I had a hard time thinking up a title for this article, mostly because it’s philosophical rather than being practicle. I’ve identified a trend, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but I think it will change the way that companies deal with advertising and how they handle distributing information/propaganda. The last 5 years has brought about a radical change in when you get your information. If you think about technologies like Tivo (Personal Digital Video Recording) and now podcasting (downloading of MP3’s [or other audio formats] onto your computer using an RSS feed) you, the end consumer have control over when, where and how you consume the video or audio. This is not a new concept since books, newspapers and magazines have allowed for this to happen in the print world for ages.

I think this will prove to be a challenge for ‘traditional’ media like television and radio since they rely on advertisers (something that software can filter out) and since they have not adapted to the ‘e-consumer’ model. A smart move on their part would be to look for greater product placement within TV-shows for a PVR. Radio on the other hand is probably going to hurt from this shift since more control over songs/media means that people may dump regular radio programming for models like XM/Sirius which offer satellite radio channels with channels that have no commercials. A monthly user fee that affords station syndication fees is a model that many people are willing to live with. What makes RSS enclusures (which power podcasting) so powerful is that the internet allows for people to gather MP3 audio files, various video files and many other digital files while they’re away from their computer and then update any devices with content at their leisure.

You are in control of your content, and the time you consume it. This is a shift for the tranditional media outlets that I hope the react to pro-actively. If they respond in a reactive fashion in 5 years rather than beating the trends and doing something constructive now, it may be too late for many of the networks. While I expect that in 5 years only 40 or less percent of consumers will have the electronic equipment and know-how to achieve a completely autonomous media consumption habit it will surely effect the way advertisers choose to spend their money. Recently I heard that Sony was actually moving to spend more of their budget for video advertising at Wal-Mart, with their closed-circuit televisions that play ads 24-7, rather than spend the money on traditional television outlets [I cannot find the article that reported this, so please take this with the understanding that more research needs to be done].

As you consume media, please consider how you consume it, what you get in the way of advertisements and where your dollars go for entertainment. The trend is changing and I feel it will be an interesting next 5-10 years technologically.

[Thanks to Nick for getting me started on thinking about this].