CASPER
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SkyBOX: Our Cloudy Future
by Evie Haskell
Basically I think the word “digital” needs a new definition. Maybe not definition No. 1 or No. 2 or even No. 4 or 5 in your good old Websters’. But maybe somewhere down around No. 9, the word meisters should include this:
dig•it•al An admonition for all those who work with media, translating as Don’t Get Lazy.
This simple addition could serve as fair warning for all multiplatform mavens who think they’ve got the biz figured out: The playing field is gonna change and if you’re not on top of your corporate No Doz you may not even notice it until your pants are somewhere down around your ankles.
The archetypical example of our new definition comes from Microsoft. Not too long ago the Micro-heads were the universal Mr. Big casually ripping off competitors’ ideas and locking them (and users) up in the mighty Windows operating system. But a byte of the digital eye later ... and Microsoft is spending millions on putting some "Microsoft Gurus" into big box stores to actually ... hold on now ... help customers. Like this is gonna solve the yesteryear feel, glitches and miscues of Microsoft? (To say nothing of making the company look pretty silly when compared to its unnamed competitor’s long-standing and very successful Genius Bars?)
There are other obvious examples (the cable guys dissing DBS, the print folks scoffing at bloggers, the music industry doing almost anything in the last 10 years) but more interesting is what’s coming next. And that, if today’s seers are right, is the cloud.
For those of us who kind of like the idea of owning and storing our own digital media and software the cloud is best described as Big Brother designed by Steven King. In the universe of the cloud, your digital bits and bytes would no longer reside in your home or your office or even anywhere near your person. Rather that software or movie or song would live in massive networks and headends and other such digital farms owned and operated by big, BIG corporations.
This has the potential to make life much easier (to say nothing of cheaper and more digitally secure) for the big companies. And it’s already gained considerable toeholds in multiplatform land. Consider the recent Court of Appeals decision giving Cablevision the right to host its customers’ DVR choices on its own computers. Look at the growing host of online software such as Adobe Photoshop Express or Google Documents. Or consider the new Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a group formed by most of the biggest names in media (minus Apple) with the avowed intent of enabling “a single, uniform experience” for web downloading plus for playing media across multiple devices. If you see a swipe at Apple in this, I bet you’re right. And if you think this “ecosystem” is gonna reside with the big companies rather than the individual users, I bet you’re right there too.
So it’s another thing to watch. All in the name of Don’t Get Lazy in this digital world.
by Evie Haskell
Basically I think the word “digital” needs a new definition. Maybe not definition No. 1 or No. 2 or even No. 4 or 5 in your good old Websters’. But maybe somewhere down around No. 9, the word meisters should include this:
dig•it•al An admonition for all those who work with media, translating as Don’t Get Lazy.
This simple addition could serve as fair warning for all multiplatform mavens who think they’ve got the biz figured out: The playing field is gonna change and if you’re not on top of your corporate No Doz you may not even notice it until your pants are somewhere down around your ankles.
The archetypical example of our new definition comes from Microsoft. Not too long ago the Micro-heads were the universal Mr. Big casually ripping off competitors’ ideas and locking them (and users) up in the mighty Windows operating system. But a byte of the digital eye later ... and Microsoft is spending millions on putting some "Microsoft Gurus" into big box stores to actually ... hold on now ... help customers. Like this is gonna solve the yesteryear feel, glitches and miscues of Microsoft? (To say nothing of making the company look pretty silly when compared to its unnamed competitor’s long-standing and very successful Genius Bars?)
There are other obvious examples (the cable guys dissing DBS, the print folks scoffing at bloggers, the music industry doing almost anything in the last 10 years) but more interesting is what’s coming next. And that, if today’s seers are right, is the cloud.
For those of us who kind of like the idea of owning and storing our own digital media and software the cloud is best described as Big Brother designed by Steven King. In the universe of the cloud, your digital bits and bytes would no longer reside in your home or your office or even anywhere near your person. Rather that software or movie or song would live in massive networks and headends and other such digital farms owned and operated by big, BIG corporations.
This has the potential to make life much easier (to say nothing of cheaper and more digitally secure) for the big companies. And it’s already gained considerable toeholds in multiplatform land. Consider the recent Court of Appeals decision giving Cablevision the right to host its customers’ DVR choices on its own computers. Look at the growing host of online software such as Adobe Photoshop Express or Google Documents. Or consider the new Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a group formed by most of the biggest names in media (minus Apple) with the avowed intent of enabling “a single, uniform experience” for web downloading plus for playing media across multiple devices. If you see a swipe at Apple in this, I bet you’re right. And if you think this “ecosystem” is gonna reside with the big companies rather than the individual users, I bet you’re right there too.
So it’s another thing to watch. All in the name of Don’t Get Lazy in this digital world.