Saturday night out at dinner with friends and the conversation gets round to the future of entertainment, and specifically TV.
Half of us think that the current fragmenting of audiences into more and more specialised groups will continue, some think that there will always be a place for a mediator or editor, and some are unable to contribute as they've had one brandy too many (or have they heard this once too often?).
The next day I was sticking with my story...that we around the table the night before are not the dominant audience anymore, we don't share or are not comfortable consuming messages or content through the same channels as the next generation.
What we should be able to do in our business however, is to know how new channels can be used for whatever purposes clients want. Conversations like that on Saturday night are extremely useful for focusing thoughts on what we need to change in our thinking - a quick sense check as you try to explain how the future may look - after all if it doesn't make sense to a few friends, how can it be presented to potential clients.
One thing I am certain of in hindsight; it's never a good idea to have one last drink.
Comments (3)
One of the problems of "people of a certain age" (like myself) is that we still think in terms of single, alternative channels. My nieces and nephews don't think about (multi-channels), they just automatically use everything available to them at the same time (texting, TV, music, web...) - and this is normal to them. There is no channel selection, it is constant multi-streaming.
Posted by Cheryl | May 16, 2007 2:32 PM
Posted on May 16, 2007 14:32
How right you are Cheryl. The point of this for most people not experienced with "web 2.0" is the unknown unknowns to quote D. Rumsfeld, i.e. they don't realise that there are these other multi channel feeds to their audiences. They're blissfully unaware.
Posted by wesley Hackett | May 21, 2007 10:12 AM
Posted on May 21, 2007 10:12
I wonder if any of this will change. It took a while for the wrinklies to get the hang of the web in the first place, but the grey population is now pretty comfortable with the first generation internet, as well as us "pre-wrinklies"!
Maybe we're not in the vanguard as far as using web 2.0 and "multi-streaming" as Cheryl puts it - but just because we're a bit slow on the uptake, doesn't mean we won't get it eventually - does it?
As for "one last drink" - the problem is that once you've had it, you still want one for the road...
Posted by Martin | May 21, 2007 5:06 PM
Posted on May 21, 2007 17:06