Saturday, July 10, 2004
eHomeUpgrade: "The Future of Converged Home Entertainment"
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 03:03 PM
"The problem with all this new technology is that us geeks don’t account for the rest of the population. So, what we think is cool and something that should catch on, might not be what the rest of the population wants. Example, I’m wiring my new home so I can control it from anywhere in the world… why? Because, I can and wall switches are old technology..."
This article refers to a stat saying that 72% of the US-based adults surveyed were interested in a product that would connect their home entertainment system to the Internet. That's a high percentage, but this article goes on to explain some of the issues holding back, the strongest of which is the fear that the consumer would have to replace their equipment to get it to work with the new system. That's a very valid fear, and this drives home something I've been thinking for about a year: the advantages just aren't great enough yet for broad consumer adoption. We're getting there, but it's still too hard and too "geeky" to do all this.
This article refers to a stat saying that 72% of the US-based adults surveyed were interested in a product that would connect their home entertainment system to the Internet. That's a high percentage, but this article goes on to explain some of the issues holding back, the strongest of which is the fear that the consumer would have to replace their equipment to get it to work with the new system. That's a very valid fear, and this drives home something I've been thinking for about a year: the advantages just aren't great enough yet for broad consumer adoption. We're getting there, but it's still too hard and too "geeky" to do all this.
