Pulling a 360

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Halfpipe

I went snowboarding yesterday. It was awesome. The temperature in Denver was 75 degrees and the temp on the hill was mid 40s. I ended up having a conversation on the lift with a 20 year old from Florida who had come out here to work. Somehow the subject of TV came up and he confessed that he did not own a TV. I said, “Good for you”. He then told me that he had a computer though. He told me that he watched shows on his computer when he wanted to and that he learned a lot from the Internet and now that high speed was easy to get he was pretty happy.

This is going to be an increasing trend and I’m sure that many in the TV industry are shuttering at the thought. I guess it really depends on what part of the TV industry you’re a part of. If you’re a content creator, you’re more than likely shuttering with delight.

I then described the following scenario to him.

You’re watching the X Games and you see one of the competitors wearing a new helmet you like the look of. You pause the video, rollover the helmet with your mouse and information comes up about the product (colors, size, where it can be purchased, user reviews, option to buy the product online, etc). When ordering the product and the system recommends goggles that work with the helmet. (Not as easy as you would think.) You start the video again and at the end of a run you pause it. You select the map option and it tells you where that run is on that mountain.

He looked at me and exclaimed, “whoa!”.

Several years ago I had just finished configuring my new laptop and was looking for the CD player under accessories/entertainment . I couldn’t find it. I was dumbfounded. There is was no way they would have moved it or gotten rid of it. I looked for it several times and returned to the same folder and saw the Windows Media player as an option. That’s when the concept of convergence of media hit me.

That is what is happening to the Internet and in time it will become Interactive TV. Of course, “it” will become much more. It will sit on the wall and be your TV (passive or active), it will be your Internet (as it is thought of today), it will be your phone/video phone/communication tool . It will sit on your wall in all of its 60″ glory or in your hand (queue the iPhone or Helio commmercial now). This system will enable you to manage 360 degrees of your entertainment, information and communication needs.

Whoa!

By Michael Myers