In my writing about the US Television Broadcast Spectrum White Spaces battle looming in the US, and my experiences with the iPhone, and the rapid evolution of Internet technology, I've noticed a few trends... and would love to start a few of my own.
- When the "iPhone paradigm" finally gets "right", it's going to be devastating to the media business. Imagine a handheld device like the iPhone with, say, 64 GB of storage, truly always-on broadband Internet access that doesn't halt, stutter, stall, or otherwise cause you to wait for your content, and flawless synchronization of all your content between all the devices and networks that you choose to use... who needs television in the era of good (enough) content from YouTube, web sites, iTunes, Netflix, etc.
- Someone is going to get the "Electronic Newspaper" paradigm right. The layout will be like a newspaper is now, but you choose not only the sections, but the authors whose columns you want to see, news about companies, industries, even countries that are of particular interest to you. It will be attractively laid out (you choose from a number of templates), in PDF form so you can print it if you wish or view it on-screen, it's delivered to you as a document that you can store and search, etc. It will seamlessly interleave video clips, text, and graphics. Amazon might be the winner here - they have the best grasp that "move the bits" transport is incidental in the value chain compared to content, like they've done with the Kindle. Google had kind of the right idea with the evolution of Google News, but since they punted on the transport issue and thus it continues to be painful for users, the lead might go to Amazon if they can bridge the gap between the static content they offer now to the dynamic content like Google News. Also, Amazon has figured out, better than Google, how to deliver payment to content generators (like me).
- The wireless telephony carriers had better figure out, quickly, that in the era of Broadband Wireless Internet Access, they'd better be making their services simple, cheap, and fast because connectivity is quickly becoming a commodity. When you can move all your services over to Internet - your entertainment (YouTube, web site downloads, iTunes, Netflix), your communications (phone / Voice Over IP, IM, Facebook)... and your devices are smart enough to switch between competing services when available, like work Wi-Fi, home Wi-Fi, college campus-wide wireless networks (it's not just Wi-Fi any more - some are starting to do WiMAX), etc., the service that offers the slowest-to-connect, highest prices, and onerous contracts is going to start losing out.
- We just aren't going to have non-wireless devices for much longer. Why should you have to dock your iPod on USB if you could have several power-only charging stations around your house or apartment; Apple better get on the ball and update iTunes to make it a repository for all your music like Amazon is doing with Kindle and several other upcoming services are doing for music.
It's an interesting new world we're living in :-)
By Steve Stroh
This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).
This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.
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