Speaking at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, Bill Gates talked about the future of technology and how it will keep inceasing in its value rather than plateauing out.
"I'm often asked, is the technology revolution going to reach an end? Is the improvement in the chips and the software, will that start to slow down as we reach some limits?" he said.
"The answer is--certainly in the decades ahead--we don't see any limits. We see in fact the power will just get better and better."
He went on to talk about textbooks for students that will be replaced by individual electronic tablets and televisions being fully wired. He added that in reality we're only at the beginning of what technology will do.
From a marketing standpoint, technology does have an inherent weakness: regular 
people want it simple and easy to learn and use.
I don't have any doubt about what Gates is saying, as far as the ability to continually create new products and services related to technological advances, I do question what it means for the masses though.
How many new changes can people keep up with? As marketers, how far should be we using tools before consumers may start to rebel if the learning curve is steep? Time will become an increasingly important factor that will be connected to whatever technology is introduced in the future.
People will be the greatest check and balance to new technology because it can only be consumed and adapted to so fast. After the early adopters get the first crack at it, the general masses will follow as they start to tinker with it. While the early adopters will then go on to some other thing, the general users will continue to use it for a much longer period of time as they prefer to ease into it gradually.
That's important for us online marketers because we can get fooled into thinking those we serve are running off after the next big thing, when in reality they're just settling into to enjoying the existing technology being used and its purpose.
Only if our market is specifically geared toward early adopters should we flow along with them and work to create products and services built for their interests. For those serving other markets, technology will move along at a much slower pace as far as being used by the consumer goes.
We must measure accurately who we're serving so that we don't take ourselves out of the game by rushing way ahead of those we serve.
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