GMC, Bitches (part 1)

Seamus and I have had many a conversation, probably adding up to several hours’ worth of minutes on the cellies, about what I term the “GMC (Great Media Convergence)”. I believe that hard entertainment media will be dead within 7-10 years. These dead media will include CDs, DVDs, and anything else that delivers programming to your house. I want to speed along the process, and I am a Tivo-brand loyalist, so following are my ramblings.

Amazon Unboxed is a new service whereby one can buy/rent movies and shows from Amazon through their Tivo and broadband connection. They select the purchase on the intartubes, pay for it through Amazon, and it is downloaded for them to view on their Tivo or computer, depending on their preference. Advantages include ease of use and video quality, while disadvantages include DL time and limited timeframe for viewing the ‘rentals’ before Tivo snatches it away from you.

Tivo has also come up with the “universal swivel search”, which is a way to search for programs from multiple sources, including TivoCasts (faux-Podcasts for Tivo only), Amazon Unboxed, and the normal TV. Getting warmer. Disadvantages again include DL time, but the advantage is that when you sit down to watch TV, you can interact solely with the TV.

Those two things out of the way, here’s my idear: why don’t networks and/or production companies deliver programming directly through Amazon and Tivo, sans DVDs, for permanent use as the consumer sees fit? Using torrent tech, they can upload a program to their servers, seed it for an appropriate amount of time, and then let the customers pass it around as needed. Revenue would come through embedded ads during programming and between acts. I have no business degree, but I can read the frakking newspaper. Google-style embedded ads and short ads with revenue sharing can get everyone the cash they need. Think about it: ESPN, CNN, Fox News, et al. all have mad scrolling shit at the bottom of the screen, and customers learn to pay minimal attention to it unless something catches their eye, kinda like ads nowadays anyways. Distribution costs can be minimized by using DivX or Xvid codecs and torrenting to limit bandwidth usage.

A walkthrough:

Kinyahbrutha goes to his Tivo and gets a series pass for International Rugby. Ding dong, Tri-Nations rugby comes up, and BBC puts four seeders up on their server, distributing a 700mb file in .avi format. Embedded ads include things of international/national interest (Coke, Pepsi, jeans) or specific interest to the target audience (rugby shit) as well as local ads keyed to IP addresses could all be run. Kinyahbrutha gets it through his Tivo box, which is running an RSS waiting for just this sort of thing (I think, my geekery is limited). An hour or so later, it is downloaded and he watches it through his new Divx-enabled Tivo (software upgrade only: free). During the hour-long program, Coke, Polo Jeans, and Jordan’s Furniture ads run along the bottom and during pauses in the game. If he is interested, he can click on the green “thumbs up” button (like he can do already) to find out more about stuff. Since he is using torrent, the program can promulgate indefinitely, bringing in more customers forced to watch the ads. A HUGE benefit to advertisers is that they get a real and accurate count of how many people have DLed their show. That isn’t to say everyone will watch it, but surveys can easily determine what percentage of people watch the shows they DL.

A non-Tivo example:

Kinshay subscribes to Charles In Charge via his FIOS. Nobody buys CIC DVDs, so this is an untapped marketplace. He dowloads five at a time and watches them over the course of a week, with ads geared specifically towards people who were 13-18 at the time of the show’s initial run. Since only gay people and weirdos like CIC, there aren’t many DLers, but who cares? The distributor doesn’t pay shit to deliver the product to the marketplace, and four slow seeders on the company’s server will be enough to keep it alive indefinitely. Win/win.

I honestly don’t think there is any technological hurdle that needs to be addressed; it is just a matter of figuring out how the ad money gets chopped up. Like cable, this will not kill broadcast TV, but instead it will add hundreds of thousands of paying customers who would normally be outside the area. I love Dr. Who, Sean loves Rugby, and Kinshay loves…dudes. Whatevs. We will get our programming by, like Malcolm X said, whatever means necessary. Why don’t the networks capture that markey and get paid for it? Nobody skips through 5-second ads, and while someone will surely hack their system to get rid of the scrolling ads, those people would be ganking this shit anyway.

Please start sharpshooting to address problems with the model, and I need someone with an MBA to write a business proposal for forwarding to the powers that be at the end. Next up: the 120-gig wireless single-DIN head unit. GMC, bitches!

~ by kinshay on 2007-07-01.