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Kitiyama san, founder of the Japanese company EZA, is an excited
man. His company has pioneered cool new technology which enables education and
information content from television and video to be streamed onto mobile phones.
In a land where NTT Docomo and a host of leading edge players are pushing the
envelope of convergence, niche companies like EZA are at the forefront of a
revolution which can lead to great new capabilities in the convergence era and
also to the death of television.
James Forsyth and Allister Heath, writing in a recent issue of
The Business magazine of UK, predict that the television industry will see power
wrested from broadcasters and transferred to content providers. In Britain for
example, Web-based TV-on-demand is already offered by Sky, Virgin Media and BT
Vision while globally, Google's YouTube with its multiple video clips has
caught the fancy of an entire generation of users. While both these developments
still seem to be just an interesting additional amusement mechanism for the
nerds, the promise of video-on-demand and just in time viewing of content on
computers and mobile phones may well become the only medium of education,
information, and entertainment for the world.
| The trends
show that early adopters of all the elements of the new convergence era
are happy customer |
The number of aspirants for leadership in this brave new world
is enormous. Two US TV networks, NBC and Fox are set to offer almost all the
shows of the combined networks on a number of channels including Yahoo, AOL, MSN
and MySpace and will lay claim to being the "largest advertising platform
on earth" with its reach exceeding 90% of the American online audiences.
Content distribution partnerships of Viacom with Joost and file sharing sites
like Kazaa will also start giving a run for their money to Youtube. Finally, the
new generation of Internet set-top boxes including Microsoft's new Xbox and
potential new products from HP, Sony, and Cisco will enable the much needed
flexibility for viewers to develop their own schedules.
Why would convergence in entertainment and information succeed
when education online has not exactly set the house on fire? For one, education
tends to be a more complex psychological process than entertainment with
extraordinary reliance on outstanding faculty quality, participation of peer
groups, and a sheltered classroom environment. The poor transition in pedagogy
has been the reason why learning effectiveness has shown a serious decline as
e-learning courses are introduced.If the quality of the visual medium improves
from the occasional jerky and grainy images that one gets today, there is no
holding back to the new medium. And, a look at the new content being repurposed
in Tokyo was enough to prove that barring some addressable commercial hurdles,
the beginning of the end for traditional television may well be very near!
There are many thorns, however on the path to success to the
vision when customers can have access to millions of high quality films at the
drag-and-click of a button from the comfort of their armchairs. Google which
paid hundred times earnings for the $15 mn Youtube has already been received
flak from content creators who allege blatant copyright violations, with a
billion dollar lawsuit from Viacom which is aggrieved that hundreds of thousands
of its show segments have been placed on the site with no copyright filters
whatsoever.
What is the time frame in which we can expect all these cataclysmic changes
to happen in global broadcasting and content dissemination? The trends show that
early adopters of all the elements of the new convergence era are happy customer
and are willing to ride over the few potholes and speed breakers because of the
tremendous flexibility and cost advantages offered by the new developments. The
signs are clear and whether it is the relentless pressure of incumbents like
Fox, Microsoft, and Google or the enthusiasm and entrepreneurship of the
Kitiyamas of the world, the entire industry will be in the throes of a paradigm
shift in the very near future.
The author is deputy chairman & MD of Zensar Technologies and an
Executive Council member of NASSCOM for 2007-09.
He can be reached at ganesh@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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