The new Television, On-line TV has officially arived, almost.
This is a public service announcement:
There is now enough quality, regularly produced, on-line video content to warrant watching Internet TV instead of regular TV.
Because of a great piece of technology called the DemocracyPlayer. It’s like I-Tunes, but for TV.
While this may have been true for some time, it is now true to me and I want to let you all in on it.
Now that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop watching traditional television, there are still a few things that need to happen to allow me to go full-time on-line for my video entertainment needs.
It would be wise for the likes of YouTube, Google, Yahoo, GetDemocracy.com (and ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) to pay attention to the following items:
1. Currently, when I find a good source of videos to watch, I can subscribe within YouTube, Atom Films, or (insert video site here) but I can’t import that subscription into my Democracy Player. I would love to see little Democracy subscription icons accompanying every on-line video feed. Maybe, Democracy can create a plug-in that will allow me to import videos from my video site accounts ad additional channels in my player.
2. Offline content needs to come on-line in a bad way. It’s time for the big networks to give it up. We want to watch their content on-line, but not in their fancy little ad guaranteed sites. Let us watch it where we want to watch it.
That’s it. That’s all I need. If these two hurdles can be jumped, we will see the masses, and myself, flock on-line for the majority of our entertainment needs.
Sure, HD will still be formidable, and until the technology allows us to upload HD video quickly and cheaply enough, there will still be a market for cable and satellite TV. However, for most of my viewing, I could give a rat’s ass about HD. I want to laugh or cry or whatever.
Seeing him more clearly doesn’t make Jon Stewart funnier.
Message to the Participatory Culture Foundation: (makers of the Democracy Player)
Get social, get integrated, look at Technorati, make a deal or two with sites like YouTube, become the ultimate aggrigator like we all know you can be.
If you don’t because you want to only focus on non-corporate relationships in an effort to somehow serve the greater good, someone else will. That someone is far less likely to use their power for the good of the consumer population like we know you would.
Message to the Networks:
Imbed all the ads you want into the stream. I can fast forward them with my Tivo, so why would this be any different. Respect me enough to give me your valuable content the way I want to watch it.
It is good for you to send your content out on-line. You can make ads click-able and track what I click on. You can know your actual viewership rather than relying on Nielsen ratings. Based on the ads I respond to, you can adjust my ad feed to make my ads more relevant to me, making me want to view and click them more often. Finally, you can turn me into a more loyal viewer by giving me the content I want where and when I want it.
Furthermore, you can get a considerable advantage on your competition by embracing this new medium before your competitors. After all, this is an attention economy and if your shows are being watched on-line, your competitors aren’t being watched offline. The sooner you move, the more competitive advantage you can gain.
Perhaps a scrappy network like the CB needs to do it first. If you know anyone over there, have them give me a call.
Message to my Readers:
What would it take for you to consume all of your visual media on-line?
What could the video sites and networks do to make you alter your viewing habits?
What hurdles do you see, political and technological, that would cause this end to come about more slowly or not at all?
