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2000.08.30
Beating some sense into "convergence" boosters: Previously, we aquablasted the "convergence" myth to mush, stating what everyone with a bone of honesty actually knows: TV and Internet really don't get along.
Now, we are willing to imagine improvements when digital, i.e., advanced., i.e., high-defintion, television finally becomes widespread. Such televisions will offer enough resolution to make the Web look half-decent on a TV screen, finally. And with those advanced televisions comes a fat pipe through which to stream data.
But – reality check! – pretty much everyone in the entire world is stuck with old analogue television monitors. That will remain true for years to come – even after networks play chicken with viewers and quit broadcasting in analogue. That ain't gonna go over well. (One thinks of the backlash against negative-option cable billing in Canada. You ain't seen nothin' yet.)
Ohh-kaaay. We're quite pleased with David Shook. Writing in BusinessWeek, Shook pours cold water on AOLTV, the Internet-for-rubes juggernaut's new set-top box.
Last time I checked, television was for "vegging" couch potatoes, a source of amusement and leisure designed for zoning out. [...] Now maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but it seems to me that most people don't want to bother with e-mail while watching a program they like. [...] "We've done surveys and research, and we've talked to our existing members," says [an AOL apologist]. "We've seen the spikes in chat rooms, before and after The X-Files, for example. So when you talk about instant messaging during a show, it just makes sense." He adds that existing subscribers will see it that way because it's a natural extension of a relied-on computer service. [...] It's still a little unclear how many people will want to check stocks during a TV show or feel the need to check the weather while watching a movie. Checking the weather isn't exactly difficult now. Ever heard of the Weather Channel?
The Internet is about bursts of attention. Channel-surfing aside, television is about sustained attention.
As far as messaging friends while watching a program, this is the most difficult concept for me to accept. If I want to chat about a basketball game, I'll pick up the phone and hoot and holler at a friend. I'll summarize my thoughts in a postgame e-mail to everyone I know who watched it. One thing I won't do is keep an eye on a small translucent instant messaging screen for missives from friends while glued to the NCAA finals. I can't have one eye on a close game and another on a message board. The only multitasking I'll be doing is with a beer and a pizza.
Here we beg to differ. It's sort of a generational issue. Anyone 25 or under who grew up with computers can handle multiple streams of information thrown their way at once (pace Douglas Rushkoff's Playing the Future, where he spots this capacity in videogamers). Old people can't. Old people can't even tolerate television captioning or film subtitling. A busy, multi-paned screen like CNBC's (at the moment of writing this, five panes, but we've seen way more than that), ROBTV's (six panes), or CP24's (10 panes; article) gives them a headache. Some people can't even handle station logos superimposed on programming.
We wonder, then, how successful AOLTV's other market will be – the market of Internet newbies without computers. We're guessing that these netters are more likely to be middle-aged. How much visual complexity and richness can this cohort handle?
But anyway, AOL claims its primary market for AOLTV is its existing army of AOL subscribers. But if I already have AOL on my computer, what possible reason do I have to spend $250 for the set-top box and $15 extra a month for the service? Even AOLers who hate being spammed with advertising – a notorious AOL hallmark – won't pay that much to give it up.
And if Microsoft can't make WebTV a big success, why should we believe AOL can?
If Microsoft and AOL can't do it, how will puny Canadian broadcasters do it?
Is television convergence a consensual hallucination? Even if we awaken in the shower to find it was only a dream, how do investors get their billions of dollars back?
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