I have a confession to make, actually several…I don’t Twitter, I don’t watch television (except on planes), I don’t use Flickr, and I barely blog. Not the sort of electronic resume of someone who has been stuck in the gap between media and technology for 13 years. However, these qualities actually make me a part of another group that is important to everyone that works in the downloadable media (and every other form of media), the audience.
With the fundamental pillars of media and audience behavior shifting as they have never before, we are faced with a number of challenges and opportunities that we have never had to deal with all at once. Ten years ago, in 1997, we were all just getting a glimpse of what media could become. If you can imagine it, Tivo didn’t exist (unless you count it’s conceptual precursor; WebTV). The iPod wasn’t a part of our daily lives, even though there were MP3 players, the integrated experience we now know to be so critical was years away. “Must See TV,” was just that, a destination for most of the US television audience on Thursday night.
What a difference a decade can make…today, we control television on our schedule, not the other way around. Our entertainment finds us when it, and we, are ready. Advertising has begun to blend, out of necessity, the action and reaction that we caught a glimpse of in the early Internet, and the engagement that we traditionally associated with broadcast and cable television. Also, the notion of presence and mobile connections to our friends, peers, and coworkers have been forever changed by applications and networks that create a virtual deluge of information wherever we are.
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