day 93

twitch 5: moguls of wired world

Why are the VCs who have recently poured millions into vid-game software companies like 3DO, Mpath, and TEN about to lose it all? Americans watch 250 billion hours of TV every year! Figure it out for yourself. According to the U. S. Bureau of Statistics, the average American wastes 1,000 hours watching the tube each year. Multiply this by 250 million couch potatoes, and you have a lot of netheads on vid. This is a lot of snack attack fodder. It is also a lot of opportunity for Wired World, if only the VCs and techno-geeks in Siliwood can figure out a way to take your money while you are glued to the tube. I-Man and others claim that entertainment is worth about $4 per hour. A 90-minute movie goes for about $6, a CD-ROM sells for about $20 -- average times it is played is five times before interest dwindles, etc. If this is true, then the TV consumption market is worth a cool trillion dollars per year. This is bigger than the entire computer industry of Silicon Valley. It is bigger than all the oil companies. It is... well you get my drift. How can we get $1 per hour from eveyone in TV-land? At 250 billion hours per year, a $1 per hour tax on couch potatoes could make Bill Gates look like a street beggar. The next mogul could be an Internet TV mogul.

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