Top Three Stories of 2013 
More than 2,000 visited our NineShift blog in the last month to read the Top 10 Stories of 2013. Here are the top three stories of 2013:
#3 The End of Text Based Online Courses
This was the year every online expert endorsed multi-media in online courses.
Online courses are on their way to being 50 percent of how we learn in this century, from Kindergarten (before actually) through the rest of our lives. And it’s not just about education. Multi-media now established as a principal way we communicate, with each other, in marketing, in our personal lives.
In 1913 movies made the same shift. Before 1913 movies were just stage plays on film. In 1913 the first action movies were made. Today, as 100 years ago, we make a big leap forward in the new century.
#2 End of the Auto Age 
Driving is now in decline. But it’s more than that. It’s the end of a way of life.
*In 2013 we learned only old people buy cars.
*Americans spend $100 billion a year just on auto insurance. We found out in the last month the auto insurance industry is now desperate to keep older people driving.
*In 2013 our NineShift prediction of last January came true: the first report came out that there is no solution to Highway Funding.
*This was the first year Baby Boomers, who want to live forever, became visibly aware of the terrible risk of death driving on our highways.
*It was the first year in which ROI stats (new jobs created) was calculated for light rail stations. It’s over folks.
#1 On the Edge of History 
We are on the edge of history. Go into any one of dozens of train stations around the United States: they are under construction, housed in temporary quarters, or being renovated.
But in just a few months these train stations will be renovated – and busy. Busy for the rest of the 21st Century, the rest of your life, your children’s lives, and your grandchildren’s lives.
Not just trains, but a whole way of life is now changing rapidly.
Photo: The train station in St. Paul, Minnesota, is newly renovated, beautiful, and empty. When Amtrak starts service there again in a few months it will be busy for the rest of our lives.
For all Top 10 Stories of 2013, plus the first of our Predictions for 2014, go to http://www.Blog.NineShift.com
