business & innovation

Technology is designed to make our lives easier, faster and ultimately more fun.

Tesco is my supermarket of choice. This isn’t because it’s the nearest shop to me. Nor is it because I think they are the cheapest. It might have something to do with the fact I worked for almost all of the other big chain supermarkets in my teens and still have a little grudge about being treated poorly for minimum wage, but I think the main reason I’ll go to Tescos is the clubcard.

At the start of 2011 I purchased my first iPhone. When I got it home I immediately started downloading apps. Once I’d got Angry Birds, Facebook & Twitter I started to search for the more "specific" apps for me. I found the Tesco Clubcard app and moved straight over.

YouGov, the most quoted research agency in the UK, today reveals its predictions for 2012 on people’s consumption and behaviour around Smart TV, smartphones, Facebook, digital newspapers and digital radio.

As 2012 approaches I thought I would write a nice post.

I hate the clichéd "prediction" articles you tend to get at this time of the year as peoples predictions tend to be either biased hopes (which never happen) such as me wishing for a hoverboard just because Back To The Future said they would happen. Or really really easy extrapolations of what's happening right now. The industry moves fast and predictions change hourly, so that's not what this post is about.

Here are my 5 favorite iPhone apps of 2011. And why I think you should get them for 2012. I've specifically avoided the usual suspects (Twitter, Facebook, FML etc). In no particular order...

After the success of our first Social Media Week brainstorm, the second, with a consumer focus, took place last Wednesday 7th December at Ketchum PR's offices in Shoreditch.

The aim was to explore how social media is impacting our day-to-day lives from the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the music we listen to, the games we play, the sport we do and the way our families interact online.

Google+ started life as an attempt to be another Facebook. If I am honest it did a better job - but then again, it's not hard to stand on the shoulders of a giant (metaphorically speaking). The problem with Google+ is it doesn't offer anything additional to Facebook on first viewing.

Google+ is beautiful and easier to use than Facebook - my mum could set up an account on her own which is saying something. But after half an hour she was back in Facebook. Why? None of her friends were using Google+.

So does Google+ stand a chance? Until recently I would have said no.