Dorrk Dot Com

What would the new internet revolution mean? Blockbuster out of business? My current internet provider out of
business? No more video rentals or even purchasing of videos off of shelves?

TV networks go under?

What would it all look like? Sounds kind of exciting. I feel a lot less connected to other media than to music.

Something like that, yeah. You would see a likely shift of internet services away from telecom companies to electric companies (maybe partnering with the telecoms to provide the internet services). TV Networks will become irrelevant. A company like Blockbuster, if they’re quick enough to anticipate the change, will segue into delivering movies digitally. I don’t have faith that the big TV Networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) could adjust to it, and will be face tough tough times, probably being swallowed up by the production arms of their corporate parents. FOX is more of a distinct brand, and they could survive as a content provider for news, sports and original progamming, only delivered on demand via the Internet.

The only old world media business I don’t see being threatened by these changes — and actually will benefit from them — is publishing. I don’t think people who like books will ever trade them in for e-books, and the internet has really helped create a resurgence in nonfiction publishing.

I’m already more than half digital, with all my music on my computer and only my DVD collection still occupying physical shelf space. I recently re-purposed an old computer to act as a TIVO-like machine (running the SageTV service), and haven’t touched a VCR in weeks. While some of this is old news, TIVO-like services have yet to become commonplace, and some of these changes may come a little too quickly for most people to assimilate them, creating the kind of buble of expectations we saw with the first internet boom, when venture capitalists were betting on the instant success of technologies people weren’t prepared to fully embrace.

But these are excitingchanges, and the conveniences in store are tremendous.

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