day 76

the real internet 3: the end of tv

Figure 2. Is TV Forever? Actually, Books Are. Yesterday, we took a look at the plans to enable cyberworld to take over television. HDTV is a dead end after $500 million and 8 years of posing in front of the FCC. The media masters who advocated it did not understand computers, and computer nerds who understood how to make HDTV work cared nothing about broadcast media. Instead, they were busy inventing the WWW. The Internet boom nailed HDTVs coffin. Even Steve Case (President of America Online) now sees the light. In 1995 he worried about Internet Service Providers (ISPs) taking his subscribers away. But his solution was simple -- merely absorb the WWW into AOL. He obtained rights to Netscape and Microsoft browsers, and went back to adding subscribers and stuffing his war chest. Case still has to worry about the gunslinging frontiersmen who continue to take shots at his proprietary empire. Predicting the decline of AOL has become a sport in Silicon Valley. But Case is too fast for them. His strategy for 1997 and beyond is to become Internet TV. Yes, AOL is targeting network TV as the opium of the masses. In interviews with journalists, Case has even begun using TV terminology. For example, he refers to special interest groups as channels, and content as programs, just like a real TV mogul. Some people worry that the WWW will kill book and magazine publishing . This is far from reality. One particular period of rapid Internet growth also saw a steep rise in book sales -- between 1989 and 1994 book sales rose 33% from $18 billion to $24 billion. By 1999 spending on books will rise to $33 billion. AOL and the WWW are not gunning for publishers; they are gunning for entertainers. The bottom line: Wired World is headed to LA LA Land. The future of the WWW is also the future of TV. This heads us towards the living room, among other places.

the real internet 1 2 Daily Dose Index