Short Attention Span in Control
People used to say that it was the Gen Xr's who were computer savvy...and Gen Y or the "Millienial Generation" are the ones who were taught their ABCs by computers. But the reality is that now our entire culture is now media savvy. And more importantly, media is now on demand for our short attention spans. We get it when we want it and we like it that way.
Media has slowly been becoming more and more under our control but recently it seems to have put the pedal to the metal and shifted into warp speed. Lets look back....
In the late 80's, pagers or beepers, as they were commonly referred to, were all the craze. All of a sudden we didn't have to be attached to that umbilical cord anymore. We were free to roam and still be available for those trying to reach us. We clipped our little beeper into our purse or Guess jean's and we were off. By the mid 90's, beepers were at their peak. But by 2000, their decline was imminent with the rise of the mobile cellular telephone.
Up until a few years ago, most cell phones were used strictly for making and receiving calls. They were accompanied by MP3 players for music, DVD players for watching movies, and for the super organized, PDAs - the height of electronic organization. Media was going with us wherever we went. But in separate compartments. Enter iPhone. We fell in love when this one little device that managed to pack music, movies, web access, emails, oh and an actual phone line, all in one handheld device. Its our desktop computer in a smaller, much smaller, package. We're like a young girl smitten with her best friend's brother. Puppy love just doesn't get any better than this.
Library anyone? I was fairly impressed when I recently logged onto my local library website and discovered that you could search through hundreds of thousands of titles and "order" your selection for home delivery. When you were ready to return, simply slip it in the white encasing sent with the book or DVD and drop it off or drop it in the mail. Convenient huh? Everything's relative. Soon after, I discovered Kindle and my virtual library visits came abruptly to an end. The amazing success of Kindle, Amazon's iPhone app for reading books, demonstrates that we want our books like we want our food: fast and on the go. Why wait for delivery when I can have it now?
Our control over media doesnt just begin and end with the iPhone. Watched any commercials lately? Let's face it. Nobody sits down with a beer and bag of popcorn anxiously awaiting to hear about how Geico can save you money or that its Miller time. Unless its the superbowl of course. Our DVR has saved us from this once necessary evil. Of course, the networks arent that far behind and they're being fueled by the demands of the advertiser. They know we want our TV on demand and they know their advertisers still need a strong medium through which to reach consumers. They answered the call with Hulu, a commercial-supported website that offers streaming video of TV shows, movies and music from major networks like FOX and NBC. And its about convenience. Did I mention its free? Going TV-less was never less painful.
Portable media is here to stay. The question is where will it take us? Or should I say, where will we take it? Stay tuned.....