Media 2.0 = Snowballs
January 19th, 2008 • Internet, Media, Video
According to Yahoo’s VP of Video and Media Applications, the revolution has already happened. Ian Rodgers reckons the only option left for the music and video business is in ‘leveraging the scale of the web’.
It’s a fascinating argument. In particular, he recounts a conversation with a group of kids at a technology forum, at which he asked how many had seen the Saturday Night Live Lazy Sunday video on YouTube (a version of which is embedded above), and how many on TV (after being screened on SNL, the clip appeared on YouTube - NBC, the network behind it, asked YT to remove it). Almost every one of them had seen it on YouTube, but not one of them on television.
Says Rodgers:
Our kids are going to watch exactly what they want to watch, not necessarily what’s marketed to them. I understand this is threatening to large media businesses which are accustomed to owning the means of distribution, but I am certain it’s very good for our kids and for culture writ large. We’re all in the same business now, the business of making things people really love.
It’s not often I read an argument that so well summarises the trend that few of us have yet to articulate well. My son’s a case in point: mainstream media occupies very little space in his head. His taste in music in beyond eclectic: it’s artists that only he and a few friends have heard of. Much of his time in spent on Facebook, an Generation R closed world of exchanged links between a tightly bonded group of friends. They can cut the world any way they wish, and it’s almost impossible to force your way in.
So media producers have no choice: if I’m reading his argument correctly, the issue becomes one of smelling the coffee. Concentrate on producing brilliant things, and let them go free… you’ll find value in a chain that’s far larger than you had ever imagined. And anyway, you have no choice: they don’t have to listen anymore.
Recent Comments