Of course the term Citizen Journalist came into focus as blogs and personal home pages took off, twitter gave it a new life as witness accounts of major events were done in realtime. So in 2006, you had the rise of the bloggers, in 2008 you had the tweets updating news and in 2009, streaming make it’s mark. It will not take time to see major news, triumphs and tragedy brought to you in real time by an ordinary Joe with a smartphone at the wrong or right place at the right time.

NGC

1) The Paradigm shift : when new disruptive technology change the underlying technology platform and transform it : Ustream

Attach a small camera onto your collar, put yourself in an interesting environment and you can share your situation live to anyone that cares to watch it.  Surely this is a Paradigm shift or revolutionary science, exactly what Thomas Kuhn meant in his book in 1962 when he coined the phrase. One of his major observation was that science undergoes a revolution change period instead of a linear and continuous way. Sound familiar? Change the word science to Internet, and you will see that twitter/ustream together single handedly is creating a paradigm shift within the internet from a dull, flat browser based, email and data share platform.

2) Inflection point : the changing of the rules

“In differential calculus, an inflection point, point of inflection, or inflection is a point on a curve at which the curvature (second derivative) changes signs. The curve changes from being concave upwards (positive curvature) to concave downwards (negative curvature), or vice versa. If one imagines driving a vehicle along a winding road, inflection is the point at which the steering-wheel is momentarily “straight” when being turned from left to right or vice versa.” from Wiki.

The The Paradigm shift eventually will cause social and commercials rules to change. No one can foresee this, as this change is fluid and may be manipulated to public opinion. Rules may change on how news and program transmits, effecting the debate on spectrum usage after analog TV frequencies free up.  We see the winding road but we are not sure about which side we need to turn the handle. We have too much information that is garbled ( by those who do not welcome change ) and this is affecting our efficiency to make good decisions.

3) Disruptive technology : born to disrupt

“Disruptive innovation is a term used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by lowering price or designing for a different set of consumers.” agan from Wiki.

As missiles replace artillery, the television — movie theaters, disruptive technology always pointed to a general merchandize manufactured around the world by many companies. Only Moog and a few companies had the disruptiveness to provide replacement like  organs to synthesizer, which in turn was manufactured by Roland  with many companies to follow.

I see Apple’s iPhone/iPad and Google’s Android platform hardware a combination to be replacing paper fax and all forms of communication int he near future. Far fetched? When has a independent company provided a technology so disruptive that it changed everything around it? Many times. Heidelberg printing is one to name a few.

Take a look at Wiki’s “Emerging Technologies” and you can see what to expect in the near future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies

So a smartphone with a good network connection and twitter/ustream is a category killer? Yes, if the quality rises, it can potentially put some news stations out of business by broadcasting direct to viewers. Far fetched? Surely not so far fetched, educated medieval men believed earth to be shaped like a square.

Does all of this apply at all to Japan ? No, because Japanese bureaucrats hate and cannot comprehend sudden change, unless it is planned way in advance, and must each financially and socially benefit by such change, in a nutshell it takes time to plan for change. Until the 90’s economically strong Japan, it was manageable, but  as a result of  indecision and false economic expectations set by the system, it collapsed and now is in no shape or form to resist change. Many countries face the same dilemma now after the Lehman Shock. Welcome to the Wall of VooDoo.

Referring the non change to telecom, spectrum and other laws so important to have a second look to make available for mobile. Softbank’s FTTH for every home makes sense if they all provided something like the FON to allow localized wireless in any location to cover a remote area. Land line is crucial to this.

Content? As connected people influence how remote people should work once connected, then it can seep thru to create a sustainable industry.

What am I trying to say?