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Automation technologies like natural language interaction and IVR have revolutionized the way customers interact with the customer service function.

I just read Nick Bilton’s blog post in Bits “Disruptions: TV Makers Ignore Apps at Their Own Peril”.  I know it’s now a couple of months since it was published but hey, you can’t catch every blog post every time and what he’s saying still remains spot-on.

The blogosphere is awash with views on Apple’s Siri. Some of it effusive with its praise, some reveling in its supposed shortcomings — see this post from the New York Times Bits blog for example. One thing for sure, you could be forgiven for thinking that Apple’s natural language technology that powers Siri was the only game in town.

These days we can control the key functions of a smartphone, TV or even automobile by voice. Clearly, voice control is a cool feature that will soon be commonplace on a broad range of consumer devices. For disabled people, however, assistive technologies like voice control are not just cool but an essential way to help make their lives better.

Despite the advance of Twitter and Facebook, email is still the “killer” electronic communications medium particularly at work, where it long ago replaced the telephone as the preferred way for communicating between colleagues. But not all of the billions of emails handled each day by office workers are strictly work-related. According to a recent study, about 15% of the emails sent by corporate users contain information about a person or persons not among the recipients. In other words, they contain gossip.

Since 1946, one generation has been said to remodel society as it has passed through it – the baby boom generation. This was the first generation in the western world to grow up with television and since then it has witnessed many great technological achievements such as the moon landing, the internet revolution, new mobile technology and now the launch of intelligent consumer devices such as smart-TVs and talking fridges. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and a baby boomer himself has become a symbol of this ultra-techie generation. The question is, are consumer electronics ready to offer what these demanding boomers are expecting?

My video cassette recorder finally stopped working last week. Even if I wanted to replace it, I’d have trouble doing so as Panasonic, one of the last remaining manufacturers, stopped VCR production earlier this year. Few consumers will mourn the passing of the VCR. Apart from their infuriating habit of chewing tapes, VCRs were notoriously difficult to program. The common sight of the VCR clock display flashing “12:00” became a symbol for just how little thought the consumer electronics industry gave to usability.

Building a closer relationship with individual customers is now a key objective for many organizations. However, those customers are already one step ahead. A decade of overexposure to increasingly aggressive marketing tactics has made them understand the power they wield over businesses that want their data and wary of trusting brands. Instead of engaging directly with an organization users choose to connect with friends, and even strangers, online to crowd source opinion on purchasing decisions. But surprisingly, treat them right and they are still willing to share.

Trying to recognize actionable intelligence from the countless conversations taking place in the social web can be a bit like trying to find a needle in the proverbial haystack, particularly if your customers use multiple languages.

Every day, the social web grows in size and influence with consumers. Facebook and Twitter have millions of users, which means millions of opportunities for companies to promote their products and gauge market trends.

But trying to recognize actionable intelligence from the countless conversations taking place in the social web can be a bit like trying to find a needle in the proverbial haystack, particularly if your customers use multiple languages.

English makes up only about 40 percent of global social media postings, so companies that ignore this language diversity are at greater risk of being caught off-guard by trends or developments that could impact their business.

Now that Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri, is well know to the world, users are starting to ask themselves what to do with this technology and what’s the next step.