High definition set top boxes, mobile TV, digital radio – all contenders for the future of media, right? Well, not exactly. It can be tempting to assume if something is digital it must be good. But there is a more subtle pattern at play. If you want to understand how traditional media is being disrupted – the key is not technology but audience behaviour.
There’s something big happening in the mapping space. All the indicators are there – significant M&A activity, a dramatic rise in the number of GPS enabled devices and exponential growth in geotagged content. Don’t be fooled. This is not Geography 2.0. Its something much more interesting.
Please, no more friend requests. If you are like most people - in the last few months you have gone from bemusement as invitations deluged your inbox, to addiction as you obsessed over what people wrote on your wall and finally depression once Facebook was banned at your work. It wasn't the first time you joined a social network. And it won't be the last. But maybe not for the reasons you might expect.
The best and probably only good thing about being sick in bed with the flu is that its the perfect opportunity to catch up on trashy television. And no, I'm not talking about Oprah. Thanks to iTunes I went on a downloading binge that included Lost, Battlestar Galactica and even quirkier titles like Eureka, Kyle XY, the Dresden Files, Jericho, Blade and Surface. And that's when I discovered the catch. A lot of a niche programming that ends up on iTunes also ends up getting cancelled. Anyway, it got me thinking. In an on demand future - just how will television get funded?
If you watch technology long enough, you get to see it become socialised. Cyber punk author Gibson said it well - "The Street finds its own uses for things". Networked audiences, powerful image and video capture devices, and simple publishing tools are all adding up to a new social vector. During a recent chat with one of my clients, they observed drily that their new generation of users seemed to be interested in just one thing. Make me famous.
Making Western designed electronics products faster, cheaper and in greater quantities was a copycat game that Asian manufacturers played from the 70s onward, until it was pretty clear that they had conclusively won. Ironically, the same thing is happening again in the Web2.0 space - but with a twist.
