For Kids, Media Convergence Just Seems Natural
from the while-adults-are-just-as-confused-as-ever dept
We now live in a world where kids "get it" first. Kids are now growing up in a society where they learn about computers and the internet first - and they start to expect all media to be just as interactive. They assume that the TV will respond the same way as the internet, and that any movie has a game component. Linear story telling is less important to them than the ability to interact with the story. Kids who were brough up in such a world are soon going to be creating products for those who are coming after them - and that's when media convergence will really start to take off. So far there have been a few success and a ton of failures - mainly because adults were taking guesses at what sort of convergence will work. Today's kids, though, have more of an intuitive understanding of the matter, so the next generation of digital entertainment should be quite different than what we're used to.
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It's already here.
Look at the the current "Interactive TV" - American Idol is a great example. This week's show garnered *21 million votes*, according to the host. I don't know that 21 million different people voted, or whether you can vote many times - point is, that's an astounding level of participation either way.
"Reality TV" is definitely at the forefront of programming right now. Why not? It's cheap to produce, it's "new", and more and more of these shows generate watercooler buzz near the end of their runs... of course, among the many downsides is the fact they don't have a shelf-life for syndication.
Only question is, how much of a fad is this?
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Re: It's already here.
I don't see why you can't login to a TV show and be a part of live action...I don't see any TECHNICAL problem...there are other: finding the right idea is one of them....also, business model is not clear - would you charge for a login? time? no charge? where the profit comes from? ads?
Ideas for free:
1. Interactive gambling show
2. Interactive "Who wants to be ..." type of show.
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