At last! Internet / TV Convergence
- Details
- Created on 22 August 2008
- Written by Steve Burrows
Sometimes you feel a fool. As a technologist I have made many long-term predictions about the development of Computing and IT over the years, and history has usually vindicated me. But one prediction has been outstanding for too long, and I had started to think I was wrong.
In 1997 I was consulted by a director of one of the "Big Four" banks in the UK about their strategy for high-volume printing - basically, how should they see the future of the bank statement, should they continue to invest in the big print and mail facilities that send most of us our monthly bank account and credit card statements etc.? Did high-volume statement printing have a future in the Internet Age?
I answered yes, keep on printing, for the next few years. The Internet would grow massively in household penetration, but it would remain a minority tool, so the majority of customers would still need a printed statement. For the moment. I forecast that in the foreseeable future the Internet, or rather the facilities it provides, would ultimately become integrated within an interactive broadcast environment as the rich broadcasters realised that they needed to add interactive and personalised facilities to their offering in order to retain market share. Basically I summarised that within 10 years we would be accessing many of the services made possible by the Internet via our televisions, and that would deliver such a high penetration of Internet-type information services to people that they could then consider discarding statement printing.
What a prat! The personal home PC has become ubiquitous in the first world. The people I thought would shun it - the elderly, the non-technical and non-professional classes etc. have in fact adopted the PC in droves. Services like Facebook and MySpace have drawn in consumers who might otherwise have had little or no use for a PC outside their work. For the past few years my prediction has looked increasingly wrong.
Until today. When I read in the that "Intel has signed a deal with Yahoo to enhance the way people use their TVs by adding internet applications.". At last. What took you so long guys?? More .
Somewhat ironically, I don't own a television. Perhaps I will have to buy one soon!
