I've just picked up Ray Kurzweil's new book, "The Singularity Is Near". In 500 pages, Kurzweil describes a future in which humans and machines converge, the mechanisms by which this will happen, and the implications of this trend.
I'll summarize what I learn that's relevant for marketing in a subsequent post. The title prompted me to think about a different, emerging singularity of internet, telecommunications, and television.
Let's review some of the bidding:
1. The internet, telcom services, and television are brought into many of our homes by the same transport, cable.
2. These transports are increasingly digital.
3. Bandwidth is growing steadily. I recently rebooted my cable modem and now get 6 Mbps down.
4. Integration is now happening higher in the stack: for example, the new Slingbox device lets you see what you're getting on your TV on your PC, and VoIP service like Vonage allow you to manage my telecommunications very flexibly and easily through the Web.
5. This convergence is not lost on major players: AOL and CNN have both recently made video content freely accessible on their sites; eBay recently bought Skype.
6. Digital cable services support interactive displays, enabling direct response using a TV.
7. New display monitors often support both TV and PC inputs.
These and other developments raise the risks and potential returns for both the entrepreneurs and investors in plays in these converging spaces, as well as for the marketers who currently divide their advertising and promotional dollars between the spaces. For both sides, what would really be useful is a "convergence roadmap" that tracks the maturity, adoption, and evolving economics of different plays, along with what I'll call "possibility thresholds" -- points at which "if 'x', 'y', and 'z' are in place (related to maturity, adoption, or economics), then 'a' is not only possible, but probable". Also useful would be projections of competitive responses, at the sector level at least (e.g., cable v. telco, pipe owner v. content owner, software v. hardware, server v. switch, and other combinations thereof). More to come as we learn.
The stakes are very big here, as noted in earlier posts. For example, global TV ad spending is $160 billion, despite being one of the least measurable channels for brand-building and promotion. How does the size and shape of this pie change in a world where a) content production is democratized by lower cost technologies, b)distribution is democratized by proliferation of channels, and c)reception and response can be tracked to individuals?
In case you missed it, the Wall Street Journal had a very interesting article yesterday on Apple's new deal with Disney for distribution of prime time shows like "Lost" for $2/ episode. The ABC local affiliates are not very happy about this. An opening salvo in a complex and fast-approaching war with many fronts.
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