The revolution to come

These last few years, we have been living through the mobile revolution. If
you thought that that was exciting, then you have seen nothing yet. Get ready to
experience the TV revolution. And I am not talking of screen sizes or types. I
am talking of the very way TV as a medium of entertainment works.

Today's TV is a one-way medium, with almost no interactivity options. Sure,
channels these days do allow you to vote by SMS, or even display SMS messages on
a scroll line.  But that has got
nothing to do with the TV itself.

HDTV, with its digital broadcast and 16x9 aspect ratio, is already a rage in
the digitally developed nations. Now add IPTV, and your TV practically becomes a
computer-like device on a network, the Internet. With IPTV, your TV broadcast
will come over a broadband connection, and that will completely change TV as we
know it, bringing in at the very least interactivity, on demand programming. 

Moving one more step ahead would be mobile TV, or rather mobile IPTV. Think
of a device like the PS3 that would be your TV screen, and let's say a game
show is on. Sitting at your home or during a bus ride to work, you could be part
of the game show, using nothing more than the buttons provided on your mobile TV
set.

Now, it doesn't take too much more to integrate a camera and a cellphone/PDA
to such a device. And voila! You are holding the ultimate convergence gadget in
your hand! And the video camera could well make the mobile TV two-way
interactive.

Think of thousands of viewers of a TV program also being live participants
over video, audio and messaging... The potential and possibilities are just
mind-boggling!

While it's still a bit early to talk about this, we are not all that far
away either.

No wonder then that all major mobile players are furiously jockeying for a
position in this space, as are the IT and media guys.

And you and me can get ready for an exciting ride!