Looking back, looking ahead
Learning Partners,
I’d like you to reserve about 8 minutes before busy holiday break to watch a short presentation. It’s like a movie on the Web, and more about it in a minute, but first, a prologue by me.
As you know, I was a Journalism undergrad and began working on the Internet in 1993. I’m not quite the inventor, but I was an early adopter. The marketing hype might even say “Pioneer”
But the Internet is not about technology — it’s always been about content, and more selfishly, “What’s in it for me?” As a user and creator of digital content, after you got over the “oh wow” of the Internet, it became a choice (or chore) of “what can it do for me?”
Which brings me to the 8 minute presentation. It is titled EPIC 2014 ( there is also a re-cut version, EPIC 2015) (This has been around the Web for a while)
This is a fictional “what if” about the growth of information and a fictitious merger between Google and Amazon and how it impacts media as we know it. It is not a condemnation. To me, it is a genre similar to John Lennon’s “Imagine”. He doesn’t propose that there is no heaven, he just asks to “Imagine there’s no heaven….”
There are several sites which host this presentation, but you might try:
http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
there is a link in the middle of the box on that page which reads: Click Here to watch EPIC 2014
After you view the presentation (only 8 minutes) you may be interested in reading this month’s Atlantic Monthly:www.theatlantic.com/doc/200612/hirschorn-newspapers
PS: Hirschorn describes the decline and fall of the press media. I note, however, he is silent on the pending fall of broadcast television, especially since Hirschorn is the VP of original production and programing at the cable video network: VH1.
Hmmmmm.
