I graduated from college in 2003. At that time, “social media” meant being able
to share music with other students via your university network (ok, so maybe it didn't really mean that, but that's my best interpretation of it). Shortly before graduation, students spent
hours downloading any and every song from Napster, the platform that first made
file sharing easy for anyone with an Internet connection. Founded by two
teenagers in 1999, Napster had ~20 million users within a year. Prior to 2003,
the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued a number of companies
that facilitated illegal downloading, such as Napster. Another year later,
Napster was shut down by a judge in a music industry lawsuit. I mentioned the
history above, not to date myself, but to hint at the level of sophistication
of the Internet and file sharing. There was
no such thing as Wikipedia – and for the Millenials reading this – Mark Zuckerberg
hadn't even written “Facemash” (Facebook's predecessor)!
Late that same year, the RIAA turned its sights onto music fans themselves. Over the next five years, they filed, settled, or threatened suits against at least 18,000 private individuals — possibly as many as 30,000. The individuals included children, college students, college professors, and even grandmothers. Needless to say, students stopped using Napster and moved on to lesser known websites that provided the same ability for users to share illegally downloaded music files.
Up until my recent return to school at Columbia, I lived in the “dark ages” of Internet technology – of course, I purchased an iPod (in 2005, but to date I still haven’t downloaded any songs of my own) and joined Facebook (alas, not until 2008 and simply because I was “bored” and felt the need to “check it out”). But, this year I embraced new technology – I learned about “the Cloud” and now have both Google Drive and Dropbox apps installed on my iPhone (oh my!).
In any case, my next goal is to “cut the cord” and no longer watch video via broadcast, cable or satellite TV. According to Nielsen, there are more than five million U.S. homes that, according to a recent study, have “zero TV.” Apparently, that figure is up from just over 2 million in 2007. However, zero TV doesn’t mean zero video – 75 percent of these homes still have at least one TV that’s being used for DVDs, video games and – in some cases – watching Internet video. Currently, it is possible to avoid television commercials utilizing Netflix and Amazon Price, but do people actually believe that the “smart money” (i.e., marketers, the major TV networks etc.) won’t find a way to get their ads back in front of us?
Earlier this year, Sanford Bernstein published a graph that presents the net change in pay-TV subscribers – Direct TV, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and Dish all reported a decline in subscribers in Q2 2013.
(Class Blog Week 9)
Late that same year, the RIAA turned its sights onto music fans themselves. Over the next five years, they filed, settled, or threatened suits against at least 18,000 private individuals — possibly as many as 30,000. The individuals included children, college students, college professors, and even grandmothers. Needless to say, students stopped using Napster and moved on to lesser known websites that provided the same ability for users to share illegally downloaded music files.
Up until my recent return to school at Columbia, I lived in the “dark ages” of Internet technology – of course, I purchased an iPod (in 2005, but to date I still haven’t downloaded any songs of my own) and joined Facebook (alas, not until 2008 and simply because I was “bored” and felt the need to “check it out”). But, this year I embraced new technology – I learned about “the Cloud” and now have both Google Drive and Dropbox apps installed on my iPhone (oh my!).
In any case, my next goal is to “cut the cord” and no longer watch video via broadcast, cable or satellite TV. According to Nielsen, there are more than five million U.S. homes that, according to a recent study, have “zero TV.” Apparently, that figure is up from just over 2 million in 2007. However, zero TV doesn’t mean zero video – 75 percent of these homes still have at least one TV that’s being used for DVDs, video games and – in some cases – watching Internet video. Currently, it is possible to avoid television commercials utilizing Netflix and Amazon Price, but do people actually believe that the “smart money” (i.e., marketers, the major TV networks etc.) won’t find a way to get their ads back in front of us?
Earlier this year, Sanford Bernstein published a graph that presents the net change in pay-TV subscribers – Direct TV, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and Dish all reported a decline in subscribers in Q2 2013.
(Class Blog Week 9)
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