January 2001

Convergence


The most common question we get about convergence is "just what is convergence?"

The best answer is that Convergence is an absolute necessity. It is a must-do and a "you better have already started it" kind of priority. It is the salvation of the concept of mass media. And, it probably goes without saying, just about everyone reading this is rooting for that salvation.

Convergence provides the economic base for the scale of newsgathering necessary to keep the Fourth Estate healthy. Whether we are destined for an advertising supported or a pay-for-content future, BIG is important in journalism. The independence that allows Belo's KHOU in Houston to invest the time and hours to break the Firestone story in the face of tremendous pressure to bury it is based in financial strength (and confidence in the journalists). The ability to turn a team of investigators - in any medium - loose on a six-month story development rests on this strength. And so on...

The fact is that without convergence as the antidote, proliferation and targeting and customization and all the other forms of granularization that threaten the concept of mass media will destroy free press like fire ants can destroy a calf. And that won't be good for this country or the world and it sure as hell won't be good anyone eyeballing these comments.

Since the earliest mass medium, the printing press, mass audiences have not been monolithic masses of people, blindly falling into the arms of publishers. The big early radio audiences, the huge television audiences when there were only four networks...newspapers reach at their height...NONE were monolithic masses.

The mass audience has always been a coalition of groups. Moms love Lucy; Dads love Ricky. One group loves Charlie McCarthy; another loves Mortimer Snerd. (For you younger readers, Snerd's an anchorman on the Fox News Network.) Kids and teens read the comics, but different ones. Guys love sports and readers of all demos want more local everything. Ads are amongst the top content elements of all readers.

Convergence is a way - a very powerful tool - for keeping a coalition of readers, viewers and users that is big enough, even in this incredibly splintered time, to be considered a mass audience.

And, whether ready or not, IT'S HERE; it ain't gonna stop, so let's embrace and make the most of it.

If there's any doubt, consider...

...The advent of WebTV, TiVO, ebooks, digital ink, MP3, WAP phones, direct emarketing, in-store billboards, hundreds of content sites downloaded directly to a PDA - traditional media?

...More than 40 million households have both a television and PC located in the same room. Snicker at CueCats if you want, but it's certainly a step towards user friendliness, even if not quite there. An untethered version gets released this month and it comes from the Cross Pen Company!

...Almost 70% of 12-17 year old consumers listen to music while online. Of that number, 25% are watching TV.

...Belden is conducting research using Palm Pilots (or other PDA's) and web-enabled phones and gathering data on web users via nth visitors on specific pages within a newspaper's web site. Data can be aggregated in real time!

If anyone thinks the division between traditional media aren't somewhat fuzzy, look again; it's time for lasiks.

As books, newspapers, broadcast signals and any form of traditional media you can think of become digital and bandwidth expands, the distinctions will blur...they will converge...tomorrow's refrigerator might even be an information source.

All this CAN be good!! As long as we take steps to understand how media is being consumed and who (in every sense of the word) is doing the consuming, we can make sure we're channeling the proper content to all viewers/readers/customers. Good for us!

Mr. Paranoia himself, Andy Grove, said it best..."Whatever can be done, will be done. If not by incumbents, it will be done by emerging players. If not in a regulated industry, it will done in a new industry born without regulation. Technological change and its effects are inevitable. Stopping them is not an option."