Convergence, cross-platform delivery and seamlessly transporting user interactions are the exciting keys to how technology will enhance our experiences with every type of content.  Implementing this kind of futuristic vision is an amazing challenge that will require not only innovative thinking, but understanding what users want and how they can easily get it.  Remember, we're still living in a world where major electronic manufacturers with R & D budgets of billions of dollars cannot design user friendly and intuitive remote controls for TVs and DVD players.  If we cannot figure out how to make a relatively simple device that users should be able to operate with their eyes closed how are we going to implement a strategy for allowing people to interact with content from their TVs, computers, mobiles, gaming devices and new inventions that bring together combinations of various technologies?

Convergence

Bringing together both technology and content that in the past have been separate allows those of us who are content developers to think of exciting new connections and user experience opportunities.  For example WebTV and IPTV offer the chance to deliver a content rich user experience combining video, audio, images and text related to the core content.  The jump from extra audio tracks on DVDs to a truly interactive experience means not only developing and/or linking related content, but finding cool ways to navigate and experience the limitless options.  The progress from early web experiences to the indexed web is but a small jump compared to the work we need to do in everything from how knowledge is organized to the user interfaces that will make it possible for users to access content in new and often unexpected ways.  We need to concentrate on the end user in a way that finally goes beyond the persistent barrier of the past decades where genius technologists are still designing so that only their fellow techies can understand.

Cross Platform Delivery

Creating content that can be delivered on any platform (Broadcast TV, Web, Mobile, etc.) is a special challenge.  The transition to a new world of content has to overcome thousands of years of linear storytelling and set concepts for logically organizing knowledge.  Exploiting the advantages of each platform needs both creative thinking and concentrating on useful functionality, rather than doing things just because we can.  Interactivity will go beyond a few branching stories allowing an infinite number of user experiences as every part of life is somehow connected to different content and platforms.  A game can include educational knowledge that transforms the player into a student, the student into a social networker, the networker into a consumer and around and round with each user being given the power to go wherever they choose.

On a simple level we can see the mobile device as a small television, but developing technologies can integrate the tools that will translate content from one device to another exploiting the strengths and usefulness of each platform.  For example video-conferencing on phones will lead to new user experiences from interactive real time game shows with users phoning in from their mobiles to social networking that can immediately connect people to both friends and important knowledge (such as customer service).  Combining these new technology with all the various types of content delivery will mean that a phone call with the vendor of your computer will pass support documents, service call tracking, and much more to all the devices you choose.

For me the important thing here is to realize that delineations like fiction/non-fiction, educational/entertainment, television/telephone, etc. are irrelevant in this new paradigm.  A fairy tale for a child can be linked to an online dictionary, social networks where other children are reading the same book, groups connected with the story’s theme, interactive courses on storytelling or the style of the picture book or video, technical knowledge on every facet of production, products related to any of these connections and much more.  The interrelatedness of all things will be made possible by creative people who go beyond traditional views and technology that will assist in organizing things in open and intelligent systems.

Seamless Transportation

We have already started hearing about games that are going to move from PC or consoles to mobiles and web, but that is only a small part of one of the most significant developments in these technological and creative advances.  Experiences will not only move logically through our lives, but in the connected world of the future our imaginations will lead us to unheard of possibilities in human thought and development.   The organizational structures that have been key to our content consumption (such as shows starting on a certain schedule) have made an amazing transformation from video tapes and DVDs to content on demand.  Imagine the future where every user will be able to organize the content of their lives in whatever way they want.  That will mean choosing when, where, how and what they want to see and to interact with it with unlimited choices.

This will go far beyond podcasts on MP3 players or videos recorded on mobiles then played back on TVs.  The content of our lives from what we do, watch, and create can be organized, consumed and recorded moving seamlessly from what I like to call our “technology assistants.”  Ubiquitous  wireless connections with well thought out interfaces and synchronization will keep knowledge and entertainment always within our reach.

Final Thoughts

In the end I find myself both in awe of the possibilities and worried that the narrow thinking of mass marketing will lead to TVs, mobiles and the web all sharing the same problem:  500 channels of nothing on.  Bringing knowledge together is one thing.  Creating innovative new content requires creativity that can dream of new worlds and present them using all the tools available.  A daunting and exciting challenge.

Greg Acuna
www.palaflicks.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c10cbshhlwE