BANFF – What does 2011 hold for the technology, media and telecom sectors? Duncan Stewart, director of research, technology, media and telecommunications with Deloitte Canada, offered up four broad themes taken from the company’s annual TMT Trends report which this year will be released in over 60 countries.
1. There is no “only computing game in town” any more
Stewart says that this year, for the first time in history, more smart phones and tablets will be bought by consumers worldwide than traditional PCs.
“When you look at what most people actually use their computers for – email, web browsing, maybe a little video, maybe some gaming, spreadsheets, power point, word processing – that kind of stuff can actually be functionally done on a tablet and, to a limited, extent, on a smart phone. And consumers have figured this out.”
He says that unlike PCs, no one operating system will emerge for smart phones and tablets, rather three or four “significant” mobile operating systems will jockey for dominance, and that this fragmentation will exists for the next few years.
2. “The future of TV is TV”
According to Stewart, over-the-top (OTT) video services have yet to make a significant impact, largely because there are too many standards, many are too hard to use, and, “we are passive viewers and linear addicts” that prefer to watch television live.
He also predicts that all OTT services will account for less than 2% of all video watched this year.
TV continues to grow its share of the global ad market, unlike print or radio, Stewart continued, and it’s “super media” status continues to strengthen.
“Building an ad campaign without TV at the core is like buying a car that doesn’t have an engine”, he quipped.
3. “Peak Internet”
As various applications and devices continue to gobble up bandwidth, Stewart maintains that we are quickly running out of spectrum, a finite resource.
“When people are out there saying ‘we can do everything in the cloud’… just roll your eyes a little and think about the bandwidth that’s out there, the limitations of that bandwidth, and things like network congestion”, he said.
He predicts that wireless data growth alone in 2011 will be approximately 280%.
4. “This is your brain on social”
Social networks may be enabled by the Internet, but they are very different than the Internet, according to Stewart.
Consumers use the Internet to search, hunt, and acquire, but they use social networks to relax, share, and socialize. He also emphasized that social media is not a threat to television.
“We are seeing social media working in concert with TV, it’s the two screen experience”, he said. “People are sitting there with their tablet or smart phone in one hand and they are watching TV at the same time. We are seeing the re-linearization of television.”
Cartt.ca senior editor Lesley Hunter is in Banff this week covering the 2011 Banff World Media Festival.
