Session II
It’s triple-play time!

In India 2008, here's looking at the consumer. Is convergence evolutionary or revolutionary?

Some of the best minds in the game discussed, debated and gave vision to triple-play in an intense second session at the New Media Congress.

The media market is on the verge of massive changes. With the convergence of mobile, television and Internet, the triple-play business model has become a reality.

These previously separate technologies are now able to share resources and interact with each other creating new efficiencies. User generated content is explosive and that gives a fresh dimension to new media. Man-machine interfaces are changing. It's not just about content anymore but also about voice and media application.

Introduced by the chair, as the person who laid the foundation of the Internet industry in India, Chairman & CEO, Rediff.com, Ajit Balakrishnan began his address with stark drama. To try and read the future of new media, he drew lessons from the past. He went back to when picture was first moved for a few seconds, through the era of the first 45-minute film, the first episodic serial to now. The trend, he said, reflected consumer habits. In a new age, with, say IPTV, he saw it all begin again with shorter-duration content. The media industry architecture, said Balakrishnan, is undergoing a sea change.

In this changing architecture, the consumer experience remains key. The end consumer today is surrounded by clouds of experience and a behavioural change is taking place around social networking. Group Chief Information & Innovation Officer, Bharti Airtel, Jai Menon gave a clear illustration of how the worldwide web is evolving. The web is no longer just about pages but about advertisements, videos and social networking, providing value to all sectors.

The five scenarios to dominate the media scene in the near future:
» Technology will get denser.
» Service providers will aggregate and simplify voice, data, media and application
» New business models will be created and the media industry will participate in the opportunity space.

The end result of all the above - the customer will enjoy affordable services and more importantly the differences will vanish.

"Three innovations in the history of mankind are coming together - telephone, television, computer. The early part of 2000s will see a confluence of voice, media, data and application," said Menon.

Shedding light on the growing consumer demands in India, President, Reliance Entertainment, Rajesh Sawhney, took the audience through the varied consumption patterns. "Ten years back Indian consumers had no Internet. Today, we have 45 million Internet users. Cellphone companies once charged Rs 32 for receiving a call. There were no ringtones and caller tunes- add-ons that have provided a lifeline to music industries in today's age. We have lived through enormous changes and the change is only becoming faster."

"At the core of the digital revolution is the Indian consumer. We've got the best youth platform seeking anytime anywhere services. Instant is the keyword - be it instant coffee or instant cricket. The youth today are not lazy. They want to co-create if not participate."

Our competitor is constantly changing, stressed President, VAS & Enterprise Market Planning, Tata Teleservices Ltd, Pankaj Sethi: "Our partnerships are evolving and the mad space keeps us awake at night."

Speaking of the challenges in the face of the constantly evolving convergent space, Sethi, stressed on broader access points in the mobile space to cater to the growing demands. Sethi also emphasized on the need to adapt to the changing roles of our current partners and adversaries.

User experience is important and interactivity holds the key to successful communication. The idea is to give the consumer the power of choice.

The choices for users vary from reading a newspaper in print versus accessing the online version, watching a movie preview at the theatre versus linking to a movie trailer online, or watching a TV broadcast versus visiting the channel’s website in the interactive space.
Distributive Networks CEO Kevin Bertram brought a new perspective to the entire session on convergence through a recent illustration that depicted user experience grabbing the hard share of new media space.

"There was a special mobile campaign strategy launched for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. A major content of the mobile campaign was a vanity short code, which made it easily interactive with the voters. Besides, there were general text alerts giving updates on results or events in the campaign and party. However, the most important part of the mobile campaign was giving location specific words, which helped relate to the people of different area. To lure the voters further, content downloads and ringtones, specific to the Obama campaign, were available."

The campaign, quite clearly, witnessed the power of interactive text messaging, which enabled interaction with supporters in real time, target messages to specific locations, drive traffic to other channels and ultimately, get out the vote. "This campaign with the usage of the new technology may just give us a new US President in Obama," remarked Bertram.

Content is king and the idea is to give the consumer the power of choice. "There are many definitions to convergence and sky is the limit. It is about the converged lifestyle. The audience is changing and is driving change across the value chain," said Martha Bejar, Corporate Vice President, Communications Sector, Microsoft Corp.

The live wire session ended with an invigorating debate around questions posed by the audience. Here's a brief of the Q&A session that followed:

Q: Prof Sydney Ribiero: Must the techno-triumphanism be tempered with sensitivity and aesthetics?
A: Dr Jai Menon: Technology comes after experience. There is huge responsibility to cater to the basic needs of audience. It has to be human and experience driven, it can't just be technology driven. It has to be a confluence of computing and communication.

Q: Member of the audience: Is there an attempt by any media house in India to source or guide developers to make such software or program that can take our country forward?
A: Pankaj Sethi: It will happen and it should happen.
A: Rajesh Sawhney: Value is migrating vastly. The Indian companies and telecommunication companies need to adhere to that. If we leave it to the creativity of the people and allow them to drive the platform, they would also become business drivers.
A: Dr Jai Menon: Developers are very important. We are conscious that we will help the developer community.

Q: Girish from Chennai: Piracy has been causing a great amount of loss to the IT industry. Are there any steps being taken in India to check piracy.
A: Rajesh Sawhney: You can find the materials online as well as outside the Churchgate Station. It has to become affordable and easily reachable.
A: Martha Bejar: Companies, like ours, will be certainly combating the piracy stigma. There is a need to raise the level of technology on a constant basis.

With each passing day, we are getting closer to a reality where people will have ubiquitous access to broadband-based services for voice, video and data. Convergence, quite clearly, is a choice among strategies for building for the next century.