I caught up with the Microsoft 'Ultimate Display' http://bit.ly/grlwM6 today.
This is a challenge for PR and marketing academics. It will be a challenge to add to PR degree courses and it will be a challenge for PR practitioners to envisage as part of relationship facilitation and other forms of PR - even media relations.
I don't think that some new jumped-up geeky practitioners will have much problem in embedding these technologies into 'campaigning' and 'promotions' in the next year and in a decade's time later mainstream agencies will buy them up for astonishing lumps of money and academia with find space on the curriculum for this 'new element in PR'.
By then a billion children and gamers round the world will know nothing different.
This is one of those manifestations of technology that make us re-think what public relations is all about.
Being able to interact with a 'real' person using a screen is nothing new. But being able to interact with a person, a virtual person and other real and virtual icons, is very very different.
Who sees what and what is 'real' and what is virtual are big questions for PR and for media regulators. These forms of communication affect theory, ethics and nature relations.
Much much more important, this is about mainstream technology from mighty players like Microsoft.
Entry to market is going to be quick.
This claim has implications for writing and speaking abilities in multiple media formats. Thanks for rainsing the questions!
ReplyDeleteDemocratizing that new technology, however, will be a different matter altogether. Its relevance will depend on who gets to have access, and who gets to control it.
ReplyDelete