To me, the most interesting aspect of digital convergence is about how the TV will evolve as it converges with the PC. I should say right now that I don’t want the TV to become just another PC. As a consumer I want more choice, more control and more convenience from television but not at the expense of complexity or a lack of spontaneity. I want to be entertained, in my living room. I want to use a remote control, not a mouse and keyboard. Most of all, I want to retain the simplicity and serendipity of television.
I don’t want to type stuff into a search box before I can watch something. I don’t want a list of programmes that is so long it would take all day to scroll through it. I want relevant programmes suggested to me and I want to watch them whenever I want. I don’t really want to think about how my TV shows me relevant stuff, though I know there’s going to be some clever technology to drive that and I’m happy to share some personal data if I get a relevant experience in return. I don’t want that data to be abused. I’m happy for the brands that I trust to build a direct relationship with me, so long as there is something of interest or value in it for me. If I thought about it for a moment, I suppose I might want to establish a TV personality in the same way that I do on a PC connected to the web. I’m in control, and can build a collection of content, channels, services and maybe even applications that together represent what I want from TV. I want to interact with my friends, my family and communities of interest. And my television must still retain that simplicity and serendipity that makes it so good today.
So what of innovation and fragmentation? I think both are necessary to achieve my vision of the future of television. Fragmentation is inevitable as we enter a world of on demand content, particularly if the route to the consumer is through an open platform like Canvas. More and more brands can establish direct relationships with me – if I choose to let them. Despite the obvious challenges of complexity and navigation, I think this is a good thing. It means I will be able to get whatever I want, whenever I want, from whoever I want, on the best available terms or price and in the most convenient package. I will probably choose a very small subset of the available services that I trust and like and use those regularly. I will probably go outside of these regular services less frequently, though I must be able to do so when I choose. It will be very important to me to be able to get new services when they become cool and not when a single commercial player decides to do a deal with that service. Fragmentation helps to kill off the walled garden, so it is a good thing. Quality is maintained through an open market of competing content and services and not through a single all-powerful aggregator which restricts choice.
Innovation is essential in order to achieve all of this without complexity and dull predictability. We need innovation in how TV is presented to us to keep things simple and relevant. The serendipity of television can be retained if the creative people that commission and schedule live TV now can innovate to evolve their skills and offer interesting choices to me in a personalised on demand world. These skills will need to become more about definition of business rules to target content to smaller and smaller segments of an audience, however the core need to understand the audience as a whole remains. These business rules will take input from this understanding of the audience as well as what I’ve watched before, social trends and community interaction. The innovation is required to deliver “suggested discovery” instead of “search”. My TV won’t be simple without innovation and I don’t want to watch exactly the same type of programming over and over again just because someone’s dumb recommendation engine says so.
So the fragmentation is inevitable and gives me more choice and control. I then need the TV industry to innovate to suggest relevant content and new things that I might like. So to answer the question – Innovation or fragmentation? To achieve simple serendipity in this new converged world, the answer is “both”.
Digital Convergence: Innovation or fragmentation? Or can I retain the serendipity of television?
To me, the most interesting aspect of digital convergence is about how the TV will evolve as it converges with the PC. I should say right now that I don’t want the TV to become just another PC. As a consumer I want more choice, more control and more convenience from television but not at the expense of complexity or a lack of spontaneity. I want to be entertained, in my living room. I want to use a remote control, not a mouse and keyboard. Most of all, I want to retain the simplicity and serendipity of television.
I don’t want to type stuff into a search box before I can watch something. I don’t want a list of programmes that is so long it would take all day to scroll through it. I want relevant programmes suggested to me and I want to watch them whenever I want. I don’t really want to think about how my TV shows me relevant stuff, though I know there’s going to be some clever technology to drive that and I’m happy to share some personal data if I get a relevant experience in return. I don’t want that data to be abused. I’m happy for the brands that I trust to build a direct relationship with me, so long as there is something of interest or value in it for me. If I thought about it for a moment, I suppose I might want to establish a TV personality in the same way that I do on a PC connected to the web. I’m in control, and can build a collection of content, channels, services and maybe even applications that together represent what I want from TV. I want to interact with my friends, my family and communities of interest. And my television must still retain that simplicity and serendipity that makes it so good today.
So what of innovation and fragmentation? I think both are necessary to achieve my vision of the future of television. Fragmentation is inevitable as we enter a world of on demand content, particularly if the route to the consumer is through an open platform like Canvas. More and more brands can establish direct relationships with me – if I choose to let them. Despite the obvious challenges of complexity and navigation, I think this is a good thing. It means I will be able to get whatever I want, whenever I want, from whoever I want, on the best available terms or price and in the most convenient package. I will probably choose a very small subset of the available services that I trust and like and use those regularly. I will probably go outside of these regular services less frequently, though I must be able to do so when I choose. It will be very important to me to be able to get new services when they become cool and not when a single commercial player decides to do a deal with that service. Fragmentation helps to kill off the walled garden, so it is a good thing. Quality is maintained through an open market of competing content and services and not through a single all-powerful aggregator which restricts choice.
Innovation is essential in order to achieve all of this without complexity and dull predictability. We need innovation in how TV is presented to us to keep things simple and relevant. The serendipity of television can be retained if the creative people that commission and schedule live TV now can innovate to evolve their skills and offer interesting choices to me in a personalised on demand world. These skills will need to become more about definition of business rules to target content to smaller and smaller segments of an audience, however the core need to understand the audience as a whole remains. These business rules will take input from this understanding of the audience as well as what I’ve watched before, social trends and community interaction. The innovation is required to deliver “suggested discovery” instead of “search”. My TV won’t be simple without innovation and I don’t want to watch exactly the same type of programming over and over again just because someone’s dumb recommendation engine says so.
So the fragmentation is inevitable and gives me more choice and control. I then need the TV industry to innovate to suggest relevant content and new things that I might like. So to answer the question – Innovation or fragmentation? To achieve simple serendipity in this new converged world, the answer is “both”.