Fantastic breakdown of the “longevity economy” from Steve Jurvetson at DEMO 2012. 

“Here are some of the points I shared:

The 50+ market is huge and a large untapped opportunity for entrepreneurs. In the U.S. alone, there are 100 million people over 50, and that number grows by 10,000 every day. By 2025, the entire nation will look like Florida does today. Demographics is destiny — the aging population is a perfectly predictable dynamic that will have massive economic repercussions. They already represent a disproportionate 45% of U.S. consumer spending, and healthy aging is already a $515 billion business (Furlong).

The boomers are qualitatively different as well, both from the generations that preceded them, and from common assumptions. Advertisers often focus on the 18-34 year old segment to find adopters of new products. Let’s compare that to the 50+ segments. The 50+ spend 2.5x as much, and dominate the entire market for some segments (60% of all CPG and automobiles, 80% of leisure travel). But are they laggards? They are 3x as likely to buy online as the 18-34 segment. They buy the most hybrid cars, iPads and even online dating services.”

theatlantic:

Cash and Credit Cards Will Be (Nearly) Dead Within the Next 8 Years

Is your wallet soon to be a collector’s item? In a report published this morning, Pew surveyed a selection of academics, authors, and other experts, asking them questions about the future of money. Their conclusion: The future of money is digital. And that future might not be, actually, entirely about money. […]

That finding doesn’t just mean bad news for the coin-minters and wallet-makers of the world. It could also mean new possibilities when it comes to financial transactions themselves. A cashless (or, more realistically, a nearly cashless) default of economic exchange could encourage, among us walletless wanderers, a broader conception of what “exchange” means in the first place. Because cash — and, really, money itself — is not merely a vehicle of financial transaction; it is also a cross-cultural paradigm. It has shaped the way we think about exchange as a basic economic proposition: not X for Y, but X for $Y. (Or, you know, for  ¥Y or £Y or €Y.)

Money, in other words, has conditioned us to believe that money is pretty much the only legitimate medium of transaction. Through its durability — and, especially, through its universality — the currency paradigm has made it easy to forget what a cultural contingency currency actually is. There are, after all, many other forms of exchange out there, many sophisticated forms of barter and quid pro quo; it’s just that money — cash and currency — has been, for ages, the superior facilitator of those forms. We live in currency-normative culture, if you will, for a reason: Money, as a technology, has acquitted itself wonderfully. It’s efficient, it’s intuitive, it’s relatively user-friendly. And, most importantly, it’s standardized.

Read more. [Image: Shutterstock]

pewinternet:

Infographic for your Monday morning - Is personalized search getting too personal? User Thoughts on Personalized Search

(Via Search Engine Journal)

(Read more on search engine use)

ryanbrown:

themattsmith:

Ablogalypse : XKCD

Whoa. WHOA.