Loving Dumb Networks

I went to NMK's IP-TV event yesterday to get a little clarity about the area.  It was time well spent but I pretty much left with the opinion that I had when I arrived - increasingly intelligent devices are going to be sitting on the edge of an increasingly fast dumb network and that some of them will look a bit like TV and some of them won't.  But trying to lever other industries and their respective lexicons into that new environment just isn't very helpful.  For instance, the moment you try and talk about IP-TV you can't help but bring all the baggage of the broadcaster and producer along with you.  So much of the talk yesterday was based on the idea of saving *quality* programming from being swamped by the user-generated cesspool.  However, increasingly it seems...

...that the big changes are social, not technical, so maybe the nature of *TV* and all it's slouchy connotations are changing.  Maybe *quality* is now about the experience of participation and the producer's role is to add refinement by delivering environments.  Sure some of that will be traditional content but - maybe - the real value these days in capturing the chitting and chatting that takes place around that content.  However, crud-like it may appear to be.  Maybe, it's not what the producers of Lost tell us, it's what we tell them that is exciting - and of value.  (One thing that became clear from yesterday - is that if you own a network you are in trouble).

Comments

[daisy chakra]

Interesting to read media posts like this some 5 years later.

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Daisy, yes re-reading it is pretty interesting it too... ;-)