Domestic CIO

Thought provoking article on why last decade's vision for the Digital Hub concept never fully settled before we started throwing things up onto the web instead. A big part of the reason this failed is while manufacturers could sell concepts like this to businesses because those businesses employed CIOs and teams of technology people to keep them running, whereas in the home your put-upon brother-in-law didn't quite cut it.

The digital hub concept might have worked in the home if it hadn't depended on industry grade IT management. And if tech companies didn't over simplify and underestimate the real world complexity of their products, because tech companies by their nature are full of tech-savvy nerds.

Related post from 2005 : Life Servers & Digital Life Insurance