Waiting for Media Convergence

Hello Readers. Andy Angelos from Venture Midwest visiting CONNECTIONS blog once again. After reading the recent post entitled "New Models for Personalized Media Distribution," the Angelos brainstorm turbine ignited with notions surrounding the convergence of personalized media. Internet to TV, TV to phone, music to phone, tv, and Internet, text anywhere - digital convergence is creating an endless tail of consumer decisions. However, overwhelming choices for media consumption may be responsible for the following statistics:

• 84% of American Businesses consider print media their most important information source
• 40% of American Businesses rely on information from podcasts or webcasts
• 32% of American and European mobile phone users use the web on their devices and only 34% of the group is willing to watch mobile ads in current form

Yes, these statistics are from 2007...not 1997 and are courtesy of Publishing Executive - a monthly print publication. Despite the increasing tail of media options, the average consumer continues to interact with the traditional triad of media outlets - print, radio, and television. The print may be online, the radio may streaming, and the TV maybe Tivoed, but the experience remains essentially intact and therefore, separated. Dismal sales for AppleTV reiterate the continued mainstream preference for isolated media experiences.

Digital media adapters, such as AppleTV, are still nascent utilities. Hopefully, improvements like the release of OCAP tool kits from Motorola will enable further integration of media devices.