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What Convergence used to mean.
Over the last 10 years, convergence has played a pivotal role in new technologies. As displayed in the picture below, various single use media devices have transformed into multi-use convergent items.
The Transformations
Cellular phones that were once used just for making and recieving phone calls converged to an internet enabled phone to a phone with a camera, wifi, and television access.
Pagers that were once used to simply recieve a number from someone trying to get ahold of you converged to a two-pager with keyboard to an internet enabled e-mail device much like a current device called "Blackberry."
Personal computers grew smaller as they converged to pocket pc's and ulitimatley into handheld phones.
Personal Digital Assistants converged to wireless PDA's and eventually offered the same services that all of the other convergent devices offer, "internet capability."
If you notice the devices in the covergent circle, there is a trend. They integrate the essential capabilities of all categories. Although each can trace their origins back to one of the original categories, their ancestry is less obvious, and their form factors and personalities are more similar than not.
TV converging with the Internet
In the year 2000, it was reported that 25 million people logged on to the Internet regularly while watching television -- up from 18 million in 1999. One major reason for this was that networks were linking their on-air programming with its website content and their web sites were serving as adjuncts to provide supplementary information for the programming. In the early 2000's, the internet and television were not enemies. In fact, internet use and television viewing were becoming very compatible with each other.
Below is an example of a the kind of web banner that networks used to help promote their shows while current or potential viewers were surfing the internet.
With advertising on the internet growing at an alarming rate, TV was able to use the internet as another advertising vehicle. Both TV and the internet were converging in that, TV could advertise its shows on the internet and drive more people to its website by advertising the website on its shows.
Peer to peer (P2P) programs exploded in the late 90's and the most notable one was the infamous Napster.com. Napster was a file sharing service that focused solely on music (MP3's). It paved the way for current file-sharing programs such as Kazaa, Limewire, imesh, and BearShare, which are now used for the same reasons and can download music, pictures, and other files. Napster was an example of the internet converging with the music industry. Instead of having to carry around a CD player to listen to your favorite CD, you could download the entire CD for free from Napster and listen to it while being on your computer.
In the late 90's, broadcast.com was created. This Web site allowed Web users to access their favorite radio stations online. While at work or at school, radio was always accesible and so were the advertisers! This was an example of the internet converging with radio.
