Chapter 3
1. Corporate Convergence
When two or more companies with different media specialties merge, they are undergoing
convergence on a corporate level. These mergers are not necessarily successful, as the disastrous
merger of AOL and Time Warner exemplified.
When the merger was announced in January 2000, it seemed like a fairy-tale wedding of Internet
technology and Hollywood entertainment. AOL, with twenty million subscribers, appeared to be
the ideal twenty-first century vehicle to promote and distribute Time Warner’s vast library of
movies, music, publications, and other products. But like many glamorous weddings, it was a
pricey affair. AOL, the brash newcomer, was the purchaser, and acquired the media
conglomerate for $163 billion worth of its stock.
The marriage went sour in less than two years. By July 2002, the newlyweds’ stock had
plummeted 78% from its post-merger high, and Roger Pittman, the Time Warner executive who
had orchestrated the merger and who had been its most enthused champion, resigned under
pressure. Pittman had been serving as the Co-Chief Operating Officer of the newly formed
company.
With Pittman ousted, AOL Time Warner reorganized. The original post-merger goal had been to
integrate the two entities with the expectation that this would maximize their potential. But after
Pittman’s exit, AOL Time Warner pulled back from this strategy and returned a great deal of
autonomy to the various old departments within the original companies. It was much like a
solution reached by an unhappy couple who cannot afford to divorce, but who agree to live in
separate wings of the house.
In the Los Angeles Times coverage of the AOL Time Warner shake-up (July 19, 2002), staff
writers Edmund Sanders and Jan Healey commented that the ambitious merger might have failed
because it was too sweeping. “In the rush to maximize synergies,” they wrote, “AOL Time
Warner may have made a classic mistake: losing sight of what customers really want.” The
article also included a remark by Frank Catalon, head of an Internet marketing firm.
“Convergence is a slow process,” they quoted him as saying. “It shouldn’t be a top-down effort.
You start by taking small steps.”
Interestingly, the failure of this merger to thrive was blamed on the same factors that were cited
in the disappointing outcome of the first iTV ventures: that they offered services that customers
did not want or were not ready for.
2. Convergence in a Fridge
The “smart fridge” admittedly sounds like an idea culled from a science fiction novel but it was a
real product, manufactured by LG Electronics. Officially dubbed the “Internet Refrigerator,” this
futuristic household appliance was designed to do quite a bit more than chill one’s food. It was
also a full service entertainment center, incorporating a TV, a radio, and a built-in digital camera.
Furthermore, as its name suggests, it connected to the Internet, and, through its four hi-fi
speakers, it could play music that it has downloaded from the Web.
On the pragmatic side, it listed all the foods stored within, and could alert the owners to when
certain products were running low or are going bad. It could also serve as a message center and
date book for the entire family. As if all this were not enough, the titanium surface is smudge
proof—something that could be its most winning feature in a household of sticky-fingered kids.
This refrigerator was priced at $8500 in 2003, but it did not prove to be a hit with consumers.
Less ambitious versions of smart refrigerators have come on the market since then and are still
available. Whether or not such refrigerators do well commercially, however, experts in consumer
electronics foresee an increasing number of smart appliances coming on the market, and some
will certainly incorporate entertainment features. Products such as the smart fridge are part of a
development trend termed “the Internet of things.”
3. Convergence of Movies and Toys
In Chapter 20, we take a look at smart toys and how some toys have been adapted from popular
movies, which is another form of convergence. For example, Playmate Toys adapted the Belle
character from Disney’s movie, Beauty and the Beast, and turned her into an interactive doll, part
of their My Interactive Princess line. The challenge here was to find a way to have the doll come
to life and tell you about her romance with the Beast, but to do so without it being a passive
experience, with the doll telling the story and the child just sitting there listening. The solution
that Playmate Toys came up with was to give the child an opportunity to participate in Belle’s
story via an array of props and “costume changes.”
For example, when you remove Belle’s workaday pinafore and dress her up in her magnificent
yellow ball gown, she will tell you the part of the story in which she and the Beast spin happily
around the dance floor. And by changing the pictures in her magic mirror and putting the mirror
in her hand, you can help make Belle’s dreams of love come true, and learn how the Beast is
transformed into a handsome prince. Some of the props, when placed in Belle’s hand, even speak
in their character voices from the movie. Among them are Mrs. Potts, the chatty, motherly
teapot, and Lumiere, the candelabra, who speaks with a French accent.
4. Convergence in Movies and Games
Games and movies have been influencing each other for many years now. An early example of
this is the British film Sliding Doors, about a young woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) whose life takes
two separate paths when in one instance she rushes to catch a subway train and makes it, and in
the other instance she just misses the train. From the subway incident on, the movie uses a
branching plotline that is a very game-like type of structure. It also depicts two parallel universes
that exist simultaneously in time, another game-like convention.
In the movie, we get to see Gwyneth Paltrow go down two different story paths, transferring
back and forth from one to the other at various game-like “nodes” along the way. However, she
does not consciously choose which path to follow the way a player would in a game. Also, in the
movie, we get to see how each storyline is resolved, an opportunity we would not have in a
game, unless we played it more than once. In a game, of course, the ultimate outcome would be
based on the choices we made at each node or decision point. Nevertheless, for a linear piece of
work, Sliding Doors does a remarkable job at reflecting a game-like experience.
As another example of the influence of games on movies, take the sci-fi film trilogy, The Matrix.
Like Sliding Doors, they also present a structure with two parallel universes, but in these movies
the characters can jump between worlds in a much more deliberate and conscious fashion than in
Sliding Doors. The choreography of its dazzling fight scenes looks remarkably like what one
might find in a video game, as does its dark, threatening ambience. These aspects of the movies
were successfully transferred to the Matrix video game, Enter the Matrix.
5. Convergent Television Entertainment
Why must convergent television applications stop at iTV and video on demand? Why can’t we
have other forms of convergent television entertainment? The ever adventurous BBC is broke
fresh new ground here by developing an entirely new kind of TV experience called FightBox,
first aired in the fall of 2003. FightBox was a TV show that also utilized the Web, game
technology, and virtual characters, and was also offered as a stand-alone multiplayer video game.
FightBox is a gladiator-style competition featuring virtual characters that have been digitally
created by members of the general public. These synthetic warriors battle ferociously with each
other and are also pitted against a cast of digital “in-house” characters called FightBox
Sentients—monster like beings with awesome powers. The programs are shot live in front of a
studio audience, and the human “masters” of the warriors are visible on the set as they control
their fighters in the arena. The technology developed for FightBox allows virtual warriors and
the show’s human hosts to stand and sit side-by-side and even to chat. Members of the TV
audience might even find themselves in the action, with one of the virtual warriors hurled from
the arena right into their laps.
FightBox, in the spirit of the Web, offered ample opportunities for players to interact with each
other online. For example, they could trade with each other for new or used body parts for their
warriors, or form online “tribes” to pool information and resources. And, as with almost any
other website, they could participate in online forums. Soon after the FightKit tool became
available, in May 2003, multiple forums on the website were already fat with thousands of posts,
and some forums were even spawning their own Web pages.