Screen Size Democracy

Nick talking about his iPad again. Awesome.

I’ve been watching old episodes of Arrested Development and The Office in ‘passive mode’ on my iPad for a while. They play like music in the background. I’ll glance over while making dinner or brushing my teeth. Why not, right? The iPad makes me want to have content playing at all times. Examining this experience, and the other options available through this device, is important in understanding how it’s going to work in 5-10 years.

The next Story Telling Revolution.

Having exhausted my tolerance of comedy I’d seen ten times before, I put on this lecture by Amy Jo Kim about social game design.

(It’s long but worth it)

The lessons learned from the above video I will save. Instead, I want to examine my habit. I took my netbook out and started writing down thoughts and questions. This was an active experience. But the active element was not contained within the iPad environment. That option isn’t available. Yet. The lecture wasn’t scripted or story driven but the habit of ‘doing’ while watching seemed natural.

Since it was a lazy Sunday, I next fired up the DailyMotion app to watch Compulsions. I had a pre-release DVD of this and watched it months ago, but I watched it on my computer. At work. On my second monitor. While I emailed. And Tweeted. And caught up on RSS feeds. And cycled between 5 different browsers with 10 tabs in each. A multitasked nightmare.  I have tons going on every computing second. It’s not an optimal way to consume content; to get lost in a story. It’s a passive experience. Computing habits are deeply engrained, however, and hard to break.

Luckily, a new habit is being formed now.

The iPad habit. First, you aren’t multi-tasked to death (The iPad despertly needs the 4.0 update to support multitasking, but even with that, you’ll be focused on one thing at a time. My iPad is jailbroken so I’ve already got multitasking). Second, all content is treated the same. Screen size democracy. The 9-inch screen feels bigger than it is. I’ve watched a ton of TV shows and features, so Compulsions was no different than LOST. You lose that stigma of ‘It’s on your computer so it’s bad’. Third, it’s a ‘lean in’ experience. The iPhone OS has been CREATED to lean in. No one has yet capitalized on viewing filmed entertainment in a ‘lean in’ environment. That will be here soon.

On a tablet you want to TOUCH. It feels right. That’s where our new form of entertainment is going to shine. You won’t have a million things going on, but since the habit of doing while watching has been established, some sort of interaction will be natural. I was ready to touch and play with Compulsions. The option just doesn’t exist.

On your 52in web connected tv, you’re gong to want to sit back and watch. That will be your tradiational content experience, indistinguishable from what’s on TV today (Except there will be more options with lower budget and niched targeted shows replacing what we today call Web Series). The hybrid experience will be consuming content on the big screen while you interact via the tablet. This will be great for tentpole events.

With a million iPads sold and people downloading (and paying for) Apps at a breakneck speed, the new market is creating itself. The options are emerging. Now we just need the platform and story. Two parallel paths that need to be developed in tandem. You’ll be seeing that from me very soon.