Are we able to predict the next five years any better than
we did the last five?
What is very clear is that technology and how we apply it is
not only changing what we consume, but what we create, how we discover it,
value it, share it and is changing our very culture. It was once said that we were
no longer listening to music but starting to make it, no longer reading but starting
to write our own stories, no longer just watching TV and films but starting to make
them. Today these statements are very real and the tools and technology to
create media is available to all, along with the channels to promote and sell It,
with or without the middlemen. YouTube has started to redefine how many now
discover and watch music, Shazam on how we discover it and the likes of Spotify
on how we access it on demand.
We now live within a permanently ‘switched on’ environment,
where we are accessible at all times and where we can access everything
anywhere, anytime. We live with a mobile smartphone in our pockets which can now
perform all our office functions, access everything, take pictures and videos,
calculate the complex, locate where we are and what we are near, play music,
videos, games and more in real time, interact via voice command, communicate
with all and even still make and receive voice and now video calls.
Although we now have the smartphone technology in our
pockets and the high speed connectivity to make everything happen, what does
this mean to how we live? Are we now all creators, journalists, photographers,
director, reviewers as well as consumers? The days when we relied on curators
and professional reviewers of taste are now giving way to the social recommendations
of what are often physical strangers. More importantly, as we become
increasingly ‘open all hours’, do we become more discerning, or do we adopt an
increasingly low attention channel hopping lifestyle?
Technology is becoming more intuitive. No longer are we
wedded to a keyboard and a mouse, but at last we are now starting to become
more dextrous and multi-taskers. With voice and even retina control commands becoming
more common. The ‘sixth sense’ world envisaged by Pranav Mistry
is now here, but is technology now enabling cultural change or responding to
its demands?
Some believe that stuff (the various media forms ) will
merge and what was once a single format story, video, audio, song is going to
become all these plus a game and all rolled into one experience. Some believe
that each media form will remain separate, but alternative formats will be immediately
accessible on demand. Does it matter whether a story is in text, film audio, or
is it more about the time we have to discover, digest and value it? Does multimedia
demand more or less concentration than an audio file or a film? Does technology
now give us the time to read the book or does it present us with too many
alternative distractions and restrict our reading?
Many forget that the other aspect that is under constant
threat is time. It is how we use our time and how technology helps us to
achieve this that is probably the greatest cultural change.
So what of the next five years?
There will always be a need for quality time and that will
demand quality solutions and stuff. What we have to think about is not the mix
but the time. Media that was created to fit yesterday’s economic model, be it a
cinema channel, space on a disc, or physical print press is still valid but now
increasingly challenged by technology that is rebalancing those economics,
channels and supply chains. We must start to create content that is not padded
out or abridged to fit a form but is now built to fit time windows of lifestyle.
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