Media’s Cloudy Strategic Future
Media consumers no longer plan their days around program schedules developed by TV and radio broadcasters and the whims of their sponsors and advertisers. Time shifting, on-demand streaming and other, emerging channels, coupled with the explosion in media-capable devices and platforms, have changed the game forever.
Behind the scenes of this consumer-driven trend lies an ever-changing, diverse, and complicated collection of moving parts through which media can be created, produced, distributed, viewed…and monetized.
Traditional media firms rightfully feel threatened by the sheer complexity of this techno-menagerie. How can they best develop consumer-centric, infinitely flexible “media-verses” without breaking the bank?
Enter cloud computing.
Virtually all of the functional elements necessary to create and move media from its source to the end user can be found in existing cloud computing archives. Analogous to a box full of assorted Lego blocks, these elements can be assembled an almost infinite variety of ways to address virtually any media delivery situation. In practice, media firms need only identify the appropriate elements and…connect the dots.
Want to move your music video to PC’s, TV’s, Smart phones, and gaming platforms… there’s a collection of elements for that. Need to enable web-TV but restrict viewing to subscribers only? There are elements for that. Seek to create an on-line outlet for new musical performance artists?… Just connect the right dots… in the cloud. Can’t find a key element? Build it yourself to gain strategic advantage… or just wait a while. In much the same way that smart phones have attracted droves of freelance app developers, the cloud provides an environment that will encourage and reward entrepreneurs chomping at the bit to create solutions that meet strategic needs.
In a recent speech, pundit, John Gauntt put it best; “Cloud computing is simply the best single, strategic and tactical platform for exchanging and evolving media for multiple audiences using multiple devices in multiple contexts under multiple business models.”
Media does indeed have a very cloudy and very exciting future.