I have been in the technology industry now for over 20 years and over the last 5 there has been an interesting pattern in terms of 'new' technology. It would appear that journalists now manage to get themselves caught up in the hype and personality around technology products, avoiding at all costs the reality of what is likely to happen.
In the Sunday papers today 2 spring out as prime examples one is We7 the 'new' venture backed by Peter Gabriel and the other 'new' technology is Joost. Both of these it would appear are just a stones throw away from changing the way we live. They have been labelled as having that all important genre that all 'new' technology needs.....they are disruptive!!
I think someone should start with the basics so lets look at the Joost proposition.
Any delivery of files be they music or video over a network can only get there as quickly as the network will allow, it's physics really, they can't get there any quicker no matter what technologists will have you believe. So when we take that as the context the idea that you will be able to watch broadcast quality television over the public internet, with the way the networks are currently is utter nonsense. Plain and simple you won't be able to do that.
Joost is a peer to peer technology so it is said it will be much quicker, sorry no it won't, because of the simple fact that I have mentioned in a previous blog, there is no quality of service on the network. This basically means I cannot guarantee that the data will get there in a timely fashion, the public internet does not have this facility, and it is this that will enable Joost not P2P. So the user experience is likely to be awful, small screen, slightly blurred at times and with jitter i.e it will keep stopping and starting. This service will be free!!! I'm sure it will, the reason is? They know perfectly well that no one in the right mind would pay for it. So it is now sold as free TV because they have advertisers queuing up.
Sell them the hype and I'm sure you can convince organisations with no idea about technology to buy just about anything.
Then we come onto We7 who are now going to sell you the idea that your music will be free as long as you listen to the 10 second advert at the start. Is it me!!
The free music thing that has been getting so much airtime, is about kids downloading because they have no money and now they will target this very demographic with adverts. Why, they can't spend anything anyway! Ofcom etc are already looking at internet adverts targeted at minors, this is just going one step further. How are you going to police the fact that junk food and soft drink manufacturers are advertising to under 16's. I'm sure you aren't going to see too many adverts for Ford cars in there. The majority of people with expendable income are perfectly happy to pay for a quality product. I personally don't want to have to listen to adverts for Coke, MacDonald’s or anything else when I'm trying to chill out and listen to some decent music....do you?
It seems to me that if you have a product that very few people will pay for then all you do is wrap it up with advertising and call it a new business model. The fundamental issue here is that the product you have is either not very good or is in a saturated market and no matter what you do, advertising will not change that.
I am,personally, happy to watch TV on demand on a big screen in my living room and also listen to music that is mine and uninterrupted. Maybe i'm old fashioned that way
Comments welcome ;-)
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