Year-end updates Part 2

Tuesday, 03 January 2012 03:53

Written by Resti Reyes. Jr.

First, that all indicators are validating earlier predictions with regard to the steady rise of digital media and the digitalization of traditional media. One of the lesser talked about recent developments is the direction to migrate television broadcasting to the digital platform as opposed to the current analog standard. This is already official. The NTC has already issued the guidelines for this mandated transition for all television broadcasting licensees in the country. Although the last time we checked, there is still debate about which model to follow – the European or the Japanese model. It’s something like the old Betamax versus VHS debate.

Whatever the final decision, this can only hasten further the convergence of all traditional media into digital media. It will eventually be more desirable to watch TV online versus traditional broadcasts, if only because viewers can have almost total control of what they will watch, when they want to watch it, where, and how. The advent of 4G – also known as LTE – will further boost the migration process further along. Early adopters are already enjoying access speeds approaching 100Mbps. Like all new technology, it is still very expensive for now, hence the limited availability in premium neighborhoods only.

Second, that mobile devices – smartphones and media tablets – are the fastest route to the digital age, and also the fastest growing segment of all electronic devices, and that they are the main driving force pushing for popular migration to online equivalents of all traditional media channels. The ongoing media tablet wars has only just begun. Consumers can still expect many more innovations in this sector in the months to come. Updates in this arena: Samsung has surpassed the Apple iPhone as the best-selling smartphone in the world, and the Kindle Fire from Amazon is now the second best-selling media tablet, rapidly catching up with the iPad and besting earlier challengers to the iPad such as the 7-inch Galaxy Tab I from Samsung, the Blackberry Playbook, the HP Touchpad and the Xoom from Motorola. Also, just as larger versions are coming out to compete head-on with the iPad (such as the 10-inch Galaxy Tab II), smaller versions are also emerging – like the 5-inch model from Dell. But what everyone is holding their breath for is the anticipated launch of a media tablet from Google. It promises to be the real iPad-killer. Best advice before you buy a new media tablet is… wait for this one.

The combination of fast, affordable and easy internet access with inexpensive mobile internet devices opens up many new opportunities for marketing. The best examples would be Groupon – a digital and location-based couponing service, and Foursquare – a mobile app that provides social media with a real-time location-based dimension. And as these programs and apps are merging their services with Facebook, their utility is all the more enhanced and popularized, if only because practically every productive target demographic is already well represented in Facebook. And Facebook has become the ultimate and definitive icon for social media. It is so popular that the population of Facebook users is already approaching 800 million – already the third biggest nation on earth, behind China and India.

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