In what looks like a shift of cultural influence from southern to northern California, Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape has published an essay titled "Rebuilding Hollywood in Silicon Valley’s Image." Andreessen makes three large predictions.
First, ongoing alienation of a new generation of TV viewers.
Second, driving consumers even faster to the new range of activities they can engage in.
Third, and most significantly: catalyzing faster development of new business models for entertainment media.
The third point I find the most interesting. The author breaks it down as follows…
What would a new entertainment media company, producing original content, look like in the age of the Internet?
- Starting from the end of the process: you know distribution
is now nearly free. Put it up on the Internet and let people stream or
download it.
- Marketing is also free, due to virality. Let people email
your content to their friends; let people embed your content in their
blogs and on their social networking pages; let your content be
searchable via Google; let your content be easily surfaced using social
crawlers like Digg. All free.
- Production is very cheap. Handheld high-definition video
cameras cost nearly nothing. You can do almost every aspect of
production and post-production on any Mac. Hell, you can even score an
entire movie for free — there are hundreds of thousands of bands on
the Internet who would love to have their music embedded in a new
entertainment property as promotion for the bands’ concerts and
merchandise.
- The creators of the content are the owners of the company.
The writers, actors, directors — they are the owners. They have a
direct, equity-based economic stake in the company’s success. They get
paid like owners, and they act like owners.
- Financing is straightforward: venture capital, just like a
high-tech startup. We live in a world in which financing a high-quality
startup is simply not difficult — not for a high-quality technology
startup, and increasingly not for a high-quality media startup. Modern
financiers love being co-owners of a new company with the talent that
will make the company successful — and that’s how it will happen here.
I need to read a little closer but this is a take on recent events down south I hadn’t heard yet.
