Media 3.0 is a vision of the future of the media world, based in part on my theoretical speculation and in part on my interpretation of the impact of a vast amount of technology research and development going on around the world. It is very much an on-going process. Feel free to browse the working notes below and provide input and feedback.

 

NOTE: Due to the turmoil in the financial markets and the current credit crisis, I believe that there is significant potential that the timelines for Media 3.0 discussed below will slip -- and that may be by several years. Media 3.0 requires huge capital investment in infrastructure and a huge expenditure on R&D and the money needed to do that may dry up for some time.

The good news, though, is that while the economy sleeps Moore's law (and other similar yardsticks for technology-related growth) don't.  As well, while things have slowed down, some manifestations of components of the Media 3.0 vision are slowly emerging.

 

Changing Channels: Evolution and Revolution in the Media World

 

Background (skip to Media 3.0 )

The early days of the 21st century have witnessed huge changes in the media world – arguably, changes whose magnitude exceeds those of all previous centuries combined.  These changes have taken us out of the world of Media 1.0 and into an interim, transitory world: Media 2.0 (or Media 2.x since it really is comprised of many incremental phases).  Beyond Media 2.x lies a wholly different media world, one which few have even considered: Media 3.0.  But in order to frame Media 3.0, we need first to understand and contextualize its predecessors...

 

Media 1.0

From the earliest days of industrialized media, through to about end of the 20th century, little changed. Media distribution – when it wasn't in some physical manifestation – was confined to traditional means: radio waves, cable and – the relative newcomer from a consumer perspective – satellite. Time shifting of broadcast content was limited to what you could do with a VCR. Place shifting meant moving physical media – tapes, CDs and the like –from place to place. And devices were discrete appliances that generally served a single purpose. A console TV with a built-in stereo was about as integrated a device as you could find. That era, Media 1.0, was an era in which the industry was in control. That all came to an end in the late 90’s, spurred on, arguably, by the advent of portable MP3 players and the launch of a little service called Napster.

 

Media 2.x

MP3 players and Napster (?) ushered in an era of an empowered consumer – arguably, from an industry perspective, a consumer run amok. Traditional media distribution models began to falter and we witnessed the beginnings of many fundamental paradigm shifts that have caused massive upheaval in the media world – and which continue to do so today.

The contemporary world, Media 2.x, is far different from its predecessor. Media 2.x is about shifting paradigms. The industry is no longer in absolute control, but the balance of power has not completely shifted to the consumer, either. A delicate (and fragile) balance exists.

With distributors offering distant signals from different time zones, and rudimentary consumer recording technology (the venerable VCR) giving way to the intelligent PVR (personal video recorder), time shifting is becoming commonplace.

Music (and TV, and movie, and e-book) sales services such as iTunes have demonstrated that the consumer will pay for content when given the opportunity to do so in a way that meets their needs. Place shifting is no longer an anomaly for media content – indeed, when it comes to music, it’s arguably the norm.

Devices increasingly resemble Swiss Army™ knives – they’re phones, MP3 players, video players, e-mail devices and more.

The so-called ‘democratization of media’ has also empowered the consumer (the term 'consumer' is becoming anachronistic) to be a content creator, too. While the ability to create content was always within the grasp of the consumer, the barriers to creating quality content were often insurmountable. No more is that the case in an era when a ‘prosumer’ HD video camera is in the $1000 range. But the ability to create means nothing without the ability to distribute and reach an audience and that – from a consumer-as-content-creator perspective – is where the really important changes have occurred. It may be hard to believe, but the now–iconic YouTube only launched in mid-2005. It, and a raft of other content sharing sites, have given anyone (everyone) the ability to distribute content at no cost. And if the message has appeal, it finds an audience – in numbers that can be staggering.

Yet even as we may marvel at how technology has changed the media world, we need to take a step back and observe what exists. We now have a world of multiple discrete distribution channels – in effect, we've replicated the content distribution model across additional channels and to additional devices, but in a disjointed way. True, the same content may find life on multiple platforms, and in multiple formats, and, in one sense, that’s convergence. A newspaper web site is no longer exclusively the realm of words and pictures; increasingly, video is finding its way to these sites. Likewise, news broadcasters’ web sites are taking on textual reporting elements, too. While the distinctions between a newspaper and TV news operation remain quite apparent in their traditional formats, the lines are increasingly blurred in their new media manifestations. Here we find a convergence of content types, but little convergence exists between the traditional and alternative delivery formats. In fact, a newspaper web site has diverged from what the newspaper itself is, and, in fact, we’re in an era of divergent convergence.

In the Media 2.x world, we see consumers amassing their own personal digital media libraries at home and organizations such as the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) are focused on 'liberating' this content by fostering interoperability between devices.

In this world we also see the early stages of intelligent devices, device "discoverability" and inter-operability as devices that are compliant with the UPnP AV / Media specifications begin to emerge (MediaServers and MediaRenderers).

In today’s world, much is still dictated not just by the delivery medium but also, to a very large degree, by the delivery destination. That’s an inevitability in a transitional world – and Media 2.x is all about transitions. Nonetheless, seismic shifts have occurred between Media 1.x and Media 2.x – and all in the space of about a decade.

Yet as different as Media 2.x is from Media 1.0, the different between Media 2.x and Media 3.0 will be far greater.

 

Media 3.0

With Media 3.0, we move to a world not of shifting paradigms but of shifted paradigms and the evolutionary concepts observed in Media 2.x are taken to revolutionary levels in Media 3.0. But more than that, Media 3.0 introduces new ways of thinking and experiencing media that are far beyond what we know today. In Media 3.0, we still have the traditional media domains of TV, film, music/radio, newspapers, books and the relative newcomer, gaming, and each continues to have a discrete existence unto itself; however, increasingly, the media are intertwined.  And concepts that first emerged in Media 2.x will disappear, including the personal digital media library.  Other concepts that were in their infancy in Media 2.x will blossom, such as device interoperability which will emerge into composite devices built upon the concept of dynamic (or static) component aggregation.

Media 3.0 is to media what cloud computing (?) is to other data-related services and, indeed, Media 3.0 shares much with the cloud computing model in that is presents a strong shift away from individual copies of media content, moving toward shared, centralized media content. Like cloud computing, Media 3.0 is a world of 'anywhere access' to media content. Technologies including IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) will be key to the delivery of this content.

When will Media 3.0 arrive? That depends on many things, not the least of which is the speed at which industry is willing to change and to embrace it. The significant challenges won’t lie in technology – indeed, some of what’s needed is here now and the remaining pieces could begin to be in place as early as 2012.  We won't see a mature implementation of Media 3.0 until about 2020.

How (and when) the future unfolds will vary considerably by geography.  It depends to a great degree on regulatory policy, as well as how various guilds, unions, content vendors, etc. embrace (or fight, or encumber) the concept.  The Ofcom (?) / PACT (?) "when not where" concept is a potential step in the right direction.

Media 3.0 is about managed experiences and the underlying frameworks, technologies, devices and partnerships required to deliver such experiences.

 

Media 3.0 definition:

• the managed-experience delivery, by way of the static / dynamic (ad hoc) aggregation of the various required elements (content, presentation, composite device and/or device components, context and network) of a given static / dynamic / interactive content experience in any place, at any time, in the optimal format, utilizing the most appropriate communications network, to an authenticated user, in accordance with applicable consumer entitlements, licensing and copyright restrictions, while subject to and respecting local regulatory rules (and standards?) that exist in the present location, and utilizing the necessary framework(s), as required, to seamlessly (either transparently or with opacity) manage all related monetary events on behalf of the authenticated user;

 

Components of managed-experience delivery:

 

• devices: can be static and/or a dynamic aggregations of components; dynamic devices constitute automatic assemblies of various components connected in an ad hoc manner (and generally wirelessly) to support the delivery of a content experience in a given environment; (e.g. the dynamic grouping of an LCD monitor, an iPod for audio playback, a mobile phone and a high-speed Internet connection: the mobile phone initiates the pairing of devices and components and acts as the controller while the high-speed Internet connection offloads the communications burden from mobile device while allowing the mobile device to remain in control of the overall experience); dynamic aggregations (via PAN/WPAN) of the various needed capabilities to serve a given purpose in a given place / environment at a given time (ad hoc); one device acts as (main) controller; may delegate to sub-controllers for specific tasks/domains (e.g. audio); preferred pairings may exist and must be acknowledged; ZigBee could be an enabling technology for this

 

• content: adaptive media that conforms itself to the available device capabilities and constraints in order to provide the best possible experience and highest level of interactivity available for the given stand-alone or dynamically aggregated device; the International Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN) may provide the key to unlocking the discovery process for locating content in appropriate format, language, etc.

 

• storage: a media-specific (or media-centric?) implementation of the cloud computing (?) model with minimal persistent media content at the device level (only as required to support caching or for use in an occasionally disconnected operation [likely using a content check-out check-in device-locked model])

 

• services: media-related services that arguably aren't in and of themselves media content (e.g. 'social media'); managed and delivered via 'the cloud'

 

• networks: ubiquitous, inexpensive and seamlessly integrated IP-based networks that bridge and transcend 4G (?) mobile carrier networks, wireless (WiFi, WiMax, etc.), and fixed-line (Internet via cable, DSL, etc.) networks; the usage of the most-efficient least-cost network available at a given point in time

 

• context: context / state management that provides persistence related to the user experience (allows, for example, the user to pause content on one device and resume seamlessly on another); provides 'media experience' history on an individual basis

 

• managed entitlements: the superset of various aggregated individual content access rights acquired by an authenticated user through various sources including users accounts (see below) (e.g. pro temp licensing through broadcast services, subscriptions, VOD offerings, purchased licenses (temporary or permanent – e.g. through iTunes), generally available licensed content (e.g. broadcaster broadband offerings), free content (You Tube, etc.); entitlements can be implicit or explicit and may take into account characteristics such as nationality, place of residence, point of current access (i.e. present geographic location);  ideally, this transcends all entitlement providers with whom a customer has a relationship but, as a pragmatic reality, may end up as multiple sets of entitlements reflecting multiple different consumer-provider relationships

 

• user authentication (identity management): secure and unambiguous identification of a given user; allows the user's profile, entitlements, etc. to follow them from device to device regardless of device ownership (that is, it is the profile, entitlements, billing relationships, etc., of the user who is authenticated with the device that is in effect, not those attributes as they pertain to the owner of the device); HOWEVER... in the case of multiple people concurrently sharing the experience, the profiles of multiple authenticated users must be taken into account; user authentication can be permanent or temporary; authentications may need time-out capability; possibly one active authentication per class of device or service instance per user

 

• user accounts: specific accounts that a user may have (e.g. a cable accounts, iTunes accounts, broadband TV accounts, music services;  some of these accounts may have inter-relationships or may offer additional entitlements only once linked (federated)

 

• user profiles and preferences: based on device class (and over-ridden by specific known-device instance) + location + time of day (in current physical location)

 

• roaming media model: the familiar roaming (?) billing model from the wireless world adapted to 'anywhere' media delivery to facilitate a single billing touch-point with the consumer, facilitating media access anywhere in the world (owning the billing relationship is one of the key Media 3.0 success points for players)

 

• metadata (?): the key to navigating the Media 3.0 universe... more later, but think in terms of navigable and personalized Internet Movie Database (IMDB) data

 

• advertising: but not as we know it today... more later

 

• the Personal Companion (PC): the electronic key to unlocking the Media 3.0 universe...more on this later, too

 

 

 

Alan Sawyer (?)