#sime12

[annikalidne-blog]

Eat your heart out #sime12! #gm2012 can find diverse panels > @darjaisaksson @livingarchitect @Bardissimo @lindefors

[durietz]

TVs transition into the future

An introduction to Magine from Magine on Vimeo.

Magine has been touted heavily here at SIME12 to much appraisal. I don't believe that Magine is the future of TV. I do believe however, that it is a very important enabler and catalyzer of the transition to the uninevitable future of TV.

There is already a slew of streaming services available today, but none of them have actually done any innovation in the field of "how to consume" content. Magine is the first one to crack the concept that will transition the world from the old to the new. It's really a very banal concept if you think of it. It's just perfectly regular TV where all passed shows are recorded for you to watch anytime. Of course, the technology required to realize the concept is a great feat, but the outcome seems perfectly obvious. And that's the beauty of it. For the mass market it's really hard to just rethink the way you watch TV. You're so used to just switching on the TV to see what's on. Regular streaming services have a very high cognitive load to get started where you have to think of what to watch, which means that for the most common use case you're already on the lookout to watch a specific show, which isn't all that often. Magine combines old TV programming with streaming perfectly. Regular TV watchers will have a super easy time to transition. Just switch on the TV and it's exactly as before. Install it at my parents' house and they need not bother about the difference. But maybe they're curious, and I tell them that the program they just switched on which has been on for 10 minutes, they can, with the press of a button, watch it from the beginning instead. They will slowly and at their own pace start learning that TV isn't a linear experience anymore. I tell them they can search for any program they like and watch it, they'll soon learn that too. Before you know it, they'll let go of the old concept of TV completely. When that has happened, for the masses, then I think the Magine way of doing TV will have obsoleted itself, and I suspect that Magine will transform itself to adapt to the new world order. And I suspect, that thanks to them, that isn't all that far into the future.