We’ve been doing a lot of innovation work recently around media and devices, and are seeing some interesting trends. Here are four that stand out above the rest:

“Watch TV’ has become ‘Consume media’
The ‘long tail’ is alive and well in the living room. People are no longer content to sit back and watch whatever is on, and are increasingly turning to the DVR, Hulu, iTunes, YouTube, Facebook, and personal media instead. And, importantly, much of this viewing is being done on the small screen, not the 50” plasma.

People still want programmed media
It used to be that we could just turn on the tube and sit back for our nightly dose of the zeitgeist, ready for the water cooler chat the next day. People still want programming - they don’t know what to watch, they want to be entertained, or they just don’t want to put out the effort to assemble the evening’s media - and they’re finding it through Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and friends.

Media anywhere
There’s still a big divide between traditional media (on cable, satellite, and the DVR) and web-based media. We’ve seen lots of people trying to bridge that gap, with all sorts of makeshift solutions to getting their web media onto their big screens, but little success. And manufacturers’ attempts at IPTV give flashbacks to the early days of mobile phone walled gardens. In the end, we’ll see all media share a common platform, and the living room TV will become nothing more than the largest display in the house.

From broadcast to conversations
Corporate branding has gone through a transformation: what used to be a one-way message has been usurped by thousands of conversations, all over the web. Companies are scrambling to catch up and are trying to participate through authentic engagement in social media. The same will happen with the future of TV: people are having conversations all over the web around broadcast media. Media houses need to get involved - not through “AOL keyword ‘housewives”’, but through rich media sidecars - creating real-time and time-delayed community and conversation around their shows. Think “live DVD extras”, real-time Twitter feeds, background information, and real-time chat on Facebook and beyond. Otherwise, third parties will step in and siphon off the chatter - and the revenue

Enter the iPad
And this is where the iPad (or any similar tablet) appears on the scene, making it that much easier to consume sidecar content while watching media. Where the laptop didn’t work - due to a hard-to-handle and hard-to-pass-around form factor - and the netbook fails with a tiny screen, the iPad provides a big-screen, easy interaction with content, and the ability to share the experience with that special someone sitting next to you on the couch without craning your neck over their keyboard.

Photo credit: coolmikeol