managing our relationships – and arguably our identities – within a single location online. According to a recent survey from Pew Internet & American Life Project, 69% of Americans use web-based services, store data online or use software applications, such as word processors, that are located somewhere on the Internet rather than installed on their home computer. The report notes that 56% of respondents say they have used a Web mail service such as Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo, 34% have stored photos online, 29% have used online applications such as Google Docs or Adobe Photoshop Express, and around 7% of respondents said that they store personal videos online. A further 10% use a paid online storage or backup service. Probably without realizing it, these consumers are already using the cloud.
Users of these services cite ease and convenience as the main attraction, followed by the ability to access online data and services from any device they are using at the time, and ease of sharing information. The same report highlights that, as might be expected, mobile phone users are even more likely to use ‘cloud’ services – among those that use a Wi-Fi connection to access the Internet on their mobile phone, 79% of respondent said that they have used at least one cloud computing activity above, and 52% have used at least two.
Although still in its infancy, the cloud will increasingly allow consumers to store data, use applications on a free or pay-as-you-go basis, and access media content and other online services from the Internet, without the need to store anything on a hard drive or desktop computer at home. This will have clear ramifications for the consumer technology roadmap – if all data and services are available online, then the most popular devices might, for example, be those offering the broadest connectivity capabilities, the largest viewing screen size and the easiest user interface, while devices with large memory and storage capabilities could become redundant – in this scenario at least.
An example of how cloud services and applications might work comes from online music service lala.com. The service basically takes an inventory of a user’s stored music library when they connect to the site, compares it to what already exists in its 61