2008 8 29

Real Evolution with Philosophy of Media-morphosis

Mediamorphosis and evolution

4/30/2008 Ahn Soo Jin

We all know recent convergence in conventional media, like music, video, newspaper, book, television, and internet is accelerating this trend. Normally we think that convergence mean A + B = C (new one) So I have been imagined that old mass media will eventually diminished and it will evolve into personal and richer multimedia and converged into internet.

But Mediamorphosis theory says, changes are not that simple. It says in order to fully defuse new ideas or media, it takes totally 30 years until people take grant of new technology. Moreover, while it is defusing to normal people, it follows mediamorphosis process.

It says, there is cross impact between each technology, and there are political, social, economic and technological (PSET) needs to support new ideas. The key concepts of metamorphosis are old one would not simply die, it coevolved and converge with new one and chaos is essential component of changes.

It was very impressive for me. Because I have been tried to create new ideas and then expected that it can be substitute to old one in near future. It sounds absurd but unconsciously think like that. I have experienced that I devise new type of mobile business then launch it to market and I definitely expected it would be successful within one or two years.

But the reality was honestly it failed and I had to withdraw that business.

I know there are several key failure factors but if I project media/meta-morphosis into those experiences, I should have been more careful to step into new business launching. 1. Old one would not simply die, so we should consider the way of connect with them 2. New idea should have embraced old one and it must have been compatible.

3. There should be environmental basis of social, economic, and technological needs. 4. It is natural that it would take more times to defuse normal people. so, we have to wait

Now when I think of another new idea and new type of business, I realized that there are important factors that I should keep in mind. 1. Co-evolution and coexistence : so I have to consider old and existing things that we already familiar with 2. New Ideas should be compatible to old one with low complexity. Changes should not be radical. 3. It has to have link to the past. 4. We have to wait enough time for diffusion and keep try to do effort ( not see) to evoke social environment

Therefore, Especially I'd like to emphasize importance of metaphor. It does not only describe new thing referring familiar one, but also reflect our real physical life into digital world. We can see the Metaphor, for example, desktop computer UI idea is really come from physical desk ( I saw a napkin memo that inventor draw desk) and recently Japanese cell phone brand KDDI AU 's prototype cell phone reflect real village life into game convergence phone.

We can use metaphore in new business, technology, and media to easily get intimacy. That is the one of the way to link the past effectively.

As a conclusion, I think we should apply mediamorphosis to not only technology but also social evolution around our real life.