How Cloud Computing Makes Everyone an Innovator

What’s the Latest Development?

Some analysts close to Silicon Valley say the dream has run its course and that innovation is now a euphemism for the proliferation of social media websites with ever-smaller niches. Others, such as Todd Hoff, disagree. The High Scalability blogger believes the development of cloud-computing is encouraging a new kind of innovation based on data storage and meta-computations. Beyond Instagram and Pinterest, biomedical companies like DNAnexus and Bina Technologies are using big data capabilities in concert with cloud storage to revolutionize genetics research. 

What’s the Big Idea?

What Silicon Valley pessimists may be unable to see is that cloud computing is disrupting Silicon Valley itself, using scalable technology to offer business software, for example, as a service rather than a strictly physical good. “And if you’re trying to make money,” said GigaOm’s Derrick Harris, “who wouldn’t make a small bet on a business that can scale like crazy overnight in terms of both users and infrastructure?” While social media tend to be treated as catch-all entities, they are a very diverse and profound change in how people communicate–one that will evolve as cloud technology advances. 

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