Afteralmost disappearing- when was the last time you were on a intercity bus? – the bus is now the fastest growing way to travel.

Innovative bus companies like Megabus and Bolt Bus offer convenient service, comfortable seats with power outlets, WiFi access and super cheap fares purchased online.

The buses dont use a bus station, they pickup curbside at locations listed on their websites. This makes it very easy to quickly add or reduce service.

The sweet spot for the service appears to be in mid-range trips of around 200-300 miles. These are too short for air travel but too long to easily drive.

The new intercity bus lines are a great example of using business model innovation to reinvent an industry.

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I like to follow research from investment companies because they put their money (actually, other peoples money) where their mouth is.

Leading Sectors for Innovation from Fidelity Investments looks at innovations in health care/medical devices, media and entertainment and information technology.

The medical innovation areas covered include genomics, biotech pharmaceuticals and digital health records. Interesting quote on genomics:

“The cost of sequencing a human genome has fallen considerably over the past few years, enabling research that not so long ago was cost prohibitive. As a result, DNA sequencing has just been exploding. Eventually I think we’ll be sequencing everything—from newborn babies to cancers to cattle and corn. And the field has already been generating profits. The numbers speak for themselves: In 2006, this market was less than $100 million; in 2011, I’ve heard estimates that it may grow to $1 billion.”

The media and entertainment section of the article focuses on the growing role of disintermediation and the growth of online advertising. But w

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ABI Research is forecasting global tablet sales will be between 40-50 million units in 2011, and reach almost 120 million units in 2016. To put this in perspective, about 340 million PCs were sold in 2010.

A forecast of booming tablet sales is not a surprise. What caught my attention is ABIs forecast that tablet sales will start leveling off in 2015.

According to ABI, the reason tablet sales level offis competition from a wide range of of new and emerging computing devices, including:

“Ultra-Mobile Devices (UMDs) including media tablets, netbooks, UMPCs, mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and six types of mobile broadband-enabled consumer electronics (CE) device including eBook Readers and Connected Personal Navigation Devices.”

This makes sense. My guess is by 2015 there will be important computing device categories that simply dont exist today.

Interesting survey from Google on tablet PC use. Google surveyed over 1400 tablet PC owners and found:

• 68% of tablet users spend at least 1 hour a day on their tablet
• 77% of respondents report that their desktop/laptop usage decreaseddut to thetablet
• 82% of respondents said they primarily use their tablet at home
• More than 1 in 3 respondents uses their tablet more than they watch TV

Google doesnt break the data out by device, but one has to assume that the vast majority of respondents owned iPads.

One of the most interesting findings of the survey is that tablets – at least so far – stay in the home. 82% of the respondents said they used their tablets at home. Only 11% said they use them on the go and an even smaller 7% use them at work.

The chart below is from the study presentation and shows how the respondents are using their tablet.

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The full impact of the Internets power to identify and aggregate demand is only starting to be understood. Socialshopping isnt just changing ecommerce, but commerce in general.

A great example comes from one of my favorite iPhone Apps, GolfLogix. This App turns my iPhone into a golf range finder and electronic scorecard.

The range finder gives me GPS distances to hazards, the green and the pin. They have thousands of courses in their database, and Ive found it to be accurate – or at least more accurate than my game requires.

GolfLogix is $40 per year, which is a lot for an iPhone app. But golfers (even mediocre golfers like me) are pretty price insensitive and willing to try new equipmentthat might help us play better.

Which is why I think their new Groupon-like service is going to be a hit. I just got an email from them that said:

“Starting this month, all GolfLogix members will receive a special offer email every Thursday with an exceptional, exclusive, limited-time deal on a golf product or service.

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Its taken a long time, but the small business economy is finally shaking off the Great Recession and showing solid gains. A couple of data points:

- The overall job market is picking up with Marchs job report showing a gain of 216,000 jobs, and more importantly a gain of 230,000 private sector jobs. Great quote from an AP story on the numbers:

“We are clearly seeing a breakout in the labor market,” said Paul Zemsky, the head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management. “The jobless recovery is ending and we are moving into a job expansion stage of the economy.”

- As reported by Business Week, data from the Intuit Small Business Employment Index as well as from Paychex and ADP all show small business hiring growth in March.

This doesnt mean the small business economy has fully recovered. For example, Marchs Discover Small Business Watch sentiment index showed a decline.

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