These little villages comprise independent populations with their own self-interests and a desire to merge for the advantages that size can bring. They have two choices. They can either come together to form a great society or each try to conquer the others. A utopian scenario might be that content, production and distribution sit down together in a room, share information and war stories, create order out of chaos and present a unified message to the world. These were the ideals of conference chair Mark Miller, himself one of the most prolific commentators on the state of the art of interactive television, when he first conceived of iMIX v1.0 over a year and half ago.
All interests are highly on the line.
According to research firm Jupiter Media Metrix, iTV penetration in the United States will rise from 8 percent today to 43 percent of U.S. households by 2005. Nevertheless, consumers' fears of incompatibility, obsolescence and unnecessary complexity can easily derail a technological tour de force. An unclear money-making proposition can distract investors in favor of vast numbers of others vying for the same subsidies. From a content or iMIX perspective, reevaluating the business for the coming year is what this Spring's conference was about. Interests diverging, now, at deeper levels undermining advancement.