Monday, December 1, 2008

Mobile DTV

This article from Broadcasting and Cable discusses how the technical hurdles have been cleared to allow digital television to be broadcast to mobile devices.  This allows manufacturers to start building the hardware that will put television in everyone's pocket.  This is a significant development for the media industry.

It marks another major milestone in giving consumers the content they want when and where they want it.  Obviously, when used in conjunction with other mobile technologies, the commercial possibilities are huge.  From a business standpoint, the end game here is to make consumers' buying behavior into a virtually seamless experience with their media usage.  See it, want it, get it -- anytime, anywhere.

I'm not saying that we want to encourage people to buy things they don't need or can't afford (I think there is too much of that going on already).  However, access to information about products and services should be linked (both in time and proximity) to the ability to actually obtain those products and services.  I think that is becoming a quality of life issue for this century.  Clearly, technology is the key to achieving that goal.