Want Content? "Pick One"
A meeting with the super smart Avner Ronen of Boxee yesterday, combined with reading coverage of the Pirate Bay trial and the 30 Rock “McFlurrygate” has got me thinking on overdrive about the future of video content.
In a conversation last night with my buddy Aaron, we came up with a simple rule called “Pick One.” While certainly not groundbreaking, it’s an easy way to think about the future of entertainment.I’ve seen a lot of folks living inside the insular tech world develop the attitude that they deserve their content free of:
- cost
- time/focus consuming advertising
- product placement
This led to the “pick one” theory. For a sustainable content production model, the consumer has to pick one of those. I hate to play the old media asshole here, but an episode of Lost isn’t going to get made with none of the above.
So, I know I’m 1/2 month late in riffing here, but I did want to call out, I think it may well be the case that for web content the consumer only has to pick one, but for insanely expensive $5MM/episode HD tv content, they might have to pick two. You like 24? How about putting up with advertising AND that obnoxious Cisco ringtone…
The bottom line is just realigning our expectations post Napster, which believe it or not, never fully happened. There’s no magic “amazing content box.” UGC is not going to create scripted television. So, we have to face facts: making content has a real cost. Somebody, somewhere has got to pay, whether it’s McFlurry, you, or the quality of the content.
