Converging media and interactivity

As the technology continues to be developed the way we view out favorite forms of media, whether it be television, music or games, is rapidly changing. With TiVo and other dvrs becoming more widespread some traditional marketers are starting to get a little scared. They fear that that given the options no one will watch ads placed in television.

While this may be true marketers should not see this new technology as the death to capturing their consumers. While viewers will continue to be more fragmented the effectiveness of ads may be a major potential. TiVo itself is offering solutions to the perceived problem they created by placing interactive tags in programs and telescoping ads to product showcases with the possibility of a new point of purchase directly from your television set when connected to broadband.

TiVo can also give a second by second analysis of how viewers interactions with the programed content. Advertisers can know if their ads are being skipped and what the best way to assure that they wont be next time will be.

Traditionally interactive television has been slow to start because of the fragmented technology's that do not cooperate well together. That is until recently many industry leaders are working together to build cross platform interactivity under the project name canoe.

This is a growing trend that will inevitably lead to an exponential convergence of our media so that at any time we will be able to choose the media we want and marketers will be able to serve us the ads that pertain best to what we are interested in.