My esteemed colleague Mr. James Wheatley this morning attended the first of WIRED magazine’s Intelligence Briefings, where they aim to share some of the trends that they feel are going to be most impactful over the coming year.

He has identified the main ideas from their presentation, which I repost here:

A New Era of Etiquette:

Through social media our online reputations now require careful management. Our social profiles are available for numerous people to see, share and comment on – and there is an emerging importance on the etiquette attached to these public profiles.

The most important etiquette rules identified were: Always credit the work or links of others; Always be respectful even in disagreement; Companies can not pose as customers; You can ignore friend requests; Privacy must always be respected.

Social Networks have a Half-Life:

We’ve seen this from Friends Reunited, Bebo and Myspace – is Facebook in danger of having peaked already, or by allowing companies to come in and create widgets, will they be able to stay in the sun?

Google’s Achilles Heel:

Twitter has stepped ahead of Google with their developments in realtime search. Will Google be able to keep up and is this the first technological challenge to Google?

Individuals vs Corporations:

The internet has allowed new ways for individuals to organise outside of their organisations. Companies will be transformed as new generations of employees introduce expectations of transparency (think whistle blowing scandles, MP’s expenses, etc).

The Media are Becoming Unpoliceable:

With media consumption and production more liberated from geographic boundaries, attempts to monitor and control consumption will be increasingly difficult for UK regulators.

New Types of Abundance Require New Types of Scarcity:

With so much content now available online to users, attention from consumers is becoming a greater challenge and a scarce resource.

Watch Out, Sport:

First it was music and films, now “pirate” sports streams are on the rise – 27% of WIRED readers would consider illegally accessing a live broadcast of sport. Piracy normally grows due to high costs or lack of access – and sport ticks both those boxes.

Comments were that the Premier League in particular need to tie up their access via one central publisher/access point globally, and make access more affordable – otherwise pirate streams of premier league football will continue to thrive.

Nice one James, it sounds like it was really interesting session, and be sure to check back to see if any of my readers have any questions for you!