Author of machiavelli.net, proud father of three, interested in shaping network society. Welcome to my blog.Ubiquitous Projecting
CES has always been a harbinger of things to come. Think of the introduction of the VCR at CES in 1970, the Laserdisc-Player 1974, Pong in 1975, the CD-Player and the Camcorder in 1981, Atari and Nintendo in 1985, the DVD in 1996, HD-TV in 1998, and the PVR in 1999. The challenge is to spot those winner’s that make it big. To make it big in the consumer sphere, means to transform the lifeworld (the daily life) of a significant group of people, so that self-reinforcing mechanisms (word-of-mouth-marketing, repeat-buying, etc.) kick in and an ecosystem emerges around the product that enhances the value proposition (and earning capacity) of the product.
Will it be the prezenter from E-Detail, a notebook that allows people to interact around a display from two sides? QFHD, the quadrupeling of pixels over HD-TV? The newest HD-TV/Blue Ray player? New LCD-screen dinosaurs? – Probably not. None of them have the lifeworld-transforming potential or an emerging ecosystem. So what are the candidates of this year’s CES? – I would argue for one technology: 3M’s and Microvision’s personal projectors.
As soon as the problems of miniaturization, cost, and energy usage are under control, personal projectors will become as ubiquitous as camera-lenses (and it seems as if 3M has come pretty far). They will be built into every notebook, cellphone, pda, etc. The price will drop very fast due to the large volume and of being included as extra features in subsidized handsets. If one assumes that projectors will be in 80% of all handheld computing devices in 2010, then several billion projecting devices will be on the market.
The projectors themselves will most probably become a commodity, however, the ecosystem built around them is where the action will be. However, if one (or several players) are able to put together a product that can capture consumer mindspace, it might make all the difference.
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If we think back to the early MP3-Player market, it was not clear if the product would become part of the commodified PC-Industry or develop into a stand-alone ecosystem, as it did when Apple entered the market.
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If we think back to the early digital camera market, it was not clear if the old players of analog photography had a chance to survive in the market.
In the case of the MP3-Player market it was the combination of pretty standard hardware (the ipod) and an amazing interface (the reinvention of the wheel plus itunes) that made all the difference. In the photography segment it was their knowledge of lenses and the strength of the stories older analog companies had to tell that carved out a market that transformed the lifeworld of consumers and created billion-dollar-ecosystems. So some of the questions to ask, for anyone interested in projectors are: Can we put together a piece of hardware that looks so compelling that consumers will want to carry it as a standalone device? What would the integration of hardware and interface (touch and feel, software) for a projector look like? Who should do it? What firms will profit indirectly from ubiquitous projecting? – youtube? facebook? google? your utility? What will a projecting lifeworld look like? What will people do? How will it transform them?
