Here is a topic I continue to be intrigued by (see category in the right column). While many
firms are competing in the race for the single box solution to TV Web
convergence, Mac Slocum at O’Reilly Radar reports that new data from Nielsen suggests they're all headed in
the wrong direction. “In the last quarter of 2009, simultaneous use of the
Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month, up 35% from
the previous quarter. Nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a
month while also watching TV.”
I am doing this right now as I am watching TV while I write this post. This is usually an easy multi-task. Mac notes the differences between television's lean-back experience and the web's lean-forward positioning. Competing manufacturers did to consider this difference with the Web’s pull potential and TV’s push.
The Nielsen report also said that that Americans watch network programs online when they miss an episode or when a TV is not available. Online video is used essentially like DVR and not typically a replacement for watching TV. Mac adds consumers are supplementing their consumption with online video, not replacing it. This is where I liked the On Demand options to see TV shows when I want to. I used this extensively for the Treme series that came on too late. It also helped me watch each episode at least three times.
Now Mac takes this data to an interesting conclusion. He writes that it matters if content is consumed, not how it's consumed. Much effort has gone into bridging the web and TV worlds through brute force into a single box. However, the most successful cross-media efforts are the ones that let consumers interact through the tools they already use. This is why many enterprise 2.0 collaboration platform vendors enable their users to interact with their tools through email. What makes more sense: integrating Twitter into a television's hardware or helping users tweet during a show? I would choose the latter.
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