Technological convergence is the idea that technologies have begun coming together in order to create more sophisticated technology that will be able to achieve multiple purposes. Following the ideas presented in this theory it is clear that the biggest example of technological convergence would be the world wide web which is the main effect that technological convergence has had on advertising and distribution.
The fact that nearly everybody that any production company could possibly make would likely have an account on a social network makes the prosses of Above the line advertising easy for many companies to find their target audience and advertise to them. In order to show this i have included the first three advertisements that were on my own facebook timeline. As it can be seen the three things advertised to me (a 17 year old ABC1 male who lives in an urban area) was an upcoming film which seemingly has a target audience that would include me.
This shows that clearly facebook is able to gain information on it's users (done via "cookies" which track you and your friends usage of the website and sell the acquired data to companies to help them better know their target audience) as that i have been advertised products that should appeal to someone in my demographic. It can also be seen in the case of the post promoting Baby Driver that the company has tagged it so that users searching for "Hot Fuzz" or "Edgar wright" will find the advert as well. This makes sense as that anybody searching for either of these things would likely be interested in an new film produced by Wright (Who is most acclaimed for his film "Hot Fuzz" This type of advertising is consistent across most social networks.
Social media also allows smaller companies to advertise their products to their audience however they are not able to do so in the same way like the huge company I have shown above however they can use the same techniques of tagging their posts to have them noticed by the audience as that this is free to do. however the use off cookies to target their audience would be far more effective as that appeals to someones interests specifically.
Compared to using traditional methods of advertisements such as Billboards, television advertisements and posters.
Technological convergence has also massively affected the ways that companies can distribute their products to their audiences. Before the advent of Web 2.0 (o' Riley 2004) companies would have to pay distribution/ broadcasting companies to have their products reach their target audience however now that the Internet is interactive that means that practically anyone with an Internet connection, computer and web cam can produce low cost content and share it with the world. As well as this the beginning of the Web 2.0 era brought with it low cost distribution for large companies who could now sell products on platforms such as Google play or ITunes rather than paying to produce physical copies. Another side effect of this was the beginning of websites such as Netflix who started out as companies which would exclusively allow other companies to put their films and TV shows online for streaming in return for a subscription cost for users allowing both to make profit, however in more recent years Netflix and Amazon Prime has began creating their own content and have been very successful at doing so as can be seen in the list I have linked here:http://www.imdb.com/search/title?sort=moviemeter&title_type=tv_series&year=2016,2016 several of the most popular shows available are exclusive to an online subscription site such as "Preacher" and "Stranger Things."
While in the past it was a necessity if you wanted to watch television to watch together as that it was unlikely that a household would have more than one set available to the occupants now due to advancement of technology it is possible for every member of a family to be watching a different piece of media at one given time. This is known as Audience fragmentation and it has caused more companies to produce media products that will appeal to a more specific target audience leading a larger array of media being available for consumption by viewers.
Media products in the Web 2.0 era understand that it is harder than ever to keep an audiences attention and therefore make use of a technique called "Second screen viewing" wherein when an advertisement brake begins a twitter hashtag (or something else related to social media) will appear. This means that the audience will be focused on the product being displayed to them in more than one media sector. This keeps viewers interested and allows them to talk to other people who are following the same series as then. two examples of effective use of second screen viewing would be the use of a hashtag by the Television program "Love island" to get viewers involved in a dialogue regarding the events shown in the program. As well as this some copanies make use of "Symalcasting" which is where the audience can access the product on two different platforms at the same time. A good example of simulcasting would be the Mark Commode film review show on BBC radio which can be listened to on the radio and watched online simultaneously. This is effective because it allows the audience to access the product in a way that is convenient to them. as well as this modern coverage of formula one racing it is possible for viewers to watch pit stop brakes and other minor occurrences via the corresponding app.
