User Generated Content: New Distribution Models reaction to Robin Good post

The Robin Good Weblog has this awesome writeup in response to the same article I mentioned here. Over the last couple of months I have been trying to synthesize the various conversations and conclusions I have arrived at regarding how media evolves in these posts here, and here, and here, to hit the main ones.

The post I read today hits on many of the same themes. I especially like the comments about media reaching it's zenith right before it is superseded by something else.

Over a quick lunch today I mentioned to the person I was eating with, that today's consumer of entertainment and media is an active participant in what they are consuming in the form of entertainment. Arguably they may even be the creator, or at least a collaborator in it's creation.

The media world in general is both a place of unfortunate perspective looking backwards when one considers the consolidation and homgenization of content, while holding untold potential in terms of what the new media world will look like in the future. To me the key issues to consider as we stutter, lurch, drag, and vault forward are:

1. We must have good/better tools to allow each of us to become creators of content. This includes easy tools that normal people can use, not tools that require people to understand unix command line language, etc.

2. We must create the tools that allow people to find the content that they want to consume, or should consume, or might be interested in consuming (etc.etc.) in an easy way. Think TIVO.

3. Intellectual property rights need to be revisited for a world of digital distribution. When I think of digital music and my experience there it makes me sad. For all of the promise that the various platforms hold, the legislative and judicial frameworks do not support the innovation in a safe way. Please don't take that comment as an IP anarchist, rather, there should be some balance between innovation and IP. The pain shouldn't be $150K per infringement. Does that fit the infraction? I don't know. It sounds severe to me.

4. Networks must continue to evolve. I think this one is happening and holds lots of promise, but things like massive adoption of RSS or things like podcasting are going to create the Pointcast effect which will bring the networks to their knees. As we prepare to launch our wireless application, I am astounded by the relatively small number of network usage for data in terms of actual users and the amount of data being transmitted over wireless networks relative to the Internet. It will be interesting to see how these networks deal with enormous data loads.