I had an epiphany recently - I realised that I now have more computing and networked devices in the family living room than I do in my study. I probably should have realised this 12 months ago when I asked the Telstra guy to install the broadband internet connection in the living room - it just made more sense.

Only a few years ago I would have had all the gadgets in the study, but gradually, more and more technology is making its way into our living room.

Firstly there are the gaming consoles - the Xbox and the Wii. They used to be stand alone, but now to get the most out of them you need to connect them to the internet.

I retired the CD player for an Apple TV about 2 years ago. Now I use it not only for music, but for downloading TV and movies from the iTunes store - again its connected to the TV and the internet. 

Also, an average TV session will no doubt be accompanied by an iPhone - used as a remote control, or to surf the web. There are a number of factors that are driving this behavior:

• On Demand: We are getting used to consuming our media as and when we want it. This became a reality with the introduction of Digital Video Recorders (DVR's) like Foxtel IQ or Tivo, and is further evolving to internet based Video on Demand services like the Apple TV. Its getting to the point where putting a DVD in the player is actually inconvenient :-)
• Convergence: Traditional media and the internet are colliding, and consumers are looking for a richer content experience - such as an enhanced internet experience (eg Webisodes for a TV show)
• ADD: More than 58% of internet users watch TV at the same time as surfing the web. It could be considered a sorry state of affairs, but the age of digital attention deficit disorder is upon us. Want to look up the actor's bio or previous films on wikipedia whilst watching the movie - no problems.

Its fairly easy to predict that we will see the living room become the centre of our online world. This is going to have an interesting impact for some industries. For example, who really cares about the next DVD standard (Blue Ray) - the technology is being leap-frogged by internet delivered on-demand TV and movies.

It will be interesting to see if traditional media can keep up with the pace of change.