Continuing, briefly with the idea of chokepoints and the economics of abundance:
Broadcasting — radio and television — offers us a perfect example of how much bigger the economics of abundance is than mere data processing.
Broadcast outlets, at their beginning, were both natural and man-made chokepoints: There were a limited number of available frequencies, and access to them was regulated by fiat of law. Cost-based chokepoints affected the other major media of the era — newspapers and magazines. This resulted in very lucrative markets for the owners of mass media outlets — and in media products that tended to be at least as dissatisfying to consumers as they were appealing.
But then three things happened:
- Printing got a lot more efficient, creating the era of narrowcasting in publications — not one generic bike-riding article a year in Look magazine, but a dozen specialized monthlies just for different flavors of serious bike racers — with a dozen more for mountain biking, and a dozen more for bicycle fitness training.
- As a consequence of better scientific research in electro-magnetics, electronics, signal-processing and information theory, the radio spectrum itself became much more abundantly divisible — creating still newer kinds of narrow-casting, right down to cell phones and private-network walkie-talkies.
- Finally, the internet itself resulted in a massive explosion of available bandwidth in mix-and-match wired and wireless networks.
What’s the result? One of the richest businesses in the entire history of chokepoints is being disintermediated into oblivion. Sic semper tyrannosauris.
Emphasizing that, I cannot get enough of this movie:
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
Brian Brady says:
The future of media is not selling but rather helping people buy
March 2, 2008 — 8:52 pm
JTB Summit says:
Nice post, I am trying to get very locally focused with my new blog. Just launched it a few days ago and making the initial posts to try to set the tone.
Keep up the great work.
Jim
March 2, 2008 — 9:39 pm
Tara Jacobsen says:
That is a great movie – Instead of worrying about how everything isn’t the same as it was, let’s figure out how to make what is next fabulous! Real estate, advertising and many industries MUST evolve or go extinct!
March 3, 2008 — 6:14 am
bossman says:
Add to the mix the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, which until 1987 had a “chilling” effect on the free exchange of ideas. If Congress is successful in its efforts to reinstate it, look for another massive explosion of internet-based media outlets like the blogosphere.
March 3, 2008 — 6:46 am
Dan Melson says:
Love the movie. Love the parallelism to HG Wells “War of the Worlds” (If you ever get a chance to hear Jeff Wayne’s Musical version, take it. Trust me, it’s worth it. Narrated by Richard Burton! I could mentally hear Richard Burton in the background of this movie)
The information explosion is not only here, it’s going to continue, and continuously get bigger from now on. Matter of fact, it’s going to get so bad that the way to make money in the future is not even here yet – the place to make money is in helping people make sense of the avalanche of information they’re going to get in the future. Today it’s like drinking from a fire hose. In ten years, it’s going to be like drinking from the Amazon – if the Amazon was moving at Mach 2. Nor is even that the end state. As I said, this process is accelerating, and will continue to accelerate.
Facts are going to be free to anyone who wants them. Good analysis is what’s going to cost money, and be worth it.
March 3, 2008 — 1:23 pm