Meet the Pub 47 Digital Judges!

2012 could be the year apps deliver on the "mashup" promise of our web 2.0 past -- make us see how beautiful and insightful it is to connect content, our social lives, where we live -- then turn it into something fun and functional that morphs every day, the way we do.

This year will be the year where brands and readers really concentrate on customized content based on location, sharing stories/contributing ideas within their communities and we'll see a greater attention paid to gaming mechanics as a story telling device (take it from me, we here at Money are fast learning that retirement planning as a game feels a lot less like homework that a 2000 word instructional essay!). 

Social and location are already creeping into the publishing world but let's not forget that the most important thing is great content properly curated. Flipboard is wonderful but I miss the editor. Magazines have a narrative arc, pace. Social and location add interactivity and relevance but I wouldn't replace the editor with a behavioral algorithm just yet.

People think about software very differently than in the past. Software used to be this gray set of tools imposed on us to do the dreary things we had to do for work. Now we're actually fond of many of our apps; software has personality, and the best apps are animated by social interaction and often a spirit of play. It's not just our phones that are cherished accessories but the apps, too. Showing off the apps on your phone says as much about you as the stuff you carry in your bag or the bobble heads you display on your desk.

I guess I'm interested in seeing if this whole near-field communication thing will start to make our mobile experiences that much better: more personalized, more localized. Yes, the phone-as-wallet thing should be cool, but it also has the potential to make our everyday mobile habits that much more convenient, relevant, and fun.