Converging is Merging..

I think the future of convergence is going have us merging more things together.  Technology has become more portable and more interactive and reactive to us.  It has also caused technologies to merge together.  Back then, cellphones were only able to call people and play the infamous snake game, but today things are much different.  We can text, email, browse the web and interact with people all over the world from our handheld cell phone.  We can go online and browse the web from our gaming systems.  

With all these new advances around us, it leads to changes around us.  Marketing, branding, ad placement have all been changed in our new technological atmosphere.  I think cellphones are the key to reaching the most amount of people.  Getting your content accessible from a cellular module is key to survival for a company. Back then, companies promoted on billboards, newspapers, and television.  Cellphones have lowered the viewership of these commodities for a multitude of reasons.

If you're walking down the street, chances are you're looking down at your cellphone like most people do.

You can miss that billboard ad because of it.  That company never gets your business and in turn loses money.  People don't have to buy newspapers to receive news anymore.  There are so many news sites on the web with up to date information, that newspapers are like dinosaurs in the media landscape.  You can now watch television shows, sports, movies and more from your mobile device.  It wasn't like this years prior.  With you watching television on your phone, this takes away viewership of live television ads.

U2 noticed the power of a cellphone and tried to cash in on it, but failed miserably.

Remember how in early September of this year, U2's new album "Songs Of Innocence" appeared in everyone's iTunes library randomly?  I remember Facebook and Twitter being in an uproar about this.  They didn't listen to U2 and they surely didn't want their music in their library.  U2 noticed that to reach the most amount of fans is to get into their mobile device.  Unfortunately for them, U2 isn't as popular as it used to be.  

Media must converge to be competitive in 2014.  For instance, I read Sports Illustrated.  It's a weekly magazine about sports.  When you subscribe to the magazine, you also get a jacket with your teams logo and colors on it.  The subscription prices are 28 issues for $26.00 or 56 issues for $39.00.  The free jacket makes the subscription more than worth it.  The jacket could probably sell for maybe $30.00 at least.  The magazines are just icing on the cake.  It inclines you to buy the magazine.  Without the jacket, the magazine would be way harder to sell.  Who knows how many subscriptions they would have never gotten if they never partnered with a clothing company and sold jackets with the magazine.