OUR FOCUS: DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT APPLICATIONS IN A MORPHING AND CONVERGING WORLD
Beyond the Tipping Point of the Long Tail of a Black Swan Paradigm Shift?
Haven’t we heard It all before?
More than 10 years ago the new media and entertainment industry got burned by the unicorned promise of “convergence.” It is finally here but unfolding in a way that nobody predicted. The demographics of audience, viewing, consumption habits and usage patterns are changing as quickly as the underlying technology itself.
And don’t forget advertising. It’s happening now and it’s a big world out there–very big. According to a recent survey, it’s a $300 billion a year global industry, comprised of television networks and distribution, filmed entertainment, video games, advertising and access–growing at 5% CAGR per year. Unlike many industries, it is virtually recession proof and undergoing a seismic transformation unlike any other before it.
USER EXPERIENCE
We pursue understanding the fundamental drivers for user experience.
Very little thought or research has gone into understanding the fundamental drivers for digital entertainment adoption. Are they audience-behavior based, offering based, technology or industry based? What explains why some digital entertainment applications take off while others fail?
Naive observers have suggested that technology is either an enabler or inhibitor of new entertainment offerings. But there are many other factors. The motion picture industry understands how difficult it is to adopt new technologies–there are enormous entertainment franchises at stake. Will they go the way of the music industry? Will laptops with online downloads replace or supplement multiplex theaters? And where is the audience spending its time these days? No wonder everyone is nervous.
CONSUMERS AND AUDIENCE BEHAVIOR IS CHANGING
They are not watching conventional television as much. In fact, they are leaving in droves. It’s also becoming a mobility world and more consumers using are the Net, gaming and other other media, simultaneously for a new and complex multi-tasking niche’d out convergent entertainment experience. The rise of do-it-yourself-production, social networking and the inherent nature of an infinite universe of niche content makes figuring out where it is all going very difficult.
Yet consumers are changing. Whether it’s a 28 yr. old watching a DvD on an airline seat on her computer, or a child in the back seat watching a video on the back of a car seat or realtime videocasts to cellular phones between teenagers in Japan, along with downloads of new hip-hop ring-tones and video-games, consumer entertainment behaviors are changing, blurring and morphing all around the globe. Fast food restaurants are experimenting with drive-through wireless downloads as premiums. Indeed, the simple ring-tone download market is already a multi-billion dollar niche industry. It is being dominated by video ring-tones within the next 12 months. What if you could have foreseen that?
Audience consumption is shifting on a massive basis. Consumers have a fixed amount of time for entertainment. depending upon age demographic, it is fragmenting into niche markets. This is good news for advertisers More viewers are spending time online. So entertainment competes for viewers with increasingly fragmented schedules and viewing habits–time, venue and technology platform are all up for grabs today in the world of digital entertainment. The mass audience is gone with the wind. This is a major threat and an opportunity. How will your organization handle it?
BUSINESS AND ADVERTISING REVENUE MODELS ABOUND AND TECHNOLOGY IS A PACING CONSTRAINT
Online music and the new industry revenue models developed by Apple are being challenged by new comers to the space–everyone from Microsoft to Walmarts wants a piece of the action. Video games are everywhere-on hand sets, in hotels and over the Net. In China alone, there are 1 million simultaneous gamers online for certain games. Podcasts, now both video and audio-based, are available in the millions over the Net as well. Time displacement for viewing has given way to “place displacement” viewing and “pervasive entertainment.” Time displaced viewing technologies have permanently disrupted traditional advertising models. Singly, none of us know where it is going.
The introduction of High Definition TV (HDTV) and digital television and devices in the US, Asia and Europe are forcing large numbers of consumers to consider shifting new viewing and consumption alternatives not seen the introduction of color television in the 1960s. The array of new technologies available and competing standards is mind boggling. We have seen this before. Are we in a Bubble?
THE LOCUS OF CONVERGENCE: A PERFECT STORM – FIND IT AND YOU WILL WIN
What if you could know how things might happen? Or at least have an independent check on your own take of things. We will focus on the fundamental drivers that are making the Digital Entertainment revolution a global phenomenon in different stages of development worldwide. Different segments of the digital entertainment industry still have lots to learn from one another as they adopt non-traditional approaches to new business opportunities where resistance and skepticism abounds. We think we can help you by joining forces with us in the Digital Entertainment Alliance.
