Ten prophecies for the digital millennium - BizTech - Technology - smh.com.au
I just saw this article on the smh, and thought i'd share my own thoughts for technology in the next decade.
TV / Movies / Computer / Stereo = all the same thing
We are already integrating this in, hooking our computers up to our tvs, watching downloaded tv shows and movies through it, or off dvds on the PS3, AppleTV etc. I think this will only increase until we simply have a media centre, which stores all of our music, games, movies, tv shows, photos, home videos and anything else we want to watch on our tv screens. TV will not be through an antenna, instead received over the net, therefore allowing us to watching anything in the world whenever we want.
Change in Advertising
Advertisers will therefore have to shift their focus to new ways of advertsing online, by sponsoring individual shows or interrupting the program with ads specifically targeted to the IP address of the computer, so that Indian viewers get Indian ads, and Norwegian viewers get Norwegian ads, not the other way round. Of course big companies like Coke and Pepsi could do worldwide broadcasts for millions of dollars, and advertise to all countries at once, regardless of what you are actually watching.
Death of the DVD as we know it = Movies and TV shows become insanely cheap. Cheaper than Bali cheap.
You know how you can get those mix cds with old music that has like 50 songs on it for $10? That will happen to movies. You will be able to buy the rights / a data DVD with hundreds of movies on it for a very low price. Of course you will get shit movies with good movies, e.g. For every Adam Sandler movie there will be a Rob Schneider movie; For every Julia Roberts movie there will be a Sandra Bullock movie (not that I think Sander or Roberts are any good, but they attract a large audience). Same with TV shows. Instead of being able to buy the whole lot of Seinfeld or Friends, you will be able to buy a dvd with multiple complete tv series from the 90s for example.
Change of balance of power
But how, you ask, can they sell things so cheaply? What about all revenue they receive now? What happens to it?
Well I see a few things. The change in how we receive media means that the power has shifted. Now anyone with a video camera can become a star and produce their own series. We will be just as happy watching a girl in New Jersey teach us how to put on make-up recorded from her bedroom as watching Trinny and Suzannah running around the UK telling us what not to wear. Because of this television can no longer charge the huge amounts it used to, as consumers have the option to choose the cheaper version. Localised sponsorship therefore pays the money consumers want to, and it is both the show and the product being advertised that benefits if the show / media becomes a success.
Web 3.0
As voxers, we are all very much part of Web 2.0, where the user generates the content of the site, not the owner of the site. So what happens next? Honestly, i'm not quite sure, but I am sure that it will come from the user, and not a big power above. Even though the Australian Government is attempting to put filters on our internet to stop piracy and kiddy porn, users will fight to create and keep their own content. Right now our web 2.0 creations are quite dispirate. My flickr is only connected to my vox because of my own user created widget. Our YouTube is only on Facebook if we choose to connect it. Soon we will have an area of our own stuff, which we all keep, and then simply publish to as many sites as we wish. Therefore I upload photos to my own personal area, and the choose to publish it to flickr, vox and facebook all at once, instead of seperately doing it, or setting up a complex web of emails to do the same.
Subscription based web content
On the flipside to Web3.0, since the web has become such a dangerous, unmonitered space, there will be services popping up onto which you subscribe, and anything you browse will be correct and safe for kids. So for example, as a parent right now you have to watch the sites your child goes to, and make their research is correct. These services will be a very large collection of websites that are constantly monitered. Parents will know that their kids are accessing correct material (none of this unauthorised wiki bullshit) that is not alarming or offensive in any way. Unlike the subscription services now (Britannica for example) these will have a much larger range of sites so you wouldn't necessarily need to access the real internet at all. You can look at High School Musical pictures without finding a naked Vanessa Hudgens, to the relief of tween parents around the globe.
Thats it for now. If I think of more I'll add them. I'm sure there are holes in my logic, but this is the general gist of what I think may happen...
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