You need one of these
When I was kid, I was among the privileged few with a phone in his bedroom. It looked just like this. Spark Fun Electronics has rewired a few of these babies for the wireless age. At $399 and a GSM requirement that would make me switch providers, I’ll take a pass. But I’d love to have one in my car. Dialing that in traffic would surely get some looks.
Busting some myths
Recently I’ve been party to numerous conversations and pontifications about the future of the media industry. As James Boyle pointed out in his keynote at Beyond Broadcast some months ago: Human beings are really bad at predicting the future. I avoid these discussions except to warn folks not to take anecdotal evidence too seriously.
Teenagers are clamoring for the small screen/third screen experience
The studios totally missed the boat on this. Phones are a communication device — a 2-way communication device. No one, even the laziest of teenagers, has any desire to sit, mouth agape, staring at his phone for 30 minutes. iPods are an audio experience. Teens (and everyone else) can do something else while listening to an iPod. There’s not much you can do while watching an iPod. There are a lot of context-specific applications for iPod video. The Andy Griffiths Show is not one of them.
A recent LA Times’ article (registration required) shed more light on this misconception, but the crux of the piece was summed up rather nicely.
About half of young adults and 4 in 10 teenagers said they were uninterested in watching television shows or movies on computers, cellphones or hand-held devices such as video iPods, the poll found.While more than 2 out of 5 teens and young adults indicated they were open to viewing this kind of content online, only 14% of teenagers said they wanted to watch television on a cellphone, and 17% said they would view programs on an iPod.
The findings suggest that networks are rushing to package content for these new platforms before even tech-savvy young consumers are hankering for the “third screen” experience.
Mobile phones will be video sharing devices. User generated content will rule the space. It won’t be easy to commercialize it, but it’s what consumers will want. Cameras have been an unmitigated success on phones, so will video cameras. (The effect on journalism will be profound as well.)
Users want to re-edit your content
No, they don’t. They might want to grab a piece of it to add to their content, but they don’t want to edit. I worked for a decade as a professional editor. It’s hard work. Who do you know editing for fun? It’s a satisfying career, but a frustrating hobby. And if content producers think they can build an audience simply by making their video available for mashups and providing space for uploads of those mashups… too late. Users can already get anything they want off the net. If it’s not already available, there’s no interest in it. Move on.
I’m high on YouTube and JumpCut’s “bring your own and share it” approach – especially JumpCut’s because it supplies the tools too. Expecting users to download content, edit it, add stuff to it, and then upload it when there are services like JumpCut makes no sense. Any traction such offerings gain will be lost after JumpCut’s next trailer contest.
Jon Stewart’s become a primary source of news
For whom? I never met that person, yet people will tell you that’s where young people are getting their news. The same LA Times article mentioned above found differently.
For their part, a large share of young adults appear to be turning to broadcast television for their news. According to the poll, 38% said they got their best information about current events from local newscasts and 19% said it came from broadcast network news.Despite the widespread belief that a sizable number of young people get their news from satirical programs such as Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” just 3% of teenagers and 6% of young adults surveyed said that’s how they found out about current events.
Those darn facts just keep getting in the way of a good yarn.
Fact is it’s beginning to look a lot like 1999 (except for the market’s performance). A bunch of kids in t-shirts and narrow glasses are telling everyone over 30 that they just don’t get it and blather on about massive paradigm shifts. And a lot of media execs with pockets deeper than their imaginations are nodding along like bobble heads. That may be – there may be a paradigm shift – but the pace is more like plate tectonics. Movable type, the catalyst of the Enlightenment had virtually no effect on the culture at large during Gutenberg’s lifetime. Does anyone really think cell phone video and mashups will be more profound more quickly?
Remember when Sony was cool?
It’s getting tougher. With the announcement of the Mylo, Sony is still lost in the woods. The Mylo’s not a phone. It’s not a gaming device. Obviously the company fears cannibalizing the PSP’s market. Perhaps someone should send along a copy of The Innovator’s Dilemma to Sony’s C-levels. It’s a WiFi device with Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger apps, but no AIM or MSN capabilities. Thanks, but no.
It looks to be a decent media player. But who needs another one of those?
YouTube video of Gizmodo review
RealTechNews predicts failure
FCP vs. Avid again (and again)
Platform wars bore me, and the whole product evangelism thing doesn’t fire me up. For example, I love my Mac and I don’t particularly like working in Windows, but I don’t aspire to bring people to my way of thinking. Corporate IT has its reasons for going with Windows, so do my clients and colleagues. It’s my job to work well with them, and if it means having a couple of Dells in the office, so be it. If someone asks my preference, I tell them. If DV wants a review in the magazine, I shoot straight. Beyond that, whatever floats your boat. It’s about the work, not the tools.
I haven’t always been like that. In the professional space, evangelism requires a certain amount of newness in both the evangelist and the evangelized. When I was in my 20s and the Avid/1 was just out of beta, I would get on my soapbox every chance I had to urge my WGBH colleagues to drink the purple Kool-Aid. This product is totally cool and efficient and it’s the future. By extension I was making the same claim about myself. So I was personally invested in Avid’s future success even though I hadn’t yet spent a dime of my own money on an Avid product.
The reason this comes to mind is that I happened to walk in on a conversation a broadcast client was having with members of its sister unit. The sibling was a Final Cut Pro facility. From the little I overheard, it sounded like they had built a pretty sweet suite around FCP and AJA hardware. My client has been an Avid facility for at least ten years.
Someone in corporate thought it would be a good idea to get everyone on the same platform. In my experience that sounds great and seems completely logical, but is nearly meaningless unless you’re talking about a collaborative environment with shared media and resources. These facilities made different programs at different ends of the country. They had nothing in common save the corporate parent. Now if there’s a plan afoot for these units to become collaborators, then the systems need to be evaluated on a range of criteria that includes asset management, version control, etc. Those features weren’t even being discussed.
But the guy on the other end of the speakerphone was totally in love with his FCP rig, and felt passionately that my client should switch from Avid. Why? What did it matter to him? Because it would be a feather in his cap to be able to lay claim to introducing more senior colleagues to a better way. The reverse wasn’t true. Telling someone the market leader works doesn’t have the same cachet.
I’m far from an old, grizzled veteran who could care less. I care deeply about my clients. I don’t want my clients making the wrong decision, so I will offer my counsel when asked. But far less is at stake for me because I’m not trying to enhance reputation as an expert. I’ve got a track record and great client list, and I want to keep it that way.
To me, these questions are far more interesting.
- What is the true cost for my client to switch from a familiar platform to a less familiar one?
- What criteria should be included in the evaluation of the systems? Every system out there can make pretty pictures. What else should be considered?
- How does a mature market leader such as Avid counter the passion of young evangelists? Let’s face it. There’s not a lot of professional glory to be had convincing an employer or client not to switch. So the whole evangelist thing will almost always work against the market leader.
Time permitting, I’ll spend some time answering these questions in future posts.
Flip4Mac releases Universal version
Flip4Mac has finally released a Universal version of its popular Windows Media player and encoder for the Mac. The player’s free, the encoder’s not. Though it’s far from a best of breed WMV encoder, Flip4Mac does the trick for quick jobs. I no longer have to boot up Windows to get encode a WMV clip on my MacBook Pro.
