Your Business on Tomorrow's TV

What is the future of television and how does it affect your business? It all comes back to the iPhone.

A few months ago I saw an amazing new accessory for the iPhone; a diabetes tester that plugged into the 30 pin USB connector and an accompanying app to control it. That's the true genius of the iPhone. Is it a phone? A game machine? A web browser? A diabetes tester? It's all of these things, because it's just a screen. It's just a window into whatever app you have open. Apple told AT&T to let go of designing phones and focus on building infrastructure.

The television is just a screen, too, but it's hardly a window into a garden of apps. In fact, it has just one app: cable television viewing. That app is made by your local cable provider, whose core competency is in laying infrastructure, not designing user interfaces.

I think all of this changes later this year. Apple will introduce a new, affordable set top box that runs iOS and has an app store, just like the iPhone or iPad. You'll start your television and have access to apps like ABC
Player or Hulu, giving you free or very cheap access to ad-supported content. Others will come online quickly. Instead of surfing channels, you'll surf apps.

And because they are apps, they can do a lot more than stream video. Imagine watching a football game and seeing realtime stats simultaneously on your iPad. Or viewing a cooking show with real time onscreen recipe data.

Suddenly your television is a window into a garden of apps. You can download games, new slideshow apps, or make an app to promote your business on the front lobby flat screen. You can have your television do whatever you want it to do, because it's just a screen.

Last year Comcast purchases NBC. I think this was a brilliant move because Comcast knows its future is not in cable subscription revenue; it's in content creation and content.

Get ready to say goodbye to your cable TV subscription. Get ready for real innovation on your favorite gadget in the house. There's a whole new app opportunity coming to the television and it should be part of next year's marketing plan.

Comments