World's Number 1 search engine Google along with Sony, Logitech & Intel unveiled its much discussed Television platform- Google TV
Through a single digital platform the viewer will have access to million television channels as well as acess to the world wide webthrough an Internet enabled TV Set to be manufactured by Sony.
Guess what this would do, while watching India Vs Pakistan,your friend from UK will ping you swearing at the loose shot played by Sehwag the ball before on your TV IM.While an advertisement commercial plays out ,you can just minimize that window and check your email sent to you by your boss
Or for all you know now you don't have to switch on your computer to webchat with your girlfriend.You could do it right while watching Federer take on Nadal in the french open final by simply attaching the logitech webcam over your TV.
Interesting !!! isnt it , but as far as I am concerned this is just the start of more.I envisage a day when such convergence will simply create a seamless yet invisible extension of your virtual self,of which you are an indispensible part already.
About a decade and a half back,I used to be mighty excited to see my dad get a small beep on the first of its kind Motorola Pager which was simply thrown out of gear by the first PCO Sized mobile phone which came with the facility to send a text message.For who thought that one day I would have access to my email on my mobile phone when a certain Research in Motion launched Push Email onits blackberry,the sole differentiator that made it the most widely accepted enterprise mobile phone.
Well if that was not enough just about 5 years ago,I never thought I would be able to watch live TV on my mobile phone,or read the economic times live on my mobile phone browser.If you thought owning an Apple Ipod to listen to your favourite track was being ubercool,there was more to come.For what came next was more than just a phone with an I and an ear for music,Apple's iphone which has revolutionalized the way we read the latest news ,or interact with our friends.What it also did is to create a ubiquitous integrated medium for listening to music,clicking photographs & interacting with friends right across theworld.With the skype phone I was able to make calls through my computer connected to the internet,sometimes for free ,sometimes for a paltry dollar a month.
While platforms,mediums & technologies are converging ,there was a inherent yet integrated need for the tech-savvy social human animal to collaborate, to reach out,to express himself -in short sociate(I am just coining a new term that means to socialize on the web)through facebook/orkut,blogs,twitter respectively.The very fact that even celebrities like SRK ,Sportstars like Sachin & Politicos like Shashi Tharoor realize that tweeting ontwitter gives his end consumer the chance of actually being directly connected to his idol on a platform that makes its money because more and more of the end consumers log-on.These idol's on the other hand get a chance of doing so much more with so less-making a cool political statement or simply tweeting about his like or dislike which can pulvarize public sentiment(talk about SRK pledging support to Pakistan for IPL that definitely had some irate shiv sainiks making it an issue being discussed daily on public platforms)
Has this social need proliferated these technological mediums or did these technological mediums proliferate these social needs is another hot topic to debate i.e I have an iphone so I can review themovie from my seat in the cinema hall or whether I buy an iphone because I want to review and tweet the movie review right from seat in the cinema hall.Together as these mediums proliferate each other, they both need each other so much so.
But what these needs and the technology to bolster these needs are doing is creating newer lines of businesses and newer channels of how businesses function.Earlier a company just used to have an advertisement about a car in a newspaper.Today the co has to have a page on facebook and it has to further build a base of fans to get the product more fans,,a publicist unveiling updates about the product tweeted hourly in less that 180 words.Its not surprising that if the digital advertising spend on marketing campaigns has already outdonetraditional advertising spends,specially more so for niche products with a specific target audience.
Going ahead I see a day -a new era of convergence blurring boundaries which have not even been imagined-lets look at a day when each one of us will have a unique identification across all mediums & technology.This day there would be no need for different credit cards,different email ids,different SIM Cards.Only one card for one identity.May be I could transfer money from my facebook account to my friends account.May be check email at the near-by ATM.Vodafone may tie up Skype to offer voice calls and transfer money from my ICICI Bank account instantaneously.For all you know ,my car may have the artificial intelligence to drive me to one of my favourite restaurants depending on which of those has a road with lesser traffic.Toll booths can act as payment points for my electricity bills.With the sheer number of Mc Donald /Pizza hut/Dominos outlets all together and a delivery infrastructure that guarantees delivery in 30 minutes I could call them up(text/email) to have my life saving medicines being delivered within 30 minutes.For the milkman can start delivering newspapers along with Milk-after all they both need is a hub early in the morning from where these noble men diverge to deliver our daily cup of tea and morning news in the form of spokes of the hubs.
Well I wonder why the dabawallahs of Mumbai have'nt started delivering couriers across the whole of India the sole reason being them frequenting so many offices traversing across one of most populous & crowded areas in the world.
But what this convergence might also do is invade that much more into your private lives.By quizzing "which car suits you best" on facebook and based on the sum total of the savings & current account in your bank you may be shown the advertisement of the same car on the ATM Screen when you go to withdraw money.Whats more at your favourite restaurant along with the bill you will get the new marketing booklet of that car.If thats not enough you may keep getting customer callsfrom the marketing re-presentative inviting you to a free test drive.
Don't be surprised if your favourite restaurant brings to you a customized A la Carte which only has extensions of those dishes/cusines which you prefer.No wonder you keep posting pictures and updates about every meal you had on facebook and twitter.
Well shopping malls may have a digital analyzer which scans a prospective client entering his shop.I really wonder why we don't have them yet.What these could do is scan you top to bottom and make inferences about your choice,your propensity to spend money and whether you will actually purchase anything.The brand of the shoes you wear,the brand of the watch you wear and the perfume you may carry may just indicate the shirt you are aboutto buy.
Catch you later, till convergence did us apart......
