October 6th, 2009

Screens Everywhere! The Coming Microprojector Revolution

I am betting aggressively on the coming ubiquity of portable projection devices.

Not just because they’re cool. But because, as our lives become more digital, content will need to get out from the confines of a screen.

First, some background:

I took this class last semester at the MIT Media Lab called “Social TV”. Perhaps it was all those hours I spent as a teenager watching endless hours of television, but the class had a profound effect on the way I think about TV and media in general. I learned the term “three screens” – for television, computer and mobile – and spent a lot of time thinking about how the three-screen experience has changed the way we consume media.

The big question now is how to integrate those three screens in a way that is intuitive and seamless. No easy task. There have been a few attempts, but it seems to me that the timelines won’t align: by the time someone is aggressive enough to do deals with the telcos, MSOs AND the content providers, the technology itself will be so different that it might not matter. Technology moves fast; large “cruise ship” companies like Comcast move slow.

The fundamental problem with three-screen integration attempts is that the television model is, for the most part, still very bankable. People still watch a crapload of television and pay their service providers handsomely, on a monthly basis. So the MSOs have little motivation to indulge new models, and the content providers (especially powerful ones like ESPN, MTV, CNN, etc.) are scared to rock the boat, especially when it’s related to the companies that are writing them enormous checks every month.

As a result, recently I have moved away from thinking about integration. In some ways, I believe that the three screen model isn’t sustainable – maybe the screens are not meant to work in tandem, and instead are in a sort of battle for dominance. Problem is though, all three have very compelling pluses: TV has massive market penetration and usage, computers have the greatest capabilities, and mobile phones are with you 24/7.

Of these three, I think mobile phones will eventually win the battle. Look at laptops – they keep getting smaller and more portable, while mobile phones get smarter and more powerful. A phone most definitely can replace a computer, but a computer will never become a phone. Form factor is a big issue here as well. Perhaps that’s why there is so much excitement about the Apple Tablet – I now think of laptops as huge versions of the clamshell cell-phones of the mid 1990s. They’re bulky and not particularly intuitive, but the use of a laptop has become so ritualized at this point that I don’t think people notice any more.

If you buy the hypothesis that phones will eventually replace computers, which I do, then the real stumbling block is the display. It’s just too small for sharing.

This is the crux of my bet on mobile projection devices. The usages are endless, the technology is there and is awesome, and the battle that I believe mobile phones will eventually win is in full force. Perhaps this is the market opportunity I should pursue – I saw this video of Marc Andreessen on Business Insider talking about how to define the future, and he said you can see what’s coming in the near-term by hanging out at university labs. I am starting to see these devices everywhere. Perhaps this is worth examining further…