Digital Lifestyle Aggregation

The Rise of Digital Lifestyle Aggregation

Over the past few years, we have seen the worlds of IM, digital cameras, cell phones, blogging, videogames, PVRs and broadband continue to grow despite the overall downturn of the PC, web and service based sectors of our economy.  This pursuit of ‘digital convergence’ has been burning in the hearts and minds of both end-users and vendors – for over 10 years now – and mature, highly evolved products and services are starting to reach mainstream market – as we speak.  Digital Lifestyle Aggregation is the notion of a software layer that unites all of the aspects of digital convergence.  Whether it be a media collection at home, a calendar of memeories of road trips or to do lists for a picnic in the park - DLAs (digital lifestyle aggregators) will become a major part of our lives in the future.

The consolidation of eCommerce and enterprise based service businesses also shows that we are entering into a maturing time period – where providing customers with value and compelling experiences is the overall leading guideline for success.  We have all grown to recognize when a product still needs refinement or when a new fad or trend burns out.  We also have grown to expect new kinds of innovation and exciting features (such as TiVO, phone cams or blogging) to gain our attention and keep things hot and evolving.  In this environment, open source and open standards have played a predominant role in changing the rules of the game and the formula for success.

Ask any customer (whether they are a so-called ‘consumer’ or enterprise based IT manager or end-user) what’s the most frustrating, hardest thing about using computer based products today – and they’ll answer “it’s too hard to use”. This is the underlying goal of most software companies today – to simplify the process of using computers, hand held devices and other forms of technology – while at the same time introduce new kinds of capabilities, features and services. 

One way to describe the era from which we come from, is to say that there are currently lots of separate data silos, locked in installed bases, single stand alone features and companies which focus on such a narrow experience and deliverable – that only geniuses can put together all of the pieces necessary to utilize all these products together.  End-users are expected to integrate and utilize this wide range of tools, operating systems, peripherals, bandwidth connections, display devices and interactive controls in some sort of orderly fashion.

This narrow focus is seen in the companies and services of today.  Very often you will find experts in cell phones or videogames, who know nothing about PCs or web sites.  Or on-line commerce entities that don’t even recognize the rise of personal publishing or IM.  Or automobile based products which seem to not have ever used a PC before. 

We're all used to the notion of integrated productivity software (like Microsoft Office) but we're still waiting for media editors, like music or sound sampling, graphics or photo editing and simple presentation tools - to be integrated with IM, email, personal publishing (like blogs) and social networking.  This notion of intregrated applications and services, tightly wrapped around aggregation of ALL kinds of data and a level of customization appropriate to every end-user - is exactly what digital lifestyle aggregation is all about.

Music and video have been an integrating factor in this environment, as most people (and even companies) see the value of having audio play during a presentation or that video can train, entertain and provide safety at the same time.

Navigating the complex worlds of multimedia, on-line content, communications, ecommerce and Home LAN based products is the key to understanding where we’re headed in the future.  Enabling customers (both end-users and enterprises) to connect all of these disparate worlds, products and services together is what digital lifestyle aggregation is all about.

 What’s a Digital Lifestyle Aggregator?

Imagine a next generation MyYahoo service – which enabled end-users to keep track of their personal (and their families) music, photo, video and file collections and provided them with ‘home publishing’ capabilities to create, store and distribute their own content.  Imagine a social networking environment which matched and found like-minded people and enabled them to participate in activities together (both on-line and in ‘real space’.)                                                           

Imagine a system that managed their Home LAN, devices, cell phones and videogames while providing a virtual file system to give them access to all of their content and data – whether they were at home, the office or on the road.  Imagine a communications and personal management system which enabled inter-personal interaction (sort of like ‘groupware for humans’) that assumed that all of these features and capabilities were built-in system constructs.

Now imagine all of these capabilities and features in one integrated environment – focused in on a particular constituency, content brand or set of activities.  That’s what we call a digital lifestyle aggregator (DLA.)

It’s a new kind of platform which every ISP, hardware and software vendor and major brand will have their own version of.  Based upon what assets, IP, market position, resources and existing technology base – each DLA customer will have their own unique set of requirements and implementation details.  But each will share the notion of making THEIR customers lives easier – by integrating, aggregating and providing appropriate levels of customization to bring all of the disparate elements of digital convergence together.

Apple calls theirs iLife.  Microsoft is building it into Longhorn.  We feel that we can design, build and maintain a significant number of these kinds of systems (over 20% of the market) and build a highly profitable company doing so within the next 3-5 years.