Basically what you want is a Spotify for TV. You want gigabit broadband for everyone. This is not about TV as it has traditionally been understood. This is about the video format. People should be able to watch anything, anywhere, anytime. This is primarily a business paradigm challenge. Look at what has happened to music since Napster and you get an idea. Something similar has to happen to the video format, to what has been known as TV shows. Will the networks play ball? I doubt things will be smooth sailing.
Once you thus "free" the content, then software magic can happen. The TV knows who you are, what you like, how you like your news, what shows you watch. You will probably have an app on your tablet and/or smartphone that is your "remote."
Down the line your TV is coming through the Internet. I say free up the spectrum for wireless broadband.
music listening is going to move into the cloud and that the dominant model will be streaming via free ad supported Internet Radio and paid subscription services.
The internet as a technology is best suited for the creation, distribution, and consumption of mindfood: books, movies, music. But we have to get rid of out of date business models first.
For all our emphasis on techies, I think what we need more of is business innovators. We need MBA dropouts who will offer us better business models.
Reuters: Apple And Google To Clash In Music Space By Christmas: The music industry hopes to benefit from a battle for control of the mobile phone and computer desktop between Apple and Google as both technology giants go head-to-head in a wide range of media and consumer technology areas including online TV and movies, mobile phones, software and even advertising. ...... iTunes Music Store, which accounts for 70 percent of all U.S. digital music sales..... Sales of Android-based phones have rocketed in recent months to 200,000 a day ..... Music executives have long believed having other competing powerful digital music retailers could help expand the market...... Labels have been hoping that the introduction of new cloud-based music services from Apple and Google would be a major boost for winning over consumers who want to be able to access their music libraries, discover new songs and make impulse purchases wherever they have Internet access.
Competition is a good thing. What is remarkable about the Google-Apple rivalry is the two are similar sized companies that are very loved by very many people, and by now they are competing in so many different ares. That is a good thing.
The iPhone met Android. Now I guess it is iTunes' turn to see some competition. What would Google's music service be like? All the music you can consume for a basic monthly fee is my first guess, music that you can transport from device to device using your Google account.
Android phones are doing very well and are about to take over the iPhone in terms of very many numbers. They are selling as many phone as the iPhone by now. This diversity is a good thing.
The real clincher would be if these guys did to movies what they are doing to music. The movie business is so stuck. It's not even funny. It asks to be unhinged.
The book industry is in the grips like the music industry used to be. Then Steve Jobs came along and said we are not a nation of crooks, it is not that people don't want to pay, they just like the idea of digital. Don't fight the technology.
Music is like movies, like books. Books and movies are like music. They are mindfood, and they beg to go digital, full-fledged.
All books ever written and to be written should go digital. That is what the technology asks for. That is the consumer wanting. But that does not have to mean money will not be made from books.
Digital is more efficient, cheaper, easier to move around. How is that bad for business? There are millions of in-copyright, but out-of-print books. Are you telling me the digital option is bad for them? Digital will bring them back to life. Digital will give them immortality.
Every book ever written has to be digitized. But I am also all about authors making money. How do you make money?
(1) Self Publish
Publish books like blogs. There are several good, free blogging platforms. And monetize. Run ads. This is not vanity publishing because if you don't get many readers, you don't make much money. Everyone can get published, but not everyone will get a mass readership. As an author I would rather get rejected by readers than by publishers. What about you? You go global without going on a book tour.
(2) Kindle/Google Publish
Find a digital publisher who will put forth digital only editions. So if the paper book had been out there for $29, the digital version will be sold for $9. But how much you make per book sold will not change. Why are you complaining? And you have a much larger potential audience. So you will likely sell more books.
(3) Monthly Subscription
What if I was made to pay $20 per month by a digital books vendor? Or what if there were a Netflix for books? You could pay per book, or for a certain price you could read as many books as you want. And then it would be the vendor's responsibility to pay the authors, give them their cuts.
(4) The Public Library Option
In-copyright books have been available for free at public libraries. There is no reason why they should not be available also digitally. Think of it as free marketing for your books. You do want buzz.
(5) Ads Inside Books
There are ads inside TV shows. Why can't there be ads inside books? You turn from page 25 to page 26, and boom, there is a full page ad that just paid for your first 25 pages of great reading material. This way digital books can be stand alone digital objects, they don't have to stay online and look like webpages.
Of the four options, I think the best one is the ad supported version. Go free, go global, go massive.
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