This week's Time Magazine cover story features Steve Jobs and a look at Apple's successful yet unconventional business philosophy. What's more interesting, though, is a related story which chronicles a panel discussion of some of today's greatest thinkers about what's 'next' in the future of technology, culture, and society. The article features the likes of Malcolm Gladwell, Moby, and others talking about what lies ahead.

One of the key points that Gladwell makes is that many of the technologies we see emerging (and being popularized) really represent change but not necessarily progress. He uses the evolution in golf technology as an example. Golfers have much better club heads, shafts, grips, metal alloys, and balls at their disposal than ever before. The advancements in technology over the past 5 or 10 years are remarkable. Gladwell's point, though, is that overall golf scores among players remain the same (he doesn't cite a source, but let's assume he's right) despite all of the developments. Change, but not progress.

I think that this is an important distinction that we must consider when looking at new technologies and business tools. Is a particular change intrinsic in nature or does it actually better an end result of some sort? If you take this delineation and apply it to emerging Web tools (or individual Web sites themselves), the challenge of how to develop effective Web sites or campaigns becomes more sophisticated.

The big caveat to this is that some changes, although not necessarily representative of progress, can in fact present tremendous commercial successes. Golf scores may not have gotten better, but the bottom lines of equipment manufacturers have!