As most of my dedicated readers know, I'm a big Lost fan. It's one of my favorite shows. Although I'm a big follower of the show, I missed most of Season 5. Being that I live in the 21st Century, I figured that I could watch all the Season 5 episodes on either Hulu.com or ABC.com...I was wrong.
Apparently ABC is witholding from officially putting all the episodes online for a few reasons. I suspect that the top reason is that they fear that DVD sales would be somehow hurt if all the Season 5 episodes were easily available on the Web.
This small example clearly illustrates the remaining friction between a short-term, profit-oriented perspective and the inevitable future of a purely digital medium. These last gasps by the likes of the old guard, e.g. ABC, are both annoying and harmful. Once this reality fully seeps into the mainstream media moguls there will be no more DVDs or CDs. Only once this reality is fully accepted will the likes of ABC be able to innovate adequately profitable business models that make Web TV infinitely more powerful than physical formats such as DVDs.
Showing posts with label Web TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Web TV. Show all posts
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Web TV is Confusing
I now regularly rely on the Internet to catch up on television shows and movies. Technology has finally caught up so as to provide a sufficiently pleasant experience - e.g. high resolution, quick download time, etc.
But the decentralized nature of the Internet is far from conducive to easily finding shows. There are the official websites such as NBC.com and ABC.com, the officially endorsed aggregators such as Hulu, the pay-for-subscription services such as Netflix, the user-generated hubs such as YouTube, and then there are the bootleg sites that offer lower quality but greater diversity. The complexity is further complicated by the fact that there seems to be very little logic behind which shows end up where and for how long.
Clearly there is a need for some central, interactive, and highly comprehensive Internet-based TV Guide - and there are a few in development/early-stage rollout. But what's even more important is the need for some form of collective, marketplace understanding - potentially driven by consumers - as to what, when, where, and which content is expected.
But the decentralized nature of the Internet is far from conducive to easily finding shows. There are the official websites such as NBC.com and ABC.com, the officially endorsed aggregators such as Hulu, the pay-for-subscription services such as Netflix, the user-generated hubs such as YouTube, and then there are the bootleg sites that offer lower quality but greater diversity. The complexity is further complicated by the fact that there seems to be very little logic behind which shows end up where and for how long.
Clearly there is a need for some central, interactive, and highly comprehensive Internet-based TV Guide - and there are a few in development/early-stage rollout. But what's even more important is the need for some form of collective, marketplace understanding - potentially driven by consumers - as to what, when, where, and which content is expected.
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