It’s time to help your users do less, not more

We’ve just about reached the tipping point. The major technology companies of tomorrow won’t be focused on allowing users to do more — rather, they will allow us to do the same number of things but require much less work.

The internet gave rise to monster first-generation companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and a slew of gaming and coupon businesses. These companies allowed people to do things and they could never do before, like keep in contact with all of their friends, stay up to the minute with global news, and farm little multiplayer digital worlds no matter where they were. These companies are all about doing more.

But there is a limit to how much we as humans can do in a single day. It was easy for these companies to acquire user’s attention when the Internet was still young — simply because there wasn’t that much competition. Now, we are running out of new things that people want to do digitally. Continue reading