The TV remote control, as we know it, is heading for the trash can. Since the “Lazy Bone,” as it was dubbed by Zenith back in 1950, the remote control has been the butt of countless jokes, an icon in the battle between the sexes and the focus of constant innovation.

But the remote control has been stuck in that 1950s paradigm ever since — adding functionality meant adding buttons. When DVR hit the tube, so did all the classic VCR buttons. There are buttons for the on-screen TV guide and for music on the TV. The AT&T/2Wire remote even adds a BlackBerry-style keypad — that's another 30+ buttons.

This approach isn't scalable. Studies of remote control use show people only use a few basic buttons, and we know from using computer keyboards that you can add new programs without expanding the buttons required to use them.

Enter a new player: The “freespace” or “5D” controller. If the remote control is more akin to a keyboard, then the freespace controller is like an air-mouse. It allows the bulk of the historical remote heavy lifting to be done in the applications on the TV itself.

The state of the art device in this arena will sport a minimum number of buttons, biometric authentication to identify the holder, five axes of space awareness (up/down, left/right, front/back, pitch, yaw) and a light and ergonomic design.

In addition, it will be embedded in many application-specific form factors and mapped to onscreen controls and applications that make use of the new paradigm.

We expect the top five IPTV software vendors to have freespace/5D navigation shipping in production by this time next year, including Microsoft. We also expect a marriage of new navigation devices with set-top box platforms in that same time frame. We will see leading Internet e-commerce and other portal sites redesigned to make use of the new paradigm and higher-resolution TV displays.

So picture this (pun intended): Imagine trying to sell a computer today that does not have a mouse. Think about trying to navigate the Web using just the up/down/left/right/enter buttons on your keyboard. Consider trying to buy something on Amazon.com without the ability to point and click.

Now try to imagine selling a “classic” IPTV offering against a freespace/5D-enabled one. We've seen the focus group results. It's a slaughter.

And it's viral. Next-gen navigation enables true interactivity with your TV set, gives gaming a new dimension, enables virtual browsing and allows random movement anywhere on the screen.

This translates into bottomline dollars and cents. Voice on demand sales triple. Stickiness doubles. New revenues explode tenfold via new applications.

If you are not right now strategizing on your next-gen navigation approach, you are way behind. This takes a change in thinking, in strategy, in partnerships and in services. This is as big a shift as the mouse was to the computer, only it's going to happen 10 times faster.