It’s Christmas time. You know, mistletoe and wine. Children singing Christian rhyme. We’ve got logs on the fire and gifts on the tree.
But no. Wait. It’s gone all virtual. Seriously, things are a little weird this year. My eldest wants things that don’t have any physical presence – digital music, digital games, e-books. So the tree is there, but there’s not much underneath it. How long, I wonder, until they tree itself is simply a digital projection (available for instant download in millions of colours and designs) and the relatives show up a holograms.
Merry Christmas Richard.
The only non-physical electronic media remaining are console (e.g. Wii, XBox, etc.) games – do you think they are virtual because of their value? I mean, an MP3 track is 99p, an iTunes game is £2.50, but a console game is £40+, so I think there’s a limit to what people will pay for virtual goods.
Once again, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
My son wanted a software download for Xmas. I got him some stocking fillers so as to have something physical.
As a budding musician, getting him studio quality music creation software is something that he will love and spend many hours with (and also he will be learning a new marketable skill as he goes, but shhhhh, don’t tell him that!). This software will transform the way he works with music – especially when I get the midi connected to his piano. So, in many ways it feels like a “real” present, but weird that the “gift” was me using Paypal to download 5GB of software on Xmas day. A sign of the times!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Richard. Found an image that’s a Christmas tree on the border of the real and virtual
http://www.trozo.ru/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/150.jpg
Nice!