The next chapter from my presentation at the Nordic Media Festival. You find the rest of the chapters here.
People have been talking about the convergence of devices for a long time. And if everything is melting together into one universal device this sounds like something that will be very easy to handle. Problem is that this is not the case. The convergence leads to an abundance of devices that can be used to recieve rich media like video and sound. The computer is turning into a video recorder. The mobile phone is turning into a media device. The TV is turning into a computer. And so on.
This leads to huge amounts of new user situations. Broadcasters have to face the fact that people will watch their program in new settings. At work. On the go. At new times. In a foreign country. At their hotel room. While travelling.
And then you have these young people that are able to do several things simultaneously. They surf the web while watching the TV. And I must admit that the illustration here is kind of old school. I have a remote in my hand in the picture. It should have been my Nokia. A browser, the TV, messenger, skype and the mobile for sending and recieving SMS. All at the same time.
The broadcast industry should start taking this serious. Do tests with synchronized interactivity on the net during a television program. Behind the scenes. Extra information. I must admit it. On several occations I have used IMDB during a movie to find extra information. Now start exploring this possibility.
And, did anyone question my headline “…that makes things difficult“? I hear that way too often. How on earth could hundreds of new devices for playing content make problems? For the broadcaster that has any tiny bit of foresight this is no problem. This is one huge possibility. The surface where you can show your content just quadroupled.
It’s like an airliner that suddenly got huge amounts of new planes, helicopters and space shuttles for free. Not difficult. Not a problem. Slightly challenging, but loads of fun and opportunities.
What’s next?
In the next chapter from my presentation we will revisit my one year old cartoon about Bob the Millionaire and have a look at what the industry has done to meet that absurd situation.
eirikso 
On could say that the broadcasters have one major problem and that is not at bad situation. WHy so?! If you can introduce your product in many different areas – and at a relative low price, you should try different approches. 1) Use a high quality file-format for video/music. 2) Use a “good enough” file-format. Why? Because then you have introduced the product to all user. If you like High quality, you have that. If you just wanna check things out, you can use the “good enough” and if you are filing your video/music, then you can use the high quality and ripp it into whatever format you prefer.
When it comes to making universal product for example video, pc, music, internett etc. then you must be aware of the situation that there are competitors out there that have better product or products for other users than “your users”. To have a software for example (like Meedio), then your product will be used of more users. The mainstream user will then use your product, but also the more advance users will turn to you.
Open source is like Lego for the public!
Nice work Eirik! Enjoy reading your presentation.
I’m might create a controversy here but I think the broadcasters have a huge problem. Why? Because convergence is not only about devices but also about the distribution platform. Media distribution will eventually move to IP (as music, telephone, etc). Distribution on IP will become so cheap that the technology used in traditional broadcasting no longer will be sustainable. What will TVNorge do if ABC can sell LOST directly over the internet?
So broadcasting as we know it today might die. But this doesn’t mean the death of broadcasters! Many broadcasters are also content producers. As long as they are able to find ways of publishing their content in the new distribution platforms they should be ok. But since it is also getting so cheap to create and distribute content (It takes me two minutes to shoot a video with my phone and upload it to youtube) the competition is going to change a lot.
I really don’t know where I get all these strong opinions on the media industry. They just keep pouring out. Sorry 🙂
I don’t think I could get a better introduction to the next chapter from my presentation.
The part where I simply delete both TV2 (the broadcaster) and Canal Digital (the distributor) in the broadcast business model…
Gosh. Makes it pretty obvious that I haven’t seen your presentation :-S
I’ll be waiting patiently for the next few postings then 😉
(BTW: Great idea to transform your presentation into a series of postings. I will copy that…).