We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
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When Gutenberg printed his first Bible in 1455, is it possible he ever thought "I believe this technology will be outdated in 650 years"? Doubtful. In fact, he probably didn't even care.
We do care about change, though. Mainly because it is part of our lives. Change shapes us and molds us, even as we create the change we seek in our own lives. For Gutenberg, much of life was relatively the same over the course of time. By the time Benjamin Franklin was a printer 300 years later, he was still using essentially the same technology Gutenberg had created. Some revisions had taken place, but it was still a very manual process and the nature of the process would not seem unfamiliar to Gutenberg.
It's been about 100 years since men like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst changed the business of publishing. How would they have reacted to a blog like Maggie's? Could they have envisioned the future and recognized opportunity? It's possible, but more likely they would have feared the shift in message delivery systems and fought the new technology. Our perceptions about what we do and where we are going is shaped by what we've have done in the past. As a result, we tend to react poorly to new ideas and products which don't fit neatly into the way we believe life should progress. 25 years ago, we would have considered it odd to think that a TV would hang on a wall or that we could purchase virtually everything we needed as we watched a TV program.
We have seen the world change radically as the internet took off, particularly over the last 15-25 years. The speed at which we are able to perform tasks, shop, collect and process information, and the way we entertain ourselves has increased. As a result, other parts of our life have sped up, too. We are finding what we want more quickly, getting it faster, and consuming it.
Recently Google purchased Motorola Mobility. Many claimed it was for the patents. Others claimed it was driven by technology. Still others claimed it was a move to consolidate the mobile market for Android. I still believe it was data driven. Google is a data company. Motorola Mobility is the largest maker of set top boxes for cable, and there is a boatload of data about you and your viewing habits in those boxes. Google has been searching for ways to merge TV and Online viewing data, and certainly this is one way they can move forward. Google does not view the current media landscape as a basis for future growth, and they are looking to shake it up.
We've witnessed the 'death of newspapers and magazines'. Perhaps not really dead yet, but certainly living an alternate reality. Are other media 'dying'? Is it all facing a similar fate, as we move rapidly toward some new method of watching TV, listening to music, and gathering information? I don't think so. Just because the distribution channel changes, doesn't mean the product has substantially changed. All that occurs are changes to the patterns of how we consume various products. This, however, is very meaningful because it changes how the product generates revenue.
Changes like these impact us at a business and personal level. In 1994 I attended a conference about the internet and media. Several corporations were present and each one was discussing the theme of 'convergence'. The discussion points were that TV, internet and telephones were all going to be mixed into one big massive industry. The first two corporations stepped up and predicted it would happen in 5 years. The final corporation, Sprint, gave their presentation and suggested convergence was important, but not to expect massive shifts for 10 to 15 years.
We are at that inflection point now, and Google is striving to be the firm leading that shift. This isn't the real change, though. The real change is behind the scenes, where your data is collected and used, making the Motorola Mobility purchase all the more valuable to Google. Newspapers knew relatively little about you beyond your name and address. Maybe there were circulars or coupons in the paper, so they knew they could profit from their delivery system by working with retailers to distribute offers and deals. They didn't know much about your habits or how they used that information. Today you're getting much more from media companies. Ads are targeted to you based on sites you visit, where you live and purchases you've made online.
Google, among many other firms, is seeking to extend this to where you are at the moment (Android), what you watch on TV (Motorola), and is already doing it based on what you search for or words you read and write in your gmail. With the announcement that Xbox may become a cable and internet box of its own....well, we can see Microsoft isn't comfortable with Google moving into the data territory without any competitors.
This is the new media. Content will still draw you in. But the focus will be on how, where, and why you consume the content. Certainly the technology and distribution systems continue to improve and shift, most likely to handheld devices. That's interesting and important, but doesn't change the media information and marketing industry. The fact someone will know that today you are at the beach, watching baseball, booked a hotel room nearby for the weekend, made reservations at a local restaurant, and bought tickets for a show does change things dramatically.
We need to think about how these changes are going to impact us in our personal lives. We also need to think about whether these are changes we want to have, and are comfortable with.
