For my final blog post in Drew Keller’s Web Storytelling course this summer in the MCDM, I am going to diverge just a little from the exact question Drew posed for us with this entry, which was: Bill Wasik at Big Think believes shorter content on-line will always be free; do I agree or disagree? Wasik, in this video, takes new media to task, discussing things like the beauty of what the longtail provides us, the detriments of endless online distractions, and what people are willing to pay for on the web. I’m less concerned about whether people will pay for content based on duration or production value, or what they will or will not pay for in terms of any type of content at all. I’m satisfied with the current status quo – I love that the web evens the playing field for cultural commodities, that for a few bucks Spider-Man 3 on Netflix can be streamed one minute, or without any money changing hands a clip of a teenager brutally injuring himself on a trampoline at YouTube can be shared the next, and, also for free, I can finish with a live satellite feed from CNN of a breaking news event in India while engaging fellow Facebook users about what’s happening, all of it right here online and on my lappy at the coffee shop. Obviously people are willing to pay for access to the infrastructure that provides all of this content – the DSL, the cable Internet, the FiOS and so forth. And they’ll pay for that Netflix download and other certain things, too. But it seems that web culture was FOREVER decided that digital = free, so content providers have to generally rely on meager revenue streams from embedded adverts and banner ads and interstitials and the like so I can still watch the latest episode of “Desperate Housewives” any time of day. But I guess that’s just not enough for content producers and providers. They keep asking – everyone keeps asking:
Where da money at?
Answer: Place-shifting, time-shifting, and format-shifting.
Any kind of shifting. CONVENIENCE is what people want and will pay for. Content providers are so concerned about out-dated license structures. They’re scared of the margin, that the 1337 kiddies will pwn them the way the music industry got pwnt by file-sharing (which was their own fault, not Napster). Providers are perpetually in bed with technology manufacturers making sure innovation is curtailed and that new technology is defective by design. Stop plugging the analog holes of the world, stop making devices counter-intuitive, and stop making the masses do the innovating for you by looking for the next workaround. Ditch your DRM and proprietary formats, unlock your devices, your iPhones and cable boxes and XBOXes and every kind of box, so that they’ll never need jail-broken and do what they are REALLY capable of doing. Empower people. And stop trying to control your content. Just like the web always smacks brands in the face every time they try to control their messages, the web will slap content providers in the face when they try to control their content, too. If it’s easy, it’s fast, and it just works, people will pay for it. iTunes is infinitely more convenient than the surviving, illegal methods. And when the file I download works on a litany of devices, I’m happy. You’ve given the customer what they want. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?
I look forward to the day I can turn on my TV and in a few button-pushes have the movie, TV show, or inane trampoline video I want, downloaded DRM-free to my set-top superbox, a file that I now can do whatever I want with and copy to any format I choose, accessible at any time or in any place (yo, mobile, hook me up!) that I’d like. I can stick it on my iPod, my laptop, a DVD, a thumb drive, a smartphone… CONTENT PROVIDERS: Set your content free and people will pay for it, because they will pay for the highest quality iteration of it at the most convenient distribution point (my TV would be nice), especially if it happens FAST and isn’t complicated (see iTunes). Content providers need to make better deals with the Comcasts and AT&Ts of the world so that this simple world of distribution can finally happen.
And that, my friends, is where the money is at. Makes sense to me.
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Tags: content, convergence, monetization, web culture