It's important to note that during each "nerd phase" that the author cites there were also other technologies being developed that simply never exploded. That doesn't mean that nerds weren't toying with them.

That same concept applies today. There are tons and tons of startups out there with plenty of alpha geeks playing with each. Some will inevitably take off while others won't. Regardless, the alpha geeks will not serve as an indicator of what will go mainstream as the alpha geeks will play with everything.

> In those days, it was really easy to see where consumer technology was going. You could just look at the nerds and know that’s what you’d probably look like in 2-5 years.

I heavily disagree with that statement. No one knew that the internet (or any other example the author cites) was going to be THAT big. Let's look to more modern times... No one in 2007 was watching the "nerds" play on Twitter and thinking to themselves: "that's what I'm going to be doing 2-5 years from now."

Ultimately, this post is indirectly asking what's going to be the next big thing. That's a question that only time - and not the nerds or alpha geeks - can answer.