Just a few more days until SXSW. It's been almost a year since 1IMC in Tokyo...what has changed since then - not technically, but culturally?

It seems to me that in recent months the cameraphone has reached an important milestone here in the US. I'm not talking megapixels, but rather the media's shift from "Hey, look at these geeks playing with cameraphones" stories to "Can camerphones kill? Special Report at 11", i.e. they have moved from explaining them to exploiting them for news stories. From credit card fraud to child porn, the news leaves no story untold - s long as the story will scare the viewer into tuning in :)

Next we'll see these angles show up more on TV. Last week on "Joan of Arcadia" (CBS), there was a "camerphone spreads locker room photo" subplot. I fully expect to see some sort of ripped from the headlines cameraphone tie-in on Law & Order before the year is out.

But that's fine because these are the usual stops along the way before the new and exciting (and dangerous!) technology fades into the background of everyday life.

I've seen a lot of changes here at hiptop Nation in the past year. Along with the early-adopters and curious we now have a lot of moms, dads, teens, and other "regular" folk just using the camera in their phone as part of everyday life.

From a political angle, I expect to see a lot more laws being proposed to "protect" people from cameraphones as it becomes an easy election-year plank for a couple of years. Hopefully, we'll also see some fantastic moblogging come from the run-up to the general election this year.

- mikepop
- catch our panel at SXSW: Moblog Nation: You Can Take It With You

// mikepop via hiptop AIM: drjellyfish