In a few recent blogs, I took up the issue of IPTV and what the future might look like. It's exciting, and I firmly believe that we are on the cusp of a revolution in how we get our television fix. But I was thinking about this a bit the other day, as I was driving into work. I found myself wondering how much my perspective is colored by my background and my job. The fact is, I like technology. I use it extensively. It was a simple decision for me (and hence my family) to disconnect the old cable service and shift our watching to online resources. After all, most of the networks are streaming their content, which allows us to pick and choose. But it requires an Internet connection. It requires broadband. It requires a comfort level with Web-based services. Most of these sites require downloading a player, which is nothing to me. And I know enough about the underlying technology to know why the service may be less than ideal right now, and to get excited when I see incremental improvements in the video quality. I also don't mind watching on the small screen of my computer.

But would my mother feel this way? My aunts? For them the technology of the Internet is new. My mother is bravely venturing forth and using online banking, email, and e-commerce. My dad is a bit more into games like bookworm. But their computer is in their spare bedroom, and it's a bit of a clunker. It does what they want, but wouldn't be very good for watching television. And the need to surf the Web to watch a television program would be completely foreign to them. They just want to click on their remote like they used to. As for my aunts, one of them is giving some thought to getting online, and the other wouldn't touch a computer if she was paid to do it.

Which one of us represents the greatest demographic? Today, I would have to say it is them. And that seems to be affirmed by a recent article about a report that suggests that online broadcasting is, today, nothing more than a sideline for the major networks. That is not surprising in and of itself. But it did confirm what I was ruminating about. Change is coming - I'm convinced of it. And for some segments of the market, especially the younger generations, the change will need to be fairly aggressive to keep their attention. But the legacy services will take a long time to fade away. The trick for the network and service providers is to find the balance during the transition.