I was thinking today about the new decade (still hard to believe) but especially about digital pictures and video.  I’ve loved going digital with pictures – as opposed to film (am I the only one who never got around to developing film?).  I love the ability to take multiple pictures,  to review them, to see them on the computer, make slideshows, and videos.   I think it’s important to take these snapshots of our lives -as they’ll never occur again.

I also remember just listening to Windows Weekly (TWIT broadcast) and they made an interesting comment – that we’ve gotten to the point where a computer is not worth using if there is no Internet.  I think that’s pretty profound – as  that’s not the way it used to be – even for me.  I wonder if this will be a new kind of digital decade – where the entire decade is based around computers, the Internet, etc.  We’re putting our lives online – banking online, etc.  With the growth of broadband connectivity there’s a whole new realm of content becoming available.  I wonder if the by the end of the decade TV will be changed as we know it – no tuning to cable, etc. – but it’s all content on the Internet.  We see our media rapidly changing – newspapers are dying in front of us.  There is a fight right now over whether content that has traditionally been free should be charged for – even broadcast TV.

For the US it’s not been that great of a decade overall – but the Internet charged forward full-steam with the growth of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Google has grown in it’s reach – well beyond just search.   Microsoft is no longer dominant like it was – even though they make plenty of money.  Netbooks have come into being – pushing PC sales – Apple has made a comeback and is a dominant force in the industry (got an iPod?).  Cell phones are rapidly make the “home” phone obsolete, texting has replaced talking for whole segments of the population.  Microsoft released an operating system I can recommend, Google proposed a browser as an operating system….

So what will things look like at the end of the next decade?  Can we imagine it?  Will it make us better as a people or worse?  Will talking in person become retro?

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