Commentary

Only Distribution Holds Citizen Publishing Back

Raise your hand if you think subscribing to a podcast is more difficult than it should be. Okay, now put your hand down before one of your co-workers sees you and thinks you're deranged or something.

What if you could subscribe to your favorite audio and video content for a fee and have it come to you automatically, wherever you are? Furthermore, what if it came to whatever device you happened to have with you, whether that be your home stereo, television or video iPod?

Such possibilities are not that far off. Given the explosion of content, especially that produced by individuals, you're going to see a much more simplified and unified distribution model come to you much faster than you ordinarily would. As the new distribution mechanisms for content take shape, you're going to find it easier to get whatever content interests you, regardless of how obscure or uninteresting to the mass market that content might be.

It's a big pain in the neck to subscribe to a podcast. You usually need an application to do so. When I first started to listen to podcasts, I found it to be such a chafe that I instead downloaded the audio files manually and just listened to them from my hard drive. Why aren't podcast subscriptions a single-click operation? And why do I need to copy data to my portable audio player rather than have my content come wirelessly?

advertisement

advertisement

These questions are all to be answered in short order by the emerging distribution mechanisms for heavy content like audio and video.

It's getting here, slowly but surely. Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, Sling Media announced that its Slingbox, which already allows people to view their TiVoed content on any Internet-connected PC, will support portables running Windows Mobile. So now you can get your video content on your PocketPC phone or handheld.

Neato. But what if you're not running Windows? I saw the Slingbox at CompUSA last week and this was the only factor preventing me from plopping down the $249 for the hardware. What if I want this stuff coming to my Treo or my iPod?

Perhaps XM might have some luck. There's a rumor going around that XM is prepared to get into the Digital Multimedia Broadcast business. What if you could get your podcasts or video wirelessly from a combination of satellites and terrestrial relay stations? Sounds promising.

I don't know who is going to eventually bring content to whatever device we have, wherever we happen to be, but it's clear we're moving in that direction. When it becomes easy to get this stuff, you'll see an even bigger explosion of content than the one we're experiencing now. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Next story loading loading..