• by July 19, 2005

TO CIRCUMVENT OR TO CULTIVATE, THAT IS THE QUESTION - When Greg Wilson first posed that question to us, it made us feel, well, a little existential. But the more we thought about it, the more we realized it ultimately would be what defines the existence of media.

In this rocky period of media industry transformation, businesses stand at the crossroads of two diametrically opposed models: Those media platforms designed to circumvent consumer control over media; and those that would cultivate it. Interestingly, the lines aren't always so clear. That's evident by the reengineering of TiVo, which many TV viewers see as the ultimate form of consumer media empowerment, but which now appears poised to circumvent the very thing that attracted consumers to it in the first place. New features being adopted by TiVo will shift some power back to Madison Avenue, giving advertisers the ability to get themselves in front of TV viewers at precisely the moment they're seeking to avoid them - during fast-forward mode.

Don't get us wrong. We completely understand Madison Avenue's compunction to do so, and TiVo's desire to accommodate. It only seems logical. If consumers figure out a way around advertising, advertisers must therefore find a way back in front of them. The only problem is it is a flawed logic that will ultimately doom the advertising business. We've seen it taking place online. Advertisers post banners. Consumers ignore banners. Advertisers employ pop-ups. Consumers arm themselves with pop-up blockers. Advertisers employ adware. Consumers download anti-adware software. And it goes on. It's like an arms race whose outcome is inevitable: mutually assured destruction, or the devolution of the advertising marketplace.

But some brave souls see a solution. Wilson, founder of San Francisco agency Red Ball Tiger is one of them. Sure, when he talks about "surrendering control to the viewer," he sounds like a heretic, or a madman, but we think he's onto something, even if he cannot yet fully articulate what it is.

"Advertising in the future will need to be opt-in, not intrusive," he tells us. It's an anathema for us born and bred intruders. But it's time for us to learn some new tricks. Mainly because pillaging consumer media time just isn't going to work very much longer - not when every new generation of technology brings them that much closer to the ultimate media control system. A system that Wilson dubs the Digital Asset Operating System, or DAOS for short.

Wilson has promised to fill us in soon on how DAOS will work, and most importantly, how advertising will work with it. For now he will only say it "will allow the nonlinear platform to be a viable, stand-alone, revenue-generating advertising platform."

Wilson's not alone. Different people refer to it differently. The folks at OMD call their DAOS a "media concierge" and say it may not be a single system or device. They say it likely will be one of many different devices used by different people at different times to manage their digital media content at home, on the road, or anywhere and anytime they choose.

Not surprisingly, we're starting to see some bona fide operating system people move into the space. That's what all the hubbub surrounding Microsoft's new hub - the Windows Media Center - is all about, even if the folks in Redmond haven't fully articulated their vision for it yet.

And Apple's DAOS may not fall far from that tree. It's taking on a different form, and coming through a different pathway entirely. It may look like an iPod, and ultimately an "iVod." It may download like an iTune or an iVid, but it's the same concept: giving consumers control over the digital media content, when they want it and where they want it.

But unlike previous media gateways - TV networks, cable operators, satellite systems, closed-wall Internet service providers, and the like - the gatekeepers of these new media operating systems won't be technologists, or media content providers, or even advertisers. It's going to be the people who consume media. And the sooner we understand that, the sooner we can figure out how to give them what they want, and get what we need in return.