I was cheered by a BusinessWeek.com piece detailing a new Swedish video service, Voddler, which lets subscribers share movies they download with up to 10 friends. So, as Business Week points out, a movie rented for 48 hours can be shared by the
renter with others, and a movie bought through Voddler gives you the same ability to share it with others. A limited number of others, but others.
This sounds so crazy, that you know, it could
become popular. In Sweden and the other Nordic countries, and in Spain, Voddler has one million users, Business Week says, and now it’s being launched globally, though when I went online to find
it, the site was down today. Bummer.
Every time I hear of a new method of delivery, I’m reminded of a recently unearthed footage of traffic on Market Street in San Francisco in 1906,
when cars and horses and streetcars and pedestrians all just went where ever they wanted. That’s the state of media today. It’s just all over the place.
We live in an age of
disruptive media, and people are used to the disruption. I don’t think being used to it is anywhere near the same as buying into it, though. Which is why I am still dubious about OTT boxes and
things that seem like OTT, like, I guess Aereo. Viewers are now being given so many viewing choices—with advertising and expert opinion that says this or that device is the sure path
forward—that consumers just may be deciding to do. . .nothing.
Really, it seems about the smartest thing to do.
Voddler the Sampler can be instructive. Internet-era
consumers have different ideas about buying entertainment. As in, they hate to buy it at all. But if compelled, as they are with smartphones, consumers are all in.
I think
consumers would welcome a simple way to try all the OTT devices out there before settling on one, or perhaps, none.
Viewers have pretty clear memories of XM and Sirius, and Beta and VHS, and
what were those two networks?—oh, yes, The WB and UPN—and how ultimately, some or all of them went away because people didn’t need them or even particularly like them. (I
actually believe for sheer hucksterism, nothing beats the original claims of cable. All those channels! And still, mostly, nothing on.) Consumers might just like to let Apple and Google and TiVo and
Boxee and the others just beat the brains out of each other and see who wins.
Disruptive media can only disrupt if it’s going in a direction viewers wish to be
taken. Netflix’s “House of Cards” might be saying something about the future of content delivery, but really, maybe not. It was one mini-series. That’s it, so far. The YouTube
channels, Machinima and Smosh and StyleHaul have millions of viewers— surprisingly, millions of viewers---and that, to me is a disruption that’s causing real change.
pj@mediapost.com