Will Television Be Reborn as The Internet… Or Vice Versa?
By Anna Johnson on January 17th, 2009Who would have thought television could ever be unseated as the most dominant medium. And yet, when a significant part of a major party’s 2008 U.S. federal election campaign is run on all kinds of new media… it’s a sure sign of TV’s decline… or is it?
“I think communication goes in waves. It just depends on where the eyeballs are. For awhile it was TV. TV had the eyeballs. That changed. You can no longer communicate to people by just airing commercials on television.
Even if you want to reach your base of voters, they’re not all watching the same channel. As TV and radio and the newspaper industry are dying, you’re noticing that people are now getting information from hundreds if not thousands of websites.
New media and the Internet and text-messaging all have millions of people communicating in unique ways, and I don’t think it’s going to be going anywhere for a very long time.”
– Scott Goodstein, manager of Barack Obama’s text-messaging and mobile communications during the 2008 U.S. Federal election campaign.
Television as we’ve known it for the past 50 years (which, truth be told, has evolved and changed throughout those years) IS on the way out. But video ‘casting’ of some kind – whether via broadcasting or otherwise, is here to stay.
Media convergence is seeing the rebirth of television. TV is becoming more like the Internet and the Internet is becoming more like TV.
And we are steadily marching towards the day when our Internet and television devices are wrapped up in one.
At the recent 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), for example, Sony unveiled new networked Bravia LCD high-definition television models.
These featured rich Internet applications called ‘Bravia widgets’ designed to deliver real-time information, as well as streaming video via a Bravia Internet Video Link capability integrated into the TV sets.
But you don’t need a Sony Bravia to deliver Internet content to, and through, your TV.
Many tech-savvy people have converted PCs and laptops into Internet-connected ‘media centers’ that can be used to download, store and deliver media content… through their TV sets.
What does all this mean for Internet marketers?
Lots of things. But perhaps the main thing is that the media environment – i.e. the environment we use to promote, sell and, for many of us, deliver our products and services – is ever changing.
And although we may not know, exactly, what will work (in terms of marketing) when things first begin to change, we’re still wise to monitor such changes and, at some point, jump in and start testing!
Sources: Kate Linthicum, “Barack Obama’s text message guru talks to the Ticket — Pt. I,” Los Angeles Times, January 2007, Kate Linthicum, “Barack Obama’s text message guru talks to the Ticket — Pt. II” Los Angeles Times, January 7, 2008, Press Release, “Sony Kicks Starts CES With a Panoply Of Products and Technologies,” Sony, January 9, 2009
