as I said at the start, it's all in good fun. So here I go again, with 5 more predictions!

2012 Predictions

1. This year's Best BigCo, Amazon.com, will launch a media-focused social network. Kind of like what MySpace used to be. It will be to a place for you to socialize around your reading, listening and viewing activities.

2. Twitter's usage will begin to wane, due to squeezing from Facebook and Google+. Maybe then Twitter will sell to Apple. Heck, predictions are no place for maybes. I predict Apple will buy Twitter!

3. Google's Chrome browser will make dramatic inroads into Microsoft's Internet Explorer, coming within 10-15% of it by the end of 2012. This will be due to mainstream people finally abandoning IE in droves. By the end of 2012, Chrome will have close to 30% of the market according to Net Applications (it currently has 17.6%) and IE will have just over 40% (it currently has 52.6%).

4. Facebook will have initial teething problems with its Timeline, but by end of 2012 it will be seen as a triumph - as millions of people begin to use Facebook over 2012 as their digital memory bank. I don't know if that's a brave (new world?) prediction or not, but right now there are a lot of skeptics about Timeline. So I'm firmly betting on Timeline being a big success for Facebook in 2012.

5. Music acts will start to truly tap into the power of the iTunes LP. Currently most iTunes LP releases are simply a PDF file with a bonus video if you're lucky. I predict that in 2012 many more bands and musicians will include multimedia in their digital albums and the braver ones will try to emulate Bjork and create stunning "app albums". This is a bit of a re-hash of my music prediction last year, but I really want to see widespread innovation in the digital album!

6. Bonus prediction: Bill Nguyen of Color fame will convince Silicon Valley VCs to part with $100 million, to fund an amazing new type of smart TV. It will have 4D, Internet telepathy and a revolutionary new sensing feature called Smell This®. RWW Editor-in-Chief Richard MacManus will thoughtfully blog that it "may be the next Google." The TV will flop before the ink is dry on the last VC cheque. A few months later, the futuristic telly will be re-branded as a way to consume Facebook frictionless sharing "on the big screen."

[p.s. I love Bill's spirit, I really do. I hope he does try for another New New Thing in 2012!]

Those are my predictions, now let me know yours :)

This year we're pleased to etch a fifth name onto the Best BigCo trophy (although like our own little company, the trophy is virtual). Our Best BigCo of 2011 has been around since the Dot Com era, but what's most impressive is how it has disrupted entirely new markets over the past year. Our Best BigCo for 2011 is...

Founded in 1994 by the impressive Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com launched in 1995 as an online bookstore. It took a good decade for it to fully establish its e-commerce operations. The diversification of Amazon.com essentially started in March 2006, with the launch of an online storage service called Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Later that year it launched Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a set of server farms that could be used by other businesses. These moves turned out to be prescient, as cloud computing has since turned into a huge market. More importantly, it gave Amazon.com the infrastructure and technical nous to become a direct competitor to Google, Apple and Microsoft.

We've chosen Amazon.com as our Best BigCo this year because, simply put, it lived up to its hype. It launched a number initiatives this year and all of them have worked out. Here are some of Amazon.com's biggest achievements in 2011:

1. Its Kindle product (first launched in 2007) evolved and continues to dominate the eReader market. It also launched an eBook lending service.
2. It took on Apple by launching a low-priced tablet called Kindle Fire (including a new browser called Silk). The Kindle Fire is significant to Amazon.com because it's a media platform - for the books, apps, videos and over-content that it sells.
3. It consistently added to the Prime video catalog, making it a very competitive offering compared to market leaders Netflix and Hulu.
4. It furthered the cause of HTML5 in publishing, by becoming the first major company to challenge Apple's stranglehold over the iOS App Store. It did this by releasing an HTML5 version of Kindle, to try to get around Apple's 30% cut of all revenue from iOS apps.
5. Its Amazon Cloud Drive is a competitive consumer cloud offering, at least on a par with Apple's iCloud (which launched months after Amazon) and Microsoft's SkyDrive.
6. It has gone from strength to strength with the aforementioned business cloud platforms, S3 and EC2. Collectively known as Amazon Web Services (AWS), that division is closing in on $1 billion a year in revenue. AWS did have some downtime this year, however.
7. It launched Appstore For Android this year, an important step forward for both Android users and developers.
8. It even got a bit fancy, with the November launch of an augmented reality shopping app for the iPhone called Flow.

As you can see, Amazon.com has had a stellar product year. Although it should be noted that the Kindle Fire and other developments have made a dent in its profits. That won't worry Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos though, who has proven himself this year to be one of the Web's leading visionaries. He has pushed Amazon.com into areas that nobody would've predicted back in 1995.

The Runners-up

Apple undeniably had a great year too and is a close runner-up to Amazon.com for Best BigCo. Apple released iPhone 5 and iPad 2, both well-regarded and innovative (Siri in particular caught peoples imagination). Apple also continued to dominate the mobile app market and launched iCloud.

Google and Facebook both had strong years too. Google+ and Chrome are two big mainstream products that Google launched or rapidly evolved this year. In the end though, we felt that Google still has a lot to prove with those two platforms (social and browser, respectively). Likewise with Facebook, although it innovated impressively this year with Timeline, smart lists and frictionless sharing (to name just a few of its iterations in 2011), it remains to be seen how its huge user base reacts to the new-look Facebook. Most of its users don't have Timeline yet, for example.

Honorable Mentions

Although Microsoft didn't have any breakthrough hit products in 2011, it continued to at least keep pace with its competitors on the Web. For example, Bing made solid progress as a search engine alternative to Google.com. Twitter had another strong growth year and its various redesigns have been brave and largely successful. Although eBay dropped the ball with the Skype acquisition, it had a good year in its core e-commerce market. In the enterprise space, IBM, Oracle and Salesforce.com all had good years.

Also Rans

The once mighty Yahoo had a terrible year, as did HP. AOL has been trying to turn itself around, but hasn't been helped by power struggles and public in-fighting amongst its media properties. Adobe and Mozilla both continue gamely on, but they're struggling to keep up with the pace of change.

Your Thoughts?

To end on a positive note, there's no doubt in our minds that Amazon.com is a worthy Best BigCo. Its innovation and determination to challenge the likes of Apple and Google has been fascinating to watch. Do you agree with our choice? Let us know in the comments.