When I least expected it, BAM! Something hit me over the head like the proverbial ton of bricks. I was sitting at a conference in January listening to a panel discussion on kids and their use of the Internet. As usual, Internet safety concerns came up time and time again. Amongst the largely PC panelists, one more outspoken gentleman was talking about what kids were really doing on the Internet, and the pains they take to hide these things from their parents, especially their mothers. While moms rule the household and largely set the rules and cultural agendas, dads will tell great stories about the things they got away with when THEY were kids, and most likely rebel against mom’s household rules themselves. And that’s when it hit me - I am totally un-cool.
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In this economic climate, where the industry is so desperate for a new hit category, it is tempting to look at the kind of functionality available via custom installers and wonder whether any of those tasks may trickle down into an easy, affordable product. For example, today multi-room audio has effectively been solved by Sonos and one can patch together multi-room video (at least as a point solution) with a Slingbox and SlingCatcher. None of these products have been a mass-market blockbuster, but they have certainly expanded the market beyond the custom install channel and given retailers something new to bring to the discussion.
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It is always great when you can find a Monty Python reference that has direct applicability to the technology world. As any Python fan knows this title refers to a rather ironic song performed during the movie “Life of Brian.” And the idea of looking through the darkness of your current situation to see the good side of today’s events is not a new concept. I have sometimes been accused of offering a decidedly glum outlook on the future of consumer technology. For the most part I am guilty as charged; however, I am always looking for those little tidbits that let me look on the bright side of life. One such tidbit is, counter intuitively, the success of the liquidation sale at Circuit City.
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More and more today’s netbook market reminds me of the movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” In that classic, Alec Guinness commanded a group of British POWs in Southeast Asia during WWII tasked to build a bridge for a Japanese railway. But in his zeal to build the bridge, Guinness’ character, Colonel Nicholson, lost sight of its true purpose and only saw it as means to an end, whereas it was really an end in and of itself. The netbook market is headed in this direction too. We are in process of taking a limited-use, purpose-built PC, designed to do just a few tasks and turning it into a viable alternative to what was delivered previously. The end result - a product that will soon be far better than it should or needs to be and will end up destroying the market it was supposed to build.
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Video Games | Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst Toys & Video Games | 
March 31, 2009 9:10 am | 
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