How many times a new invention has had such a profound impact on existing technology that it is donned as nothing less than a game changer? In 1454 it was the printing press which ushered in a new era of modernity, disrupting the slow and expensive parchments used at the time. Today the very same printed word is at the brink of extinction! Overstated you might think?
Let’s go back five years to a time when convergence was the big buzz word. It was believed that the internet was going to impact two very large industries – telecoms and media. Today it seems that the internet is bigger than both. In fact it is actually hard to tell them apart. Let’s take the example of Google. What started as a simple internet search engine has certainly come a long way. With Google Voice, Android and Nexus it is clearly in the telecom domain. With all their investments in content, their ownership of YouTube – the biggest online video sharing site that now gets 24 hours of video uploads every minute, and with news of Google TV on the horizon, they are also big in the media domain. And of course, everything else about Google is deeply entrenched in the internet space, from their successful internet advertising model to their experimental venture as an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Google is clearly a great example of a company that has converged all three industries into one.
How does all this relate to the iPad? In some profound way the power of the iPad is in its innate ability to converge print media, video content and the interactivity of the web into a single platform, thereby changing all three of them forever! Imagine a new way of experiencing the printed word, integrated with video and web-like features! Five years from now how would you tell each of them apart? Disruptive isn’t it!
Further proof is as below!
Wired Magazine’s Official iPad Demo:
Sports Illustrated iPad Concept Video
VIV Mag Interactive Feature Spread – iPad Demo