Digital Media Trends: I Told Everyone, Too!

May 19th, 2008 by Richard Leis, Jr.

And I will also add a big I TOLD YOU SO, TOO (see the list below of my Frontier Channel articles since 2005 about this very subject)!

From Mashable: "TV Viewers Go Online: See, I Told You So"

According to the article and another at TVWeek, television viewing is down 10% since last year and 17% among 18-49 year olds. Sure, there was a strike, but the Internet is looming like a big black hole. And the network that understands that the most?

CBS.

Yes, CBS. They just purchased one of my longtime favorite online technology properties, CNET (which actually started as a syndicated TV show before turning itself into an online technology news website and other properties.) CBS is also pimping their shows, classics and new, everywhere online, including their own websites, Joost, Amazon Unbox, Apple iTunes, etc.

They are smart to do this, because there is an URGENCY now to survive in this massive video upheaval. In a year or less everyone will be pushing high definition, forcing the broadband providers to increase their capacities and speeds more quickly or face the wrath of their subscribers. If the existing old media content providers do not get their video properties online soon, they will have to compete with increasingly sophisticated online productions.

More signs of the "old media" apocalypse: advertisers are heading to the Web in droves, iTunes is the number one music seller (digital OR physical!), Blockbuster is trying to survive by becoming an electronics store (bad idea!), Walmart and Target are no longer getting the lucrative DVD deals, short video (like YouTube clips) are being uploaded with increasing fervor, and people are watching longer and longer format videos online.

I remember well all the old arguments, repeated time after time in silly commentary as each new digital media announcement was made over the past few years:

Who wants to watch TV on their computers?

More and more people do. However, many more are beginning to realize they no longer need computers to watch online content. Apple TV, media centers, Xbox 360, bigger computer monitors, HDTVs, cellphones, refrigerators...these are just a few of the ways digital content is spreading, and rapidly.

Who wants to pay to watch TV online?

More and more people do. However, much of that video, including premium content, is becoming available for free, with advertisements, or at lower price points (because distributing video digitally is rapidly falling in price compared to physical media.)

There is not enough content.

More and more content is showing up online. Video rental places might have carried several hundred or even a thousand titles; digital stores can carry many times more. iTunes already has 1300 movies available for rent or purchase (Amazon has closer to 6000) and that number will increase rapidly. As for television shows, you can catch most of the latest shows streaming online from the networks themselves, and they are rapidly adding their older titles while keeping their content around for longer periods. The popular 1960's English-dubbed Speed Racer series conveniently showed up on NBC's Hulu.com prior to the live-action movie release. I predict the popular television series X-Files will show up on Amazon and iTunes prior to the theatrical release of X-Files 2: The Return of Mulder and Scully, or How I Have Missed You SO MUCH!

Add to this old media digital content all the amateur content you could possibly want (some of it surprisingly good and much of it getting better and better) as well as more opportunities for niche programming like religious, self-help, lessons, and obscure cult titles, and it becomes imminently clear why digital media will overwhelm...IS overwhelming...media distributed any other way.

Gaming is bigger than Hollywood.

Gaming is also increasingly distributed digitally. After the imminent release of iPhone 2.0, there will be no going back. When handheld devices deliver quality gaming as an afterthought, movie directors begin to dabble in game production, and people begin to demand more from their entertainment, the only distribution network that can handle these trends is the Internet.

Mainstream commentators (wow, do I really think of Mashable as mainstream now?) are beginning to see what some of us recognized in 2005 and earlier: the Internet is the ultimate distribution platform, and its effects arrive far sooner than most people predict. The Internet does not just replace previous distribution platforms, it devours them and sends them into an abyss of collapsing prices and increasing innovation. Just as the Internet does to every industry it reaches.

Well, that was all a bit breathless, if finally obvious to some in retrospect. Saying "I told you so!" is satisfying, but only briefly. Of course, I am also anticipating where these trends are heading. In just the next few years we will see:

  • a truly global spanning 24-7-365 Digital Media Jukebox,
  • the rapid collapse in pricing corresponding to rapid gains in infrastructure and capabilities,
  • the demise of consumer electronics,
  • media mashups in gaming and the virtual worlds,
  • semantic and automated categorization, sorting, and data mining of digital media, and
  • automated media production.

All of this before the middle of next decade, when digital media trends begin to get really interesting. Hint: "I have a song stuck in my head!" will have an entirely new meaning...

My Past Articles About Digital Media Trends

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