The US Constitution doesn’t say anything about an implicit “right to privacy” although the Supremes have been quite vocal since the 70′s trying to figure it out for us. As we begin to rely on our mobile devices for more and more of our everyday living, both privacy and security become more and more important. How much of your financial data is easily accessible to anyone that can hack your 4-digit unlock code? With the ubiquity of social networking, what you disclose to others is also becoming hard to control. It’s hard now not to disclose what you’re doing, photos of where you’ve been and chats with your friends. All of that info is now in the cloud, just one Anonymous hack away. Your digital past is also your digital future.

To your rescue is a series of apps and services that promise to keep everything you do under wraps — if you want. Some services like Snapchat promise to eviscerate your status updates the moment they’re viewed. If only Anthony Weiner had this app before he tweeted away his political future! With Snapchat you can take photos or short videos and then decide how long your friends can view them. After 10 seconds or less, they disappear forever (at least we think they do). Snapchat has exploded over the last year with 100 million photos and videos exchanged every day. Facebook even jumped on the bandwagon for a bit with their own app, Poke, which failed to take off.

Other apps like Gryphn, Wickr and Burn Note also promise to give you more control over what you share and for how long. They all promise deeper levels of security and privacy. Temporary social media allows users to be more spontaneous and authentic. Think of it as the hallway conversations you have with your friends, or the “in-passing” remarks you make to your neighbors… dialoge that’s important, but doesn’t need to be part of your digital record for all eternity. Now, you can potentially breathe a little easier knowing there’s a way to control some of what you’re broadcasting. Or, you could just log off, I guess.

Why does a company that started by selling books continue to disrupt so many industries they’re not first considered to be experts in? Amazon has evolved from being an online bookseller to becoming not only “the world’s marketplace” but one of the world’s largest providers of cloud services — creating an entirely new service offering that just a few years ago didn’t even exist. And, in the meantime, becoming a high-tech company that rivals the ones expected to innovate in this area.

That may be the primary reason Amazon has been able to take-off in new markets. First, its CEO, Jeff Bezos is not concerned with short-term profits. His vision is what more CEOs need to reflect on: “We like to invent and do new things, and I know for sure that long term orientation is essential for invention because you’re going to have a lot of failures along the way.” Too many American companies seek just short-term profit, and don’t focus on more than 3 or 4 quarters. If Kindle, Amazon Web Services and Amazon Prime were required to show profits in their first 3 or 4 quarters, they would have never even gone to market.

True disruption comes from those that jump into a market not worried about cost. They usually go in with the lowest cost and quality offering and build from there. Ultimately, becoming a market leader means that you have to continue to innovate and disrupt, or you become less a disruptor and just a profit-making machine. Consider the fate of Polaroid, Atari, RIM and Digital Equipment Corporation: all were once disruptors in their respective industries. Once they reached the top, they stumbled. They stumbled because they stopped innovating and disrupting. Amazon continues to discover new markets, innovate products and services, and is restless once they begin to make inroads into a new market. Apple and Google are the obvious candidates for finding it difficult to create market breakthroughs while servicing the markets they currently dominate.

Disruption is based on creating new and valuable products and services in an uncertain market. Once a company gets too comfortable in their market, they will eventually find it difficult to innovate and disrupt. The challenge is to foster a culture that values creativity and innovation and offers a process that encourages its people to ask questions, uncover new possibilities, and explore without being driven by profit only. Amazon has shown it’s willing and able to enter any market it thinks it can add value to. And then it works from within and continually innovates and disrupts. Companies like Apple, Google and even Microsoft should never forget what happened to the companies that lost their hunger for innovation. Maybe they should listen to Jeff a little more.

"Boston Skyline" by Flickr user brentdanley, cc-nc-sa license

Our hearts go out to those in Boston right now.

If you need to find someone, find a runner, or find someplace to stay, social media has you covered in the aftermath of today’s horrible events.

Google PeopleFinder: Boston Maraton Explosions: Enter information if you’re looking for someone or if you have information about someone (or yourself).

Red Cross Safe and Well: Like Google’s people finder, this lets you enter information about someone – whether you are in search of them or you have information about anyone.

The Boston Globe is working to make sure everyone has a safe place to sleep tonite. If you’re a runner in need of a place to stay, enter your information on this Google Doc. You can also check this spreadsheet for possibilities of a place to lay your head.
If you have a place to offer stranded runners, you can enter your information on a separate Google doc.

Finally, you can check on the status of a runner, and see their last check-in from the race, that option is now at the top of the Boston Marathon site.

If you know of any other social aids for those in Boston today, please list them in the comments.

Stay safe.

With smartphones and gadgets like Google Glass grabbing all the headlines, what some of us realize is the vast wasteland of bad reality shows, over-hyped sports events, and sensational specials we call TV is about to undergo a transformation that will forever end the viewing experience as you know it. And although tech companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft have been fiddling around with their idea of how to change TV for a few years now, it’s the big networks and pay television providers that are finally making some decisions to move TV land forward. What’s driving this change? Three biggies:

1. Viewers’ increasing multi-screen behavior — now their TV is just one screen in a world of many. People often watch TV while multi-tasking with their tablet or smartphone. More and more, people want to carry their TV shows with them, and continue watching from different locations.

2. TV execs have realized that you will actually pay for digital content. Paywalls on some online news sites such as the New York Times and revenue on iTunes and other digital marketplaces have shown the money guys that you will actually hand over your hard-earned dough for content. So, they will soon end free broadcast TV. You can start the death countdown now. Viewership on broadcast TV is at its lowest ever, down from 69% in 1993 to 42% this year, according to Nielsen.

3. Small startups like Aereo have begun to offer free access to broadcast TV over the Internet, and are winning court cases to stay alive.

After Aereo got a reprieve from a federal judge, News Corp is now considering going to cable only. And now, Intel is trying to design a new online TV service that will let you control more of your viewing experience.

The coming transformation of TV promises to offer you:

–De-bundling so you don’t have to pay huge monthly fees for just the few channels you actually watch.

–Easier discoverability through better interfaces

–Smarter content relevant to your viewing history

–Easier and more affordable subscription options

Of course, everyone is waiting for what Apple will do with its rumored TV. Will they just make hardware, or are they going full-on with hardware and content?

What all this says is there is no business model for TV right now. Programmers are unwilling to hand-over rights for online TV because they don’t know what to charge for it. But they know they don’t want to end up like the music industry when Napster came along, so they’re scrambling. Either way, you win. TV will transform based on the way you want to consume it. Stay tuned!

For what seems like months, there have been rumors of the Facebook phone. But up until now, it’s proved as elusive as a jackalope or Bigfoot.

But thanks in part to Android Police and 9to5Google, we now have a lot more information about the device, which Facebook is set to announce at a press event on Thursday. (If you want a better technical understanding of just how Facebook is skinning Android, definitely head over to the Android Police post.)

From what I can gather, Facebook is not creating a new fork of Android, which is what Amazon has done with the Kindle Fire. Instead, like Motorola and others, they are skinning Android specifically for their device. The phone, by HTC, was code-named the Myst. It’s now being released as the “First”, which fits in with HTC’s “The One” product line. The phone will be heavily skinned by Facebook and when you turn it on, Facebook is the first screen you see. The new version of Facebook, for this phone in particular, will rely heavily on Facebook’s social graph.

This will be Facebook’s first real foray into the consumer marketplace. With that comes a need for advertising to the general public, which isn’t something Facebook has ever really done. To compete in the over-saturated mobile market (not to mention the Android market itself), Facebook will have to really pony up some ad dollars to make an impact in the marketplace – or it will just be another phone.

Personally, I want Facebook to explain to me why I NEED a Facebook phone. I can’t for the life of me figure out why I want to be even more plugged into a social network. In fact, I’ve given serious thought to getting out. Facebook is no longer the go-to place for the younger generation. They’re on Twitter and Instagram, with Dad and Grandma hanging out on Facebook.

Aside from Facebook’s need to market this phone to consumers, there are some other interesting ??? to come out of this development. Facebook is currently a fantastic place to advertise your products (assuming your consumers are on the network) and it’s made a huge impact in how digital advertisers approach campaigns. What effect will a Facebook phone, with deeper integration of the social network, have on mobile marketing, which is still a fledgling effort?

Next, I have to wonder about Google. I love that Google’s Android system is so open, allowing developers to do a lot of what they can’t accomplish with iOS. But will that open-ness backfire on Google if Facebook’s phone can become a serious competitor?

Just some thoughts. We’ll keep you updated on the actual specs, retail info, and pricing of the phone after Thursday’s announcement.