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Roger McNamee On Video on the Internet
plasticmillion writes "Roger McNamee, venture capitalist and author of The New Normal has just posted the third part of a fascinating series on his blog entitled "Video on the Internet". Here are parts one and two. His basic premise is that media companies are trying to treat the internet as a normal distribution channel like broadcast or DVD, but they need to learn that there are new rules to this game if they are to avoid the errors committed by the music industry. The user comments are also a must read, with luminaries like Marc Andreessen chiming in with their insights."
They've got that right. The bottleneck is still bandwidth into the home, but as that continues to improve, expect little grassroots content to pop-up all over the place. Of course the pr0n industry will obviously be an early adopter, but imagine being able to go out with a video camera with your friends and do your own TV shows, broadcast the local s Jr league soccer match or even your HS football games. Even ambitious people could do up their own Star-Trek shows. Those which demonstrate real promise could probably sell advertising or subcriptions or even sell out, if they have a mind to. Consider how low budget you could do your own Dr. Who.
I think television is already losing to the internet, what'll it look like as the barriers come down to hosting your own shows? Interactive, even.
'i don't like what he said, mod him down, enough negative points and it'll launch a rotton tomato at him!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The technology is available now for cheaply producing a reasonably good internet show. Good video cameras are cheap, powerful editing computers are cheap, and there is plenty of open source software out there for making it all come together. The main bottleneck was always that dialup connection your non-geek neighbors had and their lack of internet awareness. But now that grandma is surfing the net instead of watching TV, and broadband is getting broader; how long will it be till "cable access" is obsolete and everyone just posts their shows as .torrent links to a community bulliten board/wiki/content site?
.mp3 music and meeting minutes, common application installers (firefox, openoffice), among other things available on many of the nodes for local distribution (not to metion being fast downloads as you don't have to go over the slower internet backhaul for the content).
Actually this is allready being done on a small scale in some networks. The Portland, Oregon Personal Teclo Project http://www.personaltelco.com/ offers free community wireless internet access and also has local content including news,
I still say that there needs to be a system where once you purchase it you can keep it. Wether that would be buring say a physical DVD or what ever comes next or the ablity to redownload and have some kind of key to reunlock it again.
Again I have to use Apple as an example. Two years ago I bought QuickTime pro. Well two logic boards and system wipes later, I can go into my account and get my access key online.
I am not against DRM so long as there is a balance. No matter what your view on the media industry is, I respect the ideas of copyrights.
Why? I work in the industry in a small company that produces 3D FX for smaller video producers using Lightwave 3D and other high price software. I have seen people try entering the market with pirated software and once they are discovered blacklisted. Why? Lightwave is about $1600 a seat. We pay for it. I didn't quite understand what people meant by "piracy hurts" until I started working in the industry and it changed my mind a little.
Like I said, there has to be a fair balance and it will work...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Historically, Hollywood has not only survived non-theatrical distribution formats such as TV, VCR, DVD, it has also benefited from them, and it will eventually figure out a way to use Internet as a distribution channel. With due respect to Mr. McNamee's convoluted theorem, I think Hollywood has no reason to fear these "gadgets of the month" like Tivo and Akimbo, and I base my observation on my 15-year experience of working in both movie studios and independent film industry. Allow me to explain.
Hollywood has a group of loyal friends, namely, local theater owners -- all these guys have to do is to find an air-conditioned place, a projection booth, and a nice concession stand, they can sell "good times" for less than $20 per person (parking and food included). The theater owners probably don't make a lot on ticket sales, but their profits from selling popcorns and soft drinks are significant. As long as there are teenagers dying to get out of the house, lovers who are looking for a dark place to smooch, and families that need some cheap entertainment to refuel after a hard day, people will go to the movies.
This weekend, a friend excitedly informed me that he had just gotten DSL and had been downloading movies from p2p sites, but when he said it took him "days" to download a DVD-quality movie, I knew my old coworkers at the movie studios got nothing to worry about their jobs.
"Streaming or caching?" Mr. McNamee posed the big philosophical question. To me, it is as profound as asking "paper or plastic?" at the supermarket. That is to say, it's not a big deal. Hollywood makes movies for people so they can get out of the house. Those who like to stay indoors and fret over "streaming or caching" will always have their Web forums to yak until the cows come home.
Sun and Fun
What you says sounds interestng, but shows you have very little knowledge of how the film industry works. Each film is financed in a unique way, with different investors, with the major studios usually only serving as distributor or partial investor. Saying the studios should only make 10% of movies with celebrities of movies is like saying a pro sports team should only pay high salaries on 10% of the players and hire cheap players for the rest. Each movie is judged independently for its revenue potential. If the cost of the movie including star fees is lower than the expected revenue it will make, someone will invest and distribute.
Hollywood is already moving towards Internet delivery. Movielink is one of many web based services that already has content available. Studios will license content to new delivery mechanisms and business models. Getting content for businesses like Akimbo is not the problem, make a good affordable user experience in home is the challenge.
The reasons studios don't run online stores is simply its not what they are good at. Walmart and amazon may take a cut of profits, but they sell more than a studio website.
A friend of mine urged me to catch The Usual Suspects. I know that big names do not always a great movie make. So, I watched it and was absolutely blown away by it. I guess you've seen it.
Anyway, so I start telling people I work with about how great it is. First question "who's in it". Well, errr, no-one well known, but it's a great movie.
A lot of people pick movies on stars. They view them as a quality indicator, and it's probably one of the worst. Particularly some stars who just so often seem to appear in crap for no reason but the money.