"Welcome to convergence culture, where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways."
Recently, I gave away my ipod. I had no use for it. October 23, 2001 saw apple announce the revolutionary Ipod. And now ten years down the track this 'revolutionary' technology is almost dead. This shows us two things; the first the speed of technology advancement and the second the increase in convergence of technologies. Just because I have no need for my Ipod does not mean that I am any less of a music lover it simply means my Iphone does the trick for me. Ipods and many other technological platforms become burdens. New convergent technologies are multiple technologies into one. they prove to be more convenient and are less expensive as you are buying one device instead of a multitude, therefore more appealing to the consumer.
Old to new media... 20 years ago my parents shopped around for the best deal on a stereo system that still had a turn table, which even then was hard to find. My parents whom were in their prime in the 70s feel very partial to there records and still on the rare occasion the good old Pink Floyd and Midnight Oil records come out. Anyway what I am getting at is last year this good old turntable died just as all old technology does and the only place my father could buy such a thing for a decent price was off the internet - but with this turntable came a USB port so that the records could be converted to MP3s and added to our itunes library (however not taking into consideration the how scratched these records are) as ted said in his DIGC202 lecture that old technology dies or mutates ... in the case of my dads new turn table it is simply a mutation of the original device.
Looking around at everyday life I see so many technologies converged and I wonder how many technologies will be converged in 10 years time....
Interesting post Lydia. I also question where media convergence will take us in the future, particularly when we consider just how quickly technology is becoming obsolete these days. I recently came across an advert for a microwave with a television in it! I find this so unnecessary and it makes me wonder, even though technology is making aspects of our lives more convenient, is it also making us too lazy? Do we actually need to develop microwaves with tv's, or toilet roles with ipod docks? I can think of a million other better things that resources could be allocated to.
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