TV Needs to Be Reinvented
TV Needs to Be Reinvented
Ben Bajarin is the Director of Consumer Technology Analysis and Research at Creative Strategies, Inc, a technology industry analysis and market intelligence firm located in Silicon Valley.
By Ben Bajarin | November 14, 2011 | 0
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When I first joined Creative Strategies, Inc. as an analyst in 2000, I started tracking and studying products related to the digital home. There was a lot of talk then and there still is now about innovation with the TV set. Since 2000, when I started, HDTV and DVRs are the only two advancements that have made it to the mass market. Really not much has changed in 11 years and, to be honest, not much has changed in the last 50 years. Color, HDTV, and the DVR are really the only “experiential” evolutions we have seen since television was invented. We still don’t have true anytime-anywhere access to all the content we desire on the screen of our choosing. In my opinion, all of this needs to change. The TV experience needs to be reinvented.
What excites me about things like Samsung’s connected TVs, or Google TV and Apple TV is that for the first time we can begin to see how the TV will become a platform in the future. What I mean by that is that personal computers, smartphones, and tablets are all platforms for software companies to write rich applications and deliver rich services. The TV is the next screen to follow suit, and technologies like Apple TV, Google TV and others are the beginning of how software developers will be able to create new and never before seen experiences for the TV set.
Ways TV Can Be Reinvented
Whenever I speak with folks in the tech industry about this subject, the most common thread about re-inventing TV is the streaming of TV shows directly to the TV set. Those of us who look at future TV trends call this consumer TV “over the top.” This term just means that instead of consuming broadcast content through the cable line and a provider’s set-top box, we consume the same content over the internet through our broadband connection. This is a good idea and is inevitable to some degree. Right now this experience exists through a browser on your PC where you can go to any of the major TV networks sites and begin to watch most of their primetime shows streamed to your PC. This experience is also taking place on tablets and smatrphones through apps like the Hulu Plus app and many others.
Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/11/14/tv-needs-to-be-reinvented/#ixzz1dfmcm3Qi
