Future of Web and Media: Control of distribution is key

As many debates are going on over what will happen to media (print, TV, radio, music, movies) in this Internet age, I want to remind that distribution is the key.

Hollywood has not dominated the film industry for years because it came up with the brightest idea, it did so because it did concentrate the distribution channel.

Today, with broadband Internet becoming the norm and with mobile Internet progressing by leaps and bounds, the historical distribution model is collapsing. With diminishing audience on TV, less readers for newspaper and less sell of DVD the content producers are fighting to find alternative revenue stream.

Producing for less, trying to find advertiser on the web, restricting content access, suing illegal downloads are but a few of the ways that they are trying to achieve.

However, the question that we should be asking ourselves is "Who will control distribution?"

The answer is at two levels:

1) The Internet Access: A this point in time, the access to the Internet is controlled by cable operators and telco. As for the mobile Internet these are the mobile phone operators. All of these are quasi-monopolies and charge a increasing high fee as the need to higher bandwidth is increasing.

2) The content aggregator and directories: These are basically places where you can locate content. Some are big search listing such as Google (search) while others are repositories that are finance by advertising (youTube) or sales (iTunes).

These are really the new distribution channels of this Internet age. Those are the one that will have considerable financial resources to negotiate with content producers to buy content (or acquires them like the Comcast-NBC/Universal deal).

Notes from IBC 2009 - AVID

If anything, IBC 2009 made me revise my opinion on AVID technologies.
I have known Avid since before they launch and have seen them like a
significantly arrogant company. They could obviously get away with it
for a while when they were basically the only game in town.

However, during the past 5 years especially, things have changed
significantly. Another company that has an arrogant tendency (when
things go well in a market), Apple Computers has establish themselves
as a formidable competitor to Avid. Final Cut Pro is know the software
that people know and is use by far more people.

This forced Avid to rethink itself. I was skeptical when they
presented their new logo an image. I must say, their attitude has
change. This was a question of survival and they seem to have taken
notes.

2 years ago, I was dismissing them completely, not anymore. I would
look at them again for a project.

One thing that is fundamental and that we have to consider:

-Avid core business is video editing. They live and die by it.

-Apple Computers core business is computers. For them FCP is a way to
gain market share in a vertical market. Now they do.

How much motivation Apple has still to invest a lot in the video
market place. Their iPod and iPhone business is booming, Mac sales are
up. iMovie is certainly part of their offering with Quicktime. But
FCP? How much innovation are they going to do in it on the long term?

Avid on the other hand has no options. They must innovate and compete
in the video editing market or become irrelevant and disappear. In a
market where the high end is shrinking and where the low end is occupy
by a virtually free software, will Avid find enough business to prosper?

It's a question that only the future will solve, but I don't discard
Avid anymore and I hope they manage to grow their market back.
Competition is good for innovation.

Current in my Montreal living room

One of the great thing about Montreal being 40 miles from the US
border is access to US airwaves.