January 26, 2005

Boom

GUEST: Jack O'Toole

Some months ago, Advance.net president (and uber-blogger) Jeff Jarvis coined the term "exploding television" to describe the very different video distribution road ahead:

I don't think that network programming will die but I do think that the means of distributing it will no longer be locked into the old networks. That wouldn't happen if all we were seeing were the advent of an alternative pipe: the internet v. cable. What we will see at the same time is the growth of alternative content that will be produced at a MUCH lower cost, FAR better targeted to niche interests (the mass market is dead; long live the mass of niches), providing, as a whole, new competition to the old networks. The old networks and their programmers and advertisers will see that they can get BETTER distribution via the new, distributed network and consumers will DEMAND to get material that way -- because it puts them in control -- and so we will see the hegemony of the old, centralized network start to fall away and break apart: explode.

Needless to say, these developments are going to require those of us in politics to fundamentally rethink much, if not most, of what we do. And, as this story in today's LA Times on the new video search tools at Google and Yahoo makes clear, the time to start thinking is now.

EARLIER/RELATED: New Service by TiVo Will Build Bridges From Internet to the TV (via your humble correspondent).

MORE: "What happens, for instance, if you search for some video of a place or an event and it turns out that the best stuff you find comes not from a network but from a talented individual? That changes everything...."

Posted by Jack O'Toole at January 26, 2005 03:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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