Roulette Table: The Miracle of Media to Come
Mark Hollands
05/09/2006 09:00:00
Part 1 of 2 pages
"If I need your opinion, I'll give it to you," the legendary movie mogul Sam Goldwyn once boomed in a simple articulation of his autocratic genius.
What the late Tinseltown tycoon would think of the swath of new technologies and media business models currently exploding on the silver screen of innovation is anyone's guess. But there is no doubt this canny icon of the movie business would not only have an opinion but his own strategy to ensure he did not have merely a bit-part - or be written out of the script - by stubbornly repeating the lines of a bygone era.
The next transformation of the media has already started and will be widely recognized as truly historic before we are finished with it. Today, it is the best evolving case study of what happens to an industry when technical innovation and generational change combine to become an unstoppable social and business force.
If you work in an industry that has experienced such dramatic dynamics, like those in financial services, then you'll be familiar with the oddly contradictory emotions of uncertainty and excitement that many media executives are experiencing right now.
For those of you whose industries have not really been affected beyond technology enablement for efficiency and improved business processes, then it should be as valuable as it is entertaining to follow what will be high drama; more dramatic even than TV high-flyer Eddie McGuire telling the world he wants to "bone" a breakfast show host.
Next-Gen Media
This script for media revolution is much more than the excruciatingly dull debate about Australian government regulation of media. That's a sideshow; not even. This storyline stretches far beyond the parochial concerns of how media moguls, holed up in their Toorak and Double Bay bunkers, will plunder the open mines of digital gems.
And there is little more than a supporting role for the so-called "triple play" strategies of telecommunications companies, which are trying to keep customers with bundled combinations of voice-mobile-Internet offerings.
So, what is really going on, what or who will take the starring roles in next-gen media? It must be Google, right? Fantastically, nobody knows; especially those who say they do. There is no more exciting place to be in technology right now. The companies now claiming a stake in this game are little more than blindfolded players throwing darts at the board, hoping and dreaming they will spear the bulls-eye. Google darts are the closest, that's for sure.
Moderate winners will be the traditional tech companies. Increasing demands will be made for networking technologies, hardware and software for storage. So the likes of IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP - all the usual suspects, in fact - will make money if they are even half-smart. However, they will no longer be our economic icons as they have been since the 90s. For them, their role will be little more than pipes and infrastructure. Increasingly, no one much cares about them.
Microsoft is different. Of course. It has had its chips on pretty much every number on the roulette table for a long time. Also different, Apple has produced it own little miracle with the iPod - a classic transformational business model, not just a gadget. However, Microsoft's upcoming Zune strategy and hardware, plus handset-music plays from the likes of Nokia and Motorola, will surely squeeze Apple's pips in the next five years.
But this is commentary only about traditional tech companies. The most significant contributions are coming from the content kings and companies, such as Google, MySpace and YouTube, which were not even on the radar until very recently.
Beyond many of these new and largely unproven companies emerging, a number of social characteristics are the true force shaking and stirring today's media cocktail.
These, perhaps not surprisingly, also mimic the behaviours of the "Y" and "Millennium" generations of adolescents and young adults who now enter the workforce with values and attitudes that mystify old farts who grew up thinking you were lucky to have a job.
Equally mystifying is the style of content these kids invent and want, including:
» Social networking - services such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo provide this;
» Opportunities to collaborate and share ideas - wikis, blogs and the like which have already become old news despite a slowish uptake in Australia;
» Unified communications - that always-on, anywhere, anytime story. (And off when they want it off.)
» Entertainment on demand - music, TV, audio that is global and unfettered; (and screw all that local regulation crap, just give it to me when I want it).
Providing all these various services, and many more besides, is seen as multi-billion-dollar opportunities. For example, News Corp paid $US528 million for MySpace - an incredible amount of money for what it is now, but perhaps not for what it might become. Others are following this path. MTV, which changed the face of music in the 80s, has launched MTV Flux (nothing to do with indigestion they tell me) to compete. The theme here is the belief that there is money to be made in user-produced content - a concept we oldies and media types have long scoffed at.
IP-TV: No Walled Garden
Perhaps the biggest bucks for biggest impact are being invested in IP-TV - a technology that threatens traditional TV and advertising business models. There is plenty of innovation to come in this space, but there is no doubt a major part of the media we consume in the future will be through IP-TV, which will one day be known as (shockingly) TV!
Telecommunications companies are putting the most wood behind this arrow. While it has dominated press debate, there is no profitable model to emerge from the numerous trials. Indeed, in a world of 2.5 billion TV sets, plus 250 million cable subscribers, there are only 2 million people tuning into IP-TV.
The best trials are, predictably, in Asia, which continues to demonstrate its people are the earliest of adopters - Japanese schoolgirls being the world's first SMS'ers, of course. There are 600,000 subscribers in Hong Kong, tuning their TVs into either PCCW or HK Broadband. Another 90,000 watch IP-TV in China and 80,000 in Japan through KDDI. In Europe, Free and France Telecom leads the way with 900,000 customers. There are numerous trials in the US, though none with more than 100,000 subscribers. The Aussies are, metaphorically, still brewing the tea.
IP-TV will offer channels from all over the world, never mind what Helen Coonan thinks the rules should be. The idea of SMS'ing to keep Michael Slater on that ice-skating show will be too ridiculous to contemplate - just send an e-mail from the TV. And when the phone rings, the caller ID will come on screen. You might even do a videoconference there and then. Calls will be IP-based; farewell those outrageous ISD charges. Viral marketing, not ads, will permeate our lives. Content will be subscription-driven but much cheaper because of volume. Governments, let's hope, will try to secure some free stuff for everyone, as our lot do with mainstream sport now.
Today, the telcos see IP-TV as some sort of walled garden. It won't stay like that. It can't. Our kids won't let it. We are about to behold a miracle of media driven by innovation and the generation that will inherit this planet from us.
You should tune into this saga. It is hard to imagine anything being more exciting. So long as he could make a buck, Sam Goldwyn would agree.
Mark Hollands is an Asia-Pacific vice-president at Gartner. His views are independent and not necessarily those of Gartner.
05/09/2006 09:00:00
Part 1 of 2 pages
"If I need your opinion, I'll give it to you," the legendary movie mogul Sam Goldwyn once boomed in a simple articulation of his autocratic genius.
What the late Tinseltown tycoon would think of the swath of new technologies and media business models currently exploding on the silver screen of innovation is anyone's guess. But there is no doubt this canny icon of the movie business would not only have an opinion but his own strategy to ensure he did not have merely a bit-part - or be written out of the script - by stubbornly repeating the lines of a bygone era.
The next transformation of the media has already started and will be widely recognized as truly historic before we are finished with it. Today, it is the best evolving case study of what happens to an industry when technical innovation and generational change combine to become an unstoppable social and business force.
If you work in an industry that has experienced such dramatic dynamics, like those in financial services, then you'll be familiar with the oddly contradictory emotions of uncertainty and excitement that many media executives are experiencing right now.
For those of you whose industries have not really been affected beyond technology enablement for efficiency and improved business processes, then it should be as valuable as it is entertaining to follow what will be high drama; more dramatic even than TV high-flyer Eddie McGuire telling the world he wants to "bone" a breakfast show host.
Next-Gen Media
This script for media revolution is much more than the excruciatingly dull debate about Australian government regulation of media. That's a sideshow; not even. This storyline stretches far beyond the parochial concerns of how media moguls, holed up in their Toorak and Double Bay bunkers, will plunder the open mines of digital gems.
And there is little more than a supporting role for the so-called "triple play" strategies of telecommunications companies, which are trying to keep customers with bundled combinations of voice-mobile-Internet offerings.
So, what is really going on, what or who will take the starring roles in next-gen media? It must be Google, right? Fantastically, nobody knows; especially those who say they do. There is no more exciting place to be in technology right now. The companies now claiming a stake in this game are little more than blindfolded players throwing darts at the board, hoping and dreaming they will spear the bulls-eye. Google darts are the closest, that's for sure.
Moderate winners will be the traditional tech companies. Increasing demands will be made for networking technologies, hardware and software for storage. So the likes of IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP - all the usual suspects, in fact - will make money if they are even half-smart. However, they will no longer be our economic icons as they have been since the 90s. For them, their role will be little more than pipes and infrastructure. Increasingly, no one much cares about them.
Microsoft is different. Of course. It has had its chips on pretty much every number on the roulette table for a long time. Also different, Apple has produced it own little miracle with the iPod - a classic transformational business model, not just a gadget. However, Microsoft's upcoming Zune strategy and hardware, plus handset-music plays from the likes of Nokia and Motorola, will surely squeeze Apple's pips in the next five years.
But this is commentary only about traditional tech companies. The most significant contributions are coming from the content kings and companies, such as Google, MySpace and YouTube, which were not even on the radar until very recently.
Beyond many of these new and largely unproven companies emerging, a number of social characteristics are the true force shaking and stirring today's media cocktail.
These, perhaps not surprisingly, also mimic the behaviours of the "Y" and "Millennium" generations of adolescents and young adults who now enter the workforce with values and attitudes that mystify old farts who grew up thinking you were lucky to have a job.
Equally mystifying is the style of content these kids invent and want, including:
» Social networking - services such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo provide this;
» Opportunities to collaborate and share ideas - wikis, blogs and the like which have already become old news despite a slowish uptake in Australia;
» Unified communications - that always-on, anywhere, anytime story. (And off when they want it off.)
» Entertainment on demand - music, TV, audio that is global and unfettered; (and screw all that local regulation crap, just give it to me when I want it).
Providing all these various services, and many more besides, is seen as multi-billion-dollar opportunities. For example, News Corp paid $US528 million for MySpace - an incredible amount of money for what it is now, but perhaps not for what it might become. Others are following this path. MTV, which changed the face of music in the 80s, has launched MTV Flux (nothing to do with indigestion they tell me) to compete. The theme here is the belief that there is money to be made in user-produced content - a concept we oldies and media types have long scoffed at.
IP-TV: No Walled Garden
Perhaps the biggest bucks for biggest impact are being invested in IP-TV - a technology that threatens traditional TV and advertising business models. There is plenty of innovation to come in this space, but there is no doubt a major part of the media we consume in the future will be through IP-TV, which will one day be known as (shockingly) TV!
Telecommunications companies are putting the most wood behind this arrow. While it has dominated press debate, there is no profitable model to emerge from the numerous trials. Indeed, in a world of 2.5 billion TV sets, plus 250 million cable subscribers, there are only 2 million people tuning into IP-TV.
The best trials are, predictably, in Asia, which continues to demonstrate its people are the earliest of adopters - Japanese schoolgirls being the world's first SMS'ers, of course. There are 600,000 subscribers in Hong Kong, tuning their TVs into either PCCW or HK Broadband. Another 90,000 watch IP-TV in China and 80,000 in Japan through KDDI. In Europe, Free and France Telecom leads the way with 900,000 customers. There are numerous trials in the US, though none with more than 100,000 subscribers. The Aussies are, metaphorically, still brewing the tea.
IP-TV will offer channels from all over the world, never mind what Helen Coonan thinks the rules should be. The idea of SMS'ing to keep Michael Slater on that ice-skating show will be too ridiculous to contemplate - just send an e-mail from the TV. And when the phone rings, the caller ID will come on screen. You might even do a videoconference there and then. Calls will be IP-based; farewell those outrageous ISD charges. Viral marketing, not ads, will permeate our lives. Content will be subscription-driven but much cheaper because of volume. Governments, let's hope, will try to secure some free stuff for everyone, as our lot do with mainstream sport now.
Today, the telcos see IP-TV as some sort of walled garden. It won't stay like that. It can't. Our kids won't let it. We are about to behold a miracle of media driven by innovation and the generation that will inherit this planet from us.
You should tune into this saga. It is hard to imagine anything being more exciting. So long as he could make a buck, Sam Goldwyn would agree.
Mark Hollands is an Asia-Pacific vice-president at Gartner. His views are independent and not necessarily those of Gartner.
