New briefs are available to subscribers to Social Technologies' Global Lifestyles project:
Multimedia Feature -- The Future of Truth
The embrace of virtual information - particularly online social networking - and changes in the media world are blurring truth and making deception both easier to accomplish and more far-reaching. As these trends advance, the very definition of truth could shift.
The Top 20 Trends and Recession -- Part II: Culture, Infrastructure, and Values Trends
This brief is the second in a two-part series examining the impacts on the Top 20 trends of three levels of economic downturn: moderate recession, severe recession, and a depression. Economic downturn will tend to affect these trends' expression more than their direction, though a number of the trends could actually reverse in the event of a depression.
The Top 20 Trends and Recession - Part I: Demography and Wealth Trends
Though the Top 20 trends are durable and deep-rooted, they are now subject to a powerful force: global recession. While it would take severe disruption to reverse them over the medium and long terms, most will shift under these new economic pressures. This brief examines the impacts of three levels of economic downturn: moderate recession, severe recession, and a depression.
Country Profile -- Lebanon
Lebanon is a small World 2 country situated between Israel and Syria on the Mediterranean Sea. It has had a difficult past filled with bloody civil conflicts, but is reemerging as a center of commerce. The country will face continued stability threats from both internal and external forces.
Fractional Lifestyles: Sharing in Luxuries
The growing practice of fractional ownership, or owning shares of luxury assets, allows high-end consumers - and, increasingly, middle-income consumers with high-end tastes - to indulge in luxuries without having to pay the full cost. Driven by such factors as affordability, convenience, value shifts, middle-income aspirations, and mitigation of risk, fractional ownership could expand to a wider range of products and services as well as to additional consumer markets.
Latin American Mobiles
Mobile phones have become the main means of communication for Latin American consumers and will continue to grow in importance as they offer more advanced and varied services to subscribers. In the coming decade, Latin Americans will use mobiles as their main access point for the Internet, financial services, and to some extent media and entertainment, including music and television content.
Leave a comment