What is “Futuristic” anyways?

Last week I twittered my thoughts on Amazon’s futuristic Kindle product. I got a response from an old friend of mine wondering why I thought it was futuristic as eBooks and ePaper was invented quite a few years ago. His response made me realize that people often have a different opinion on what futuristic is. So I am dedicating this blog post to share my views and opinions about futuristic.

Let’s get straight to the point. Futurism or futuristic has, in my opinion, nothing to do with a product itself. Instead it is all about a future where a product or a technology has a vital role. Implementing such a technology requires a controlled expansion of our social, cultural, and/or business framework that will lead to a mature and sustainable marketplace for the “futuristic” technology or product.

Building a technology doesn’t move it out of the futuristic category. eBooks has been around for a long time. In fact my senior project in college in 1996 was an eBook that connected to a computer that held a digital library. I have even bought eBooks online and read them on my Nokia 3250 beginning of this decade. However, I’m a geek and love new toys. I’ve read more eBooks than I have read real books.

In the real world, however, geeks like myself only account for a tiny fraction of the population. Not enough to create and sustain a major marketplace. What Amazon and other players in the eBook/ePaper industry need to accomplish is to make such a technology socially acceptable, integrate it into our culture, and create acceptance in the business world. Only then will eBooks become an everyday technology and I will be able to stop calling it futuristic.

PS. As a side note I wanted to mention a few other futuristic technologies/services/products

1. Flying cars – Invented but still missing a sustainable marketplace.
2. Space tourism – Happened but still missing a sustainable marketplace.
3. Mobile Payment – Exists but still missing a sustainable marketplace.
4. Smart Homes – Exists but still missing a sustainable marketplace.

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