Friday, February 17, 2012 -- A few days ago CEA put out a release that said it's developing a working group to bring together "content creators, aggregators and app developers." The stated purpose was a little vague, but that's not the important part.
If you think about app development, it's following the common course of social media: get people first, then figure out what to do with them. OS producers have catered to developers to simply produce, produce, produce to build acceptable, marketable numbers of applications for their devices. Apps have also become revenue generators of their own (my 7-year-old constantly bugs me about buying clothes for her avatar in a game on her iPod.) Now, CEA is taking the lead to provide some direction to the process.
Why do we need this? Think of where you see apps now. They have moved from portable devices to live in TVs, DVD players and set-top boxes. You can download them for your computer browser as well. Apps have become the de facto standard for distributing capability in a device: they are small, easily upgradeable, and the learning curve for consumers is nil because of their experiences with existing devices.
Simply put, this means that we can expect to see more apps in more places. How about an app that loads onto your washing machine to provide a customized wash cycle for a specific clothing brand's jeans, or a Tide app that optimizes stain fighting? Or, to bring examples into our world, an app that optimizes the listening environment of a vehicle by inputting the car type, speaker sizes, brands and power parameters?
This is all doable today, but the reason many of these more imaginative uses haven't taken off is because there has been no collaborative effort to bring content creators and manufacturers together. I'm all about the future, and CEA's working group formation is the first step in creating a mechanism that fast-tracks ideas and resources to make this expansion a reality.
That said, CEA needs to be careful not to be seen as the entity that is trying to somehow regulate app development. With the recent and successful pushback of SOPA and PIPA, the online community is wary of anything seen as regulating, limiting or otherwise trying to bring order to the wave of creation. This is as much a game of perception as it is a step of innovation.
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CEA Launches Working Group to Unite Content and CE
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) announced the formation of the Device, Apps and Content working group (DAC). The working group will create a forum for collaboration among device manufacturers, content creators, aggregators and app developers to increase and enhance consumer availability of content and apps on CE devices.
The convergence of content, apps and technology is driving the evolving consumer electronics industry as evidenced by the 2012 International CES, where a large number of the more than 20,000 new product introductions were designed to unite CE and content.
"As the nation's largest technology trade association, CEA is the hub of innovation, and our new Device, Apps and Content working group will foster new business opportunities for manufacturers and content companies," said Jason Oxman, senior vice president, industry affairs, CEA. "Our aim is to transform content convergence so that consumers have better access to what they want directly from their electronic devices."
Chaired by Bryan Burns, vice president of strategic business planning, ESPN, the working group will be geared toward existing and prospective CEA members with an interest in content distribution and app development.
