The Clarion Call of the Virtual

"Kicking Television," photo credit dhammza.

While the financial markets are teetering on collapse, the UK Guardian ran a story this past Sunday about another market collapsing: The television advertising industry. According to the article, which sites the work of UK research firm Ofcom,

The TV advertising market could collapse by 2020 ... The study found that the value of conventional TV ads could fall from £3.16bn in 2007 to just £520m in 12 years' time - a drop of 83 per cent - if some of the most dramatic predictions about the growth of the internet become a reality.

Although the story is reflecting on the UK television market, it's a trend from which the US is not immune. My friend Alice (from whose Delicious stream I found the link) has been tracking this for almost a decade. She is now at the UK's Channel 4, but when she was at the BBC she was part of a team that researched developed strategies for dealing with the trend away from television viewing to Internet usage.

What Dancing Ink Productions is seeing in our research on the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project, is an incredible increase, compared to a year ago when the project was first conceived, of people who both self-identify and or are Muslim seeking to express their faith, culture and ideas in virtual worlds. Details of this will follow in our final report, which will be released in coming weeks.

As we've mentioned earlier, we see the Internet as a virtual world. Virtual worlds, per se, are but one venue for the rich, social, immersive experience that the Internet provides. The experience is tiered, tagged and spoked. It can be tailored to the need of the individual and the community. And while it might not replace television in its entirety, it will and is changing the world.