I just made a throwaway reference to Bill Gates’ claim that TV will be irrelevant in five years, but I find myself wondering about what exactly we’re going to see replace it.
Me, my own TV consumption patterns have changed due to TiVo in the same way that my weblog consumption patterns have changed due to RSS. It’s possible to see a TiVo as an RSS reader for the web – you ‘subscribe’ to your favorite shows, instead of ‘browsing’ from channel to channel.
I don’t care if the TV show I’m subscribing to is on NBC, Sci-Fi, or Bravo (especially since they’re all owned by the same company). TiVo has already demonstrated the ability to suck down webcasts with Rocketboom. It’s entirely possible to imagine content delivered through [webcasts/netcasts/podcasts/whatever] alongside regular network distribution completely transparently. As long as the content is of similar quality, IPTV facilitates the circumvention of the traditional network system and all the ridiculous overhead costs inherent therein.
There, in a nutshell, is why IPTV fascinates me. Plenty more of this to come, I’m sure.
Storyteller, scholar, consultant. Loving son, husband and father. Kindhearted mischief-maker.
I'm the Director of the Games and Simulation program at Miami University in Ohio, where I am also an Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Arts' Emerging Technology in Business and Design department. I'm also the director of Miami's Worldbuilding and Narrative Design Research Laboratory (WNDRLab). I have a Master's in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a PhD in Media Arts and Practices from the University of Southern California.
In past lives I've been the lead Narrative Producer for Microsoft Studios and cofounder of its Narrative Design team, working on projects like Hololens, Quantum Break and new IP incubation; in a "future of media" think tank for Microsoft's CXO/CTO and its Chief Software Architect; the Creative Director for the University of Southern California's World Building Media Lab and the Technical Director, Creative Director and a Research Fellow for USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab; a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whittier College and director of its Whittier Other Worlds Laboratory (WOWLab); the Communications Director and a researcher for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a founding member of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT (now The Futures of Entertainment); a magazine editor; and a award-winning short film producer. more »
The opinions put forward in this blog are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.
