"he latest phase in the I.T. revolution is being driven by the convergence of social media - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Groupon, Zynga - with the proliferation of cheap wireless connectivity and Web-enabled smartphones and "the cloud" - those enormous server farms that hold and constantly update thousands of software applications, which are then downloaded (as if from a cloud) by users on their smartphones, making them into incredibly powerful devices that can perform myriad tasks. "