The motion market will challenge the Internet and television as a way to reach consumers, predicts Mike Ribero, CEO of Reactrix , Redwood City, Calif. “The interface technology is the tail that wags the digital dog,” he says, indicating that his goal is to change that conundrum.

Ribero sees a lot of parallels to the early days of the Internet when people threw printed material up on their web sites because it was the only thing they had.
“I believe we are at the leading edge of the perfect storm in technology,” he says, adding that motion applications will take over as a “final frontier” for out-of-home media, replacing both television and the Internet. “It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the Internet is now seen as a traditional medium,” he says. “But there is a vast extent of real estate that is available to reach the consumer at or near the point of purchase.”

Both interaction and content for this medium are just developing. “With early digital displays, people took the only content they had – content purposed for TV – and put it on displays,” Ribero says. Now he sees the first steps toward creation of content purposely developed for in-store and outdoor use. Reactrix’s WAVEscape is one way of delivering such content.

“It’s cheaper to install a flat panel display than a traditional light box,” Ribero says.

Much of the success of interactive media will depend on how natural it is, how comfortable consumers feel interacting with it.
“The human brain as a processor has a certain capacity for reasoning,” Ribero says. He notes the left brain is emotional and the right brain is rational. “We present people an emotional experience but we ask them to be passive (when hit with TV advertising) or use a set of interfaces that require them to be rational,” he says, referring to the traditional keyboard, mouse or grip device. The emotional part of the experience is challenged by the amount of rational processing that must be done. Thus, the success of their WAVEscape, which allows people to react naturally, without learning a “system” of any sort.

“As interfaces catch up, you will see an explosion in content and the use of this kind of medium to sell at stores, play games, provide kids education and rehabilitate the disabled,” he predicts.