The internet arrives in your living room

The BBC's recent decision to put its archives on the web hails a new dawn

I have never believed in the concept of convergence, and instead have long thought that if you want one word to describe the main future trends in digital technology, a truer picture is given by words such as diversification or specialisation.

For most people, most of the time, specialisation will always be superior.

This does not mean that I am predicting the long-awaited demise of the PC, as there will always be an important role for a ubiquitous multifunction machine, particularly for those involved in creating the digital content that will be used by others.

But the majority of people do not need this, and it is far too complex for them anyway.

The best evidence in favour of diversification is the success of such products as consoles and organisers. Sure, you could build a console that also did many of the other things a PC can do, but only a small number of people want this.

There are also huge benefits to specialisation. Consoles simply do not crash anywhere near as often as Windows machines, and the cost savings in designing a dedicated and specialised device are significant.

OK, so you can't write letters on it, but when did you last have an uncontrollable desire to write a letter sitting on your living room floor in front of the TV?

Also, how much easier to use is a console than a PC? There is an operating system in a console, but can you name it, or tell me what it looks like?

The needs of a dedicated system are much more straightforward than a ubiquitous PC.

When did you last see a console owner sitting scratching their head over some bewildering message about erasing DLLs that might be needed by some other software?

I rest my case, except for one misunderstood symbol of so-called convergence: the internet.

The internet is all too often hailed as a sort of application or device in its own right. The diehard extremists and cultists who saw it as the bringer of a new civilisation are much quieter now - have they built 50-foot high retaining walls around MIT? - but their ideas linger on and distort our thinking.

The best way to think of the internet is like radio: not the device, but the medium.

In the first few years of its existence the wireless attracted some of its own share of cult status, but radio is simply a medium, used by many different devices and applications, many of which have no relationship to each other at all.

Does it matter that exactly the same medium is used to transmit TV pictures as Radio 1? Not at all, and do you expect the same device to receive and transmit both types of programme as well as other information?

The equivalent to thinking along the lines of digital convergence would be to expect exactly that. Everyone with their own little GCHQ in their living room. Very cost effective! And not reliable either.

There is generic information on the internet that should always be deliverable to any or most devices, but new trends will move away from this.

We already have web information formatted for specific devices such as handhelds, and the device that I think will be the most important in the long run is the television.

I once wrote about the internet as the graphical successor to Teletext, but that was when broadband was a distant dream, and I now think it will be much more than that.

The recent announcement by the BBC's Greg Dyke about the plan to put the whole of the BBC archive on the Internet is highly significant.

Unless Dyke's description was gratiuitously sexed up, this is one of the most encouraging pieces of news I have heard regarding the internet for many years. The question is whether it's technically feasible.

Many people have used expressions in the past about the future of the internet along the lines of how 'content is king'. Well, if Dyke really means it and this plan comes to fruition, this is the content to which they were referring.

This is not limited to the UK, as the BBC has an international appeal. So this will help drive others to open up their own archives.

I can think of no better driver to establish the use of the internet with the living room device, while also driving the acceptance and pushing down the costs of broadband.

There are aspects of this that will give many people pause for thought. One of the most annoying experiences of the internet it to find a site that has so clearly been designed only for the resolution of whatever workstation the designer happens to be using. Such people should be behind those 50-foot walls.

Many of these sites will want access to your living room, and so they will have to change. The TV may be a great device on which to watch a film, but many websites look terrible on it.

There will be great pressure on these pretentious designers to make their sites genuinely accessible to a range of devices.

Device independence will need to become a major criterion of web design, not the ignored item that it is today.

My first thought on reading about this plan was how many hard disks it would require - a factory dedicated to producing them? I hope Dyke has done his sums here and that this plan is actually workable.