Software beyond the pandemic: The Rise of the Online Explorers
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This infernal COVID 19 pandemic isn’t going away so easy - we just have accept this fact and move forward. Moving forward means - adapting. We are all adapting. Most companies in the world has adapted to the concept of work from home. It felt like a very difficult task, specially for the industries that were not IT driven, but as with any new concept - once the wrinkles has been ironed out it’s working out fine. In every industry, in every country in the world people are coming up with innovative solutions of adapting their work and life around the facts of social distancing and lock down. Software world is probably the most prepared for that adaptation, we after all are the facilitators for most of the adaptation with technologies like online conferencing, project management, file sharing, come to think of it, online (and offline) everything! But beyond the facilitation and the continuation of the old paradigms we also have to start thinking of how the world will change, how the new world beyond the pandemic (yes there will end to this someday, there has always been one, even black death) will change it’s behavior for consumption, software usage and living it’s life.
We don’t know. We can only predict. But what we know for sure is that there will be many permanent change to how we lead our lives. And as the leaders of change, us software people have to come up with new ways of doing things.
Online concerts and events
Here’s one change that has already started: online experiences for what used to be face to face events. With the lock down in place events like stand up comedy, football games or concerts can’t take place anymore. The alternative is to have them online of course. And we see that happening in many platforms. A great starter event for this new way of doing things came when the greats like Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder, Shahrukh Khan, and many others came together to support the WHO with an online streamed show recently that raised almost $128 million for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, as well as local charities that are fighting the coronavirus.
This overall movement towards online events is a natural progression from where we where before the pandemic. The virus only pushed us more and accelerated us in this direction. What is more interesting is:
“Will this become the new normal beyond the pandemic?”
I would argue yes. The pandemic will change our mindset about online entertainment, it is giving us a taste of the ease of online live streamed events and we like what we taste. On top of this our habit in consuming such events over prolonged time of the social distancing along with residual fear that will likely to remain for a while after the dust has settled will cement the success of these online experiences.
In line with that thinking online venues (the alternate of concert houses and stadiums) are coming up everywhere. Facebook pages like the billboard are picking up huge views. Pickathon launched the series "A Concert A Day" on April 8, which raises money for the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund. Every day through June 7, at 1 pm PST and 4 pm EST, a new performance will be premiered or livestreamed via the Recording Academy's Facebook page, Amazon Music's Twitch channel, and Pickathon's YouTube channel. Featured artists include Margo Price, Mac DeMarco, Tyler Childers, and Foxygen. This is just the beginning.
Beyond online concerts
The interesting trend is that the online experience is going far beyond the old concerts and event streaming that we were used to in the good old days of pre-pandemic world (aka ancient times of 2019). Airbnb for example has focused on hosting “online experiences” as an alternative to their hosting your house for strangers mode. In their words:
These online experiences are as varied as their hosts are imaginative. You can cook with a family from Morocco or go out with someone and check out how the dogs are doing in the post nuclear accident Chernobyl.
This is the face of the new online exploration. This is just the beginning. There is so much more that can happen in this space that is unexplored. Take trips to interesting places for example. The obvious space for that is arm chair based world travelers who asks local experts to visit places they want to see, look at things they want to look. This already existed with 3D videos (and VR apps) like visiting Angkor Wat virtually or Vineyards but the post pandemic world will likely see an explosion of interest for such online explorations.
VR and AR technologies will need to catch up with human expectation for such online experiences. So that is the new horizon for hardware improvements for sure. Again it was going that way anyway, but the pandemic just pushed it harder and the demand for this will be much more stronger than the lukewarm early adopter space it was hovering around in.
Looking forward to that brave new world of online explorations. Life will be interesting. One little pesky virus will not put the spirit of human exploration down for sure. We are working on it but stay safe for now though :)
