The WSJ is reporting (paid subscription required) on the emerging battle for control over family room technologies – the technologies that will integrate media distribution and recording / listening / viewing in the family room and elsewhere in the house. One of many stories on this that have appeared lately, as the battle heats up.
This one is going to be messy – with so many different technologies, analog and digital technologies coexisting, manufacturers each trying to get their visions entrenched as standards, consumers are going to be deeply confused for a very long time and the marketers will have a nice frolic with their exclamation marks and invented specifications (now, with 18 megapixels and 500X digital zoom!!!!!!!!). Which will for the foreseeable future help to keep this an early adopter nirvana, as it has been for a while.
As I’ve said before, consumers are going to need help – lots and lots of help. We are going from a world where the VCR / TV connection baffled half the population to a world where the consumer will need to consider and then integrate technologies relating to the pipe, the inside distribution network, the control technologies, the recording technologies, DRM, the viewing technology, etc. All of it having to work together. This is a rich harvest for home tech consulting.
So, as far as the average consumer is concerned, abandon hope all ye who enter here, and know ye well, as that salesperson walks towards you with a smile on his face, that your soul has been truly lost.