How To Identify Good Technology?

In this well written essay, Stephen Downes clarifies general weaknesses and limitations of many popular technologies while extracting with precision nine key traits that set apart great technology tools from popular time and money wasters. The essay is part of a non-commercial free downloadable book entitled: "The Learning Marketplace: Meaning, Metadata and Content Syndication in the Learning Object Economy" which should be required reading for anyone working as an educator, researcher or faculty in an academic institution.