It’s fascinating to watch the rise of the Internet of Things. The concept has been around for years – hook up all the electrical, and even some non-electrical goods you have at home to the Internet and control them from wherever you are. It’s been a while coming but the products and applications are starting to hit the consumer market, as are the debates: privacy issues – who has access to the data about what time you get up or how often you shower?; obsolescence issues – will all our products that we’d have been happy using for 15 or 20 years need replacing much sooner (every two or three years) because the technology in them goes out of date?
So, what’s caused the issue to go mainstream, when the products still have a relatively small consumer base? Well, Google’s acquisition of nest for $3.2bn has done more for the profile of this kind of technology than any other news event. So, I think it’s worth considering why this story has garnered so much coverage and raised the profile of this kind of tech to a much wider audience than before.
The interest in this story comes about because a number of factors come together elegantly and make this an attractive issue to write about, offering some easy headlines that will grab the attention of readers worldwide. What are those factors?
- First, there’s a massive number – $3.2bn – the price Google have paid, but on it’s own that’s not the whole story
- Next, it’s what they’ve bought with the money, a small number to juxtapose against the big number – a company with just 300 employees
- Further, this is a company working in an area of technology that many people haven’t heard of and that experts are predicting will be a huge area of growth in the sector over the coming years – so the timing of this story is just right
- And finally it’s an area that’s ripe for debate – privacy, obsolescence, rampant consumerism, etc.
Of course, we’re not all Google and we don’t all have $3.2bn to spend on a business, but we can consider how we apply the principles of how they’ve structured their story and make our own stories as engaging. That way, we can make the world we want to talk to, sit up and take notice.