The World Has Changed
I used to worry that my parents had lived through all the cool inventions, and that nothing good was going to be invented in my lifetime. Ahh, the worries of a seven-year old. (I also always thought my heart was ceasing to beat in the evening. I'd lie still in bed and try to assess my heartbeat to make sure I was alive, and the quieter and stiller I got, the less I could feel it. I was sure death was imminent.)
One of the most exciting parts of the information revolution is the consumer aspect of it all. In 2007, Ad Agency named The Consumer as the Advertiser of the Year, namely for the viral nature of self-released YouTube videos. Coca-Cola originally grumbled about the Mentos and Coke videos, but finally got on the bandwagon. Mentos was clear that the exposure was good for them right from the start.
For the SuperBowl in 2006, and probably even in 2005, ads were specifically released that were "too crazy" for television. Bud Light has released half a dozen Super Bowl ads with no intention of ever showing them on television. YouTube has even more from Budweiser. Who can ask for better exposure than emails zooming around the world on the Monday after the Super Bowl between co-workers exclaiming "this is the one you didn't get to see yesterday! Too funny!"
This post has been in the works for months, and it is just being dusted off and finished. Back at the end of 2006 I would have said that broadcasters were slowly getting the picture--me forwarding my friends a funny clip from Colbert on YouTube is a *good* advertisement for their program overall and encourages viewership, rather than stealing from Comedy Central, plus it uses someone else's bandwidth to get the message out. Now things have done an about-face in the corporate negotiations with broadcasters, and YouTube is returning to being a wonderland of cat videos and very little copyrighted content.
Other changes I have seen in my lifetime:
1. We live in a digital world instead of an analog one. I know that you used to be able to reconfigure cords in hotels to get Pay Per View movies for free, or mess with cable service hookups. In a digital age, this is no longer possible. Some people do manage to download and save stuff from their DVRs, but it isn't a skill I've had the motiviation to learn. Blake is still trying to grasp this one. He loves to record and always wants to save things off the DVR to VHS. I can't get it through his head that (a) when the DVR is full of 100 hours, nothing new will record, so we need to employ judicious deletion on an on-going basis and (b) recording on to a VHS has to be done in 1:1 time and is really annoying and I'm not fucking going to sit around and do it.
2. The world of DVD releases fascinates me. While I am sure that movies planned special editions when VHS was out, with DVD technology, the options are endless. You can make a true fan by a DVD four or five times over with gradual releases, each with more content than before. Directors can get their uncut message out. Anyone who watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated knows that a savvy director makes special over-the-top scenes just to be deleted by the MPAA, so that the board feels as if they have accomplished something, and the director's overall story is untouched (the cited example was Team America). You can have alternate endings galore (the greatest movie to do that was Clue, back in the eighties).
I've noticed that UNRATED versions of DVDs like Wedding Crashers, The Bad News Bears, and the 40 Year-Old Virgin hit the shelves immediately. Having seen these movies in theaters, I sometimes notice very little difference in content. Come to find out that UNRATED versions sell astronomically better than "regular" versions, so it is a label that gets slapped on just about anything as a sales booster.
3. Corporations realized that selling you a product once doesn't work as well as selling it to you for a monthly fee. Let's compare bills.ParentsMeStupid People
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One of the most exciting parts of the information revolution is the consumer aspect of it all. In 2007, Ad Agency named The Consumer as the Advertiser of the Year, namely for the viral nature of self-released YouTube videos. Coca-Cola originally grumbled about the Mentos and Coke videos, but finally got on the bandwagon. Mentos was clear that the exposure was good for them right from the start.
For the SuperBowl in 2006, and probably even in 2005, ads were specifically released that were "too crazy" for television. Bud Light has released half a dozen Super Bowl ads with no intention of ever showing them on television. YouTube has even more from Budweiser. Who can ask for better exposure than emails zooming around the world on the Monday after the Super Bowl between co-workers exclaiming "this is the one you didn't get to see yesterday! Too funny!"
This post has been in the works for months, and it is just being dusted off and finished. Back at the end of 2006 I would have said that broadcasters were slowly getting the picture--me forwarding my friends a funny clip from Colbert on YouTube is a *good* advertisement for their program overall and encourages viewership, rather than stealing from Comedy Central, plus it uses someone else's bandwidth to get the message out. Now things have done an about-face in the corporate negotiations with broadcasters, and YouTube is returning to being a wonderland of cat videos and very little copyrighted content.
Other changes I have seen in my lifetime:
1. We live in a digital world instead of an analog one. I know that you used to be able to reconfigure cords in hotels to get Pay Per View movies for free, or mess with cable service hookups. In a digital age, this is no longer possible. Some people do manage to download and save stuff from their DVRs, but it isn't a skill I've had the motiviation to learn. Blake is still trying to grasp this one. He loves to record and always wants to save things off the DVR to VHS. I can't get it through his head that (a) when the DVR is full of 100 hours, nothing new will record, so we need to employ judicious deletion on an on-going basis and (b) recording on to a VHS has to be done in 1:1 time and is really annoying and I'm not fucking going to sit around and do it.
2. The world of DVD releases fascinates me. While I am sure that movies planned special editions when VHS was out, with DVD technology, the options are endless. You can make a true fan by a DVD four or five times over with gradual releases, each with more content than before. Directors can get their uncut message out. Anyone who watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated knows that a savvy director makes special over-the-top scenes just to be deleted by the MPAA, so that the board feels as if they have accomplished something, and the director's overall story is untouched (the cited example was Team America). You can have alternate endings galore (the greatest movie to do that was Clue, back in the eighties).
I've noticed that UNRATED versions of DVDs like Wedding Crashers, The Bad News Bears, and the 40 Year-Old Virgin hit the shelves immediately. Having seen these movies in theaters, I sometimes notice very little difference in content. Come to find out that UNRATED versions sell astronomically better than "regular" versions, so it is a label that gets slapped on just about anything as a sales booster.
3. Corporations realized that selling you a product once doesn't work as well as selling it to you for a monthly fee. Let's compare bills.ParentsMeStupid People
Mortgage/RentMortgage/RentMortgage/Rent
InsuranceInsuranceInsurance
HeatHeatHeat
ElectricElectricElectric
Trash/WaterTrash/WaterTrash/Water
TelephoneTelephoneTelephone
Long DistanceLong DistanceLong Distance
Cell phoneCell phone
DSLDSL
Satellite televisionSatellite television
DVRDVR
NetflixNetflix
Call waiting
Caller ID
Cell phone data packages
Monthly unlimited dl mp3 service/td>
Vongo