Ambient Findability

First off, what is findability? To me, findability is the ability to locate someone efficiently and effectively. Throughout technology today, there are many genres in which findability takes place. For example, you use findability when you “check-in” somewhere on your smart phone.

Twitter and facebook both have tools that you can adjust on your smartphones that let people state the location that they are posting from.

So what’s the use? Simple. Morville discusses this in his book. By making themselves accessible, people are able to locate them more effectively. For example, if you used the smart phone “check-in” tool at the mall and one of their friends was at the mall too. Their friend would then possibly locate them or be able to connect with them. However, if neither of them knew they were there, they might not ever connect. 

Will Cable Become Obsolete?

In a USA Weekend article that I got out of the paper, it stated "Some people are ditching cable and satellite television- and their $75 average monthly tab. Instead, they're signing up for HULU Plus ($8 a month), Netflix streaming (another $8) for movies, and renting $1 DVDs from the Redbox in the supermarket. Not for you? You could still save by shedding premium channels and supplementing with some of these services - particularly if you are not watching many of them anyway. A recent Neilsen study showed Americans now have about 130 channels available on average, but they watch only 18."

So my question is this, with all of the new, more cost-friendly services that are available, will this have an impact on cable? Personally, I think this could be the case. Recently, all cable switched to digital from analog. Analog has become a thing of the past. This could happen to cable as well.