I once used to think convergence was overrated. I had one overriding reason: The term was born in the heyday of interactive television. And I didn’t consider those folks sound of mind.
Another
aspect that bothered me was the majority view that convergence would somehow be TV-centric. I, a child of the PC generation, could not have disagreed more.
I was wrong and right. Judging by recent
statistics, convergence is happening right before our very eyes. While true practitioners are few and far between, pioneers such as ABC and Discovery are marrying television content with Internet
interaction in very innovative ways.
But there are at least six major networks and countless other broadcast players. It’s rather surprising that the TV-centric brigade has not been more
catalytic.
That responsibility has fallen squarely on the shoulders of the cyber “avant garde,” and they’ve reacted with gusto. So I was right that the TV jingoism was misplaced. But wrong that
convergence wouldn’t get red-hot again soon.
One thing that changed my mind were the nearly 5 million viewers who played ABC’s “enhanced TV” game “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” for an average of
41 minutes per session. Now a popular show can always be cross-promoted successfully, but this phenomenon is being propelled by legions of Internet consumers who have moved their furniture to
accommodate their computer, a figure Roper Starch pegged at 52% last fall.
Still don’t believe convergence is going to happen? Cyber Dialogue says 10.2 million U.S. adults surf and watch
television at the same time. That may only be 5% of the total U.S. adult population, but it’s a promising figure for a very new consumption pattern. But one thing that needs to happen before
convergence can shift into second gear is an increasingly digital TV infrastructure. A U.K. research firm, Strategy Analytics, predicts that 56 million households worldwide will be watching digital
television by the end of this year, primarily via satellite receivers.
And revisiting that furniture concept. Some analysts predict that flat-screen TV will be the greatest consumer blockbuster
since the advent of the VCR. I agree. Tacking a converging digital experience to your wall will be an eye-popping conversation piece for some time to come. And the La-Z-Boy folks are ready to cater to
the tired and converging masses. They’ve introduced the “E-cliner,” their first chair to feature a built-in computer keyboard tray.
Even if all of the above is pure hogwash, which is quite
possible given the amount of Internet Kool-Aid I’ve consumed, one can’t stop the unstoppable. And that snowball rolling down the hill is the Internet industry. Our distinct belief is that streaming is
going to be the “Big Kahuna.” A conference I attended in Fall 1998, Streaming Media, had barely 200 attendees. The last time out, the show drew 15,000 people in New York.
Want to see what these
folks are concocting? Just visit such state-of-the-art convergence sites as NOW.com or Yahoo’s FinanceVision. What you’ll encounter there is what I call Internet-centric convergence: synchronized
linking and storytelling.
As Yogi Berra once remarked, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Michael Tchong is the founder and CEO of ICONOCAST (www.iconocast.com), an
online publication for e-marketing executives.