Tearing Down the Digital Home
Have you heard about the Digital Home? Do you own one yet?Probably not.
I used to have a foot in the Digital Home industry. It's an interesting world -- lots of high-end technology mixed with overwhelming promises of productivity and entertainment. But it's also a frustrating world. Never before have I seen so much vaporware and so many ill-formed concepts of how people really use technology.
A recent article from The Economist does an excellent job synthesizing the factions, issues and caveats related to the Digital Home. The heart of the piece discusses the disconnect between consumers and companies -- namely, companies are pushing consumers to adopt the Digital Home so fertile new revenue streams will magically appear. But companies aren't considering why consumers would want all this technology.
The article's opening paragraph deftly describes a typical Digital Home marketing presentation. See if this appeals to you:
"In the clip, a youngish man wakes up to a rock video that automatically starts playing on a screen next to his bed. He gets up to have breakfast and the rock video follows him to a screen in the kitchen. He moves into the living room and up pops the rock video on yet another screen. When he leaves his flat and gets into his car, the video starts playing on a screen in the steering wheel."Beyond raising the obvious question of "should this guy be watching videos in his car?," this scenario illustrates all that is wrong with the Digital Home sales pitch. Why would anyone want this? What's the selling point? Bouncing video from room to room sounds interesting in a sci-fi way, but how often would you actually use such a feature?
I've seen my share of these presentations. They're all slickly produced and immersive. They all paint a stunning picture of the future where every need and desire is handled by some sort of gizmo or technology. It's the "Jetsons" as sold by The Sharper Image, and dammit, it's glorious.
But then the lights come up and the presentation ends ... and that's when the mystique evaporates. It's this precise moment -- the moment of practical realization -- that companies need to confront. They need to show people the true applications of technology, not some Hollywoodized utopia of flying cars and "seamless" video transference. The Digital Home isn't a bad idea by any stretch, but the lingua franca needs to change if it's going to catch on the way companies hope. -- Mac Slocum
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