supereverywhere

Here’s a keynote speech I made October 27th at the Mobility 2006 conference at Rangsit University in Bangkok, Thailand.

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I want to thank the organizers and Rangsit University for hosting us in such a nice city and for doing so much to make us all feel welcome. It has really been an honor to be here, and a pleasure to make so many new friends.

This talk is about television and how it’s changing. I use the term serial collision because what TV is becoming is the result of many types of media crashing upon each other in the many interesting ways that the Internet allows, especially as it begins to be useful to multiple devices. The resulting experience is the result of repeatedly colliding models.

Who am I?

First I’d like to tell you a little about myself, not because I’m so personally interesting, but because you can see how I have come to see things the way I do, and understand some of my bias.

I’m a writer and user experience specialist–a “content strategist” My career has largely been about working in forms of media as they moved to an Internet distribution model. First magazines, then news, then music, and now video, all were changed dramatically by what happened when the World Wide Web provided an easy-to-understand multimedia framework for exchanging data over the Internet.

I did a lot of growing up high school and college in Houston, Texas, a very interesting place that I desperately wanted to escape. I had a strong feeling that life was elsewhere and spent a lot of effort trying to get there. I pushed myself, and my band to travel to faraway places, and got involved in the Internet—pre-Web—in hopes of meeting interesting people and connecting with their art and vision. It worked. I met amazing people and hooked into a world that was a center of excitement and mostly positive change.

I was interested in the BBSs, the Internet and other systems like Minitel since the 1980s, and then started covering the Web as a journalist in 1993. In 1994 I joined the team at HotWired, who was just launching Wired magazine’s site using the new medium–the first commercial publisher on the Web–the progenitor of the ad banner.

We sensed that what suited the Internet was a meeting of other forms–text, photography, sound, video, and other media were coming together in new ways, and we experimented with them. We called the sections of our online magazine “channels” and tried to fit in as much multimedia into our stories as possible–audio samples in the music reviews, interviews that used both audio and chat software, and whatever else we could dream up.

Fast forward a few years to the late 90s and I was culture editor at Wired News. I had been interested in online musical distribution, but most people around me were skeptics. They’d heard about getting music online for long enough, and nothing seemed to really take off. Despite that, I kept at the coverage, and ran stories, and eventually was able to document the rise of MP3.com, and later Napster. In 2001 I wrote a book, Sonic Boom, about the waves of change that were sweeping the music industry when online musical distribution finally became a reality.

Despite the great interest that that story had from a legal, technical, and business perspective—and I did follow those—my main sense was that few people were covering the rise of online music from a cultural perspective. Napster and other file sharing was a fundamentally new human development—self-assembling libraries that left to their own devices would soon be sharing nearly all human music ever recorded. It was also a peek at a post-scarcity existence. And in a world where scarcity is a taken for granted, letting anyone make a copy of anything for free—that was a great leap, and because I believe that will become more common, I wondered how it would play out.

My personal bias is towards culture, to interesting, stimulating experiences. I think fun is its own reward—and one that brings promise for even more.

And right now we’re entering a period when TV is moving into the same realm. And by TV I mean any video, no matter how it’s distributed and no matter what device is used. Calling it Television and TV is just handy.

I continue to follow the affects of how media changes when it switches to Internet distribution–it becomes digitized and subject to new rules. And despite a lot of attempts to preserve the status quo in code, Internet distribution keeps changing everything.

Why does it matter if TV changes?

TV is important. As one of our main mediums of communication, it reflects us, helps define us, explains our world to us, and becomes a bedrock of what we expect from reality. It tells us what’s important, frames national debate, and can raise hysteria to a fevered pitch. Show planes crashing into building enough and we’re ready to go to war. Show Elvis shaking his hips and we’re ready to rock.

Now TV is changing, and becoming even more present. Will our culture fragment? Become easier to manipulate? Will we dissolve into smaller segments drawn together only by the more horrible spectacles?

Even back in the 90s, when I worked at an online music company, where people’s interest in music ran very high, what got mailed around the most was viral videos–funny little pieces that could work well in the short attention span, low-bandwidth, office world.

So while email was big, music distribution important, instant messaging really cool, TV is what made people stop. Even short, goofy pieces about monkeys peeing on themselves would have people bringing their friends over to their screens.

And now, with its logic of permeating every possible nook with Internet connectivity and screens of many sizes, we’re looking at the future of this entrancing creation, and the kinds of new things that lie around the corner. Clearly some big players are on the move—but many have been on the move for years, without much success.

What will these new media be?

I’m sure you’ve noticed that there is an explosion of the types of devices on which to play video, and ever more active levels of connectivity. As the highly mediated human takes a leap into this new universe of multiple devices and connectivity, lingering in the air is a question about what this all means, and whether we should pay attention.

How about these current and coming changes? Will they make TV more important, less important, or change anything at all? Will we become slaves to entertainment? Will the grip of the big money Hollywood production studios be broken?

Let’s try some reverse archeology: try to assemble a view of the future by some evidence now.

First a few assumptions

Before we get going, I just want to cover some basic things I believe.

Technology is culture, Culture is Technology

Humans are fundamentally grounded in technology; beginning with the things that make us human, including our language. We are defined by our tools and all creative activity involves interacting with those tools.

The Average American Home Now Has more Screens that People

And we have a lot of people (300 million just last week). Of course this isn’t only an American trend. We have TV at home, in our cars, on our phones, in portable games machines, and in our computers. Screens are with us—and cameras are with us.

More Screens than brains?

Does all of this media saturation deaden us? Control us?

Possibly.

Where we were once couch potatoes, will we become walk potatoes?

Actually, no. Well, at least not all the time.

Because these screens are connected, or their replacements soon will be, so behind each screen is a mass of brains, a network of interaction.

Information, highly produced entertainment, even simple play will all have to take into account this fact of being connected. Or will be affected by it somehow.

So, maybe literally we’ll have more screens than brains, but we’ll also have the smartest entertainment ever—or at least be the most connected potatoes.

Old media sets the patterns and expectations of the new

Cart, wagon, automobile—all of these set the groove for later transportation, and made it difficult to create something outside of the older model. As they solidified whole industries arose that depended on them, and therefore supported their continued existence. The same thing exists in the media world, as the old entertainment and electronics industry sets a framework that’s difficult to see outside of, and in turn works to cement its own role. The danger is that an extinction can wipe out a whole ecosystem.

Things are a little different this time with television because although it carries the expectations and industries of the old, all the developments seem to be happening on technology that has other uses, and other associations. Patterns of behavior may be informed by what audiences know about using the computer network for music, blogging, email, chat, even spreadsheets. So there are competing infrastructures, collapsing business frameworks, new paths for organization and distribution, and finally, user experiences that are a result of the continuous collision of all these things.

Let’s look at some of these collisions, because I believe that it’s in the play between these tensions and possibilities that new forms emerge.

Thinking about what might emerge, my friends Sarah Borruso and Erik Adigard and I mapped what we felt were important considerations for anyone trying to work in the new TV space. Although they work as design guidelines, I think they are also useful for helping us grope towards insight into ways TV might soon work, worth considering for content, device, or total experience.

10 Axioms for new television

Yes, there is some overlap with these axioms, but these are distinct enough that I think each is worth considering on its own.

1. Unlimited Interface
New Code = New Experience

The Internet isn’t so much a medium, but a raw material. Because we can literally write new devices into existence, our ability to make new experiences is rapidly advanced. Napster and You Tube, for instance, were not amazing technical innovations, but they took advantage of an intuitive understanding of how the Internet worked, and they were wonderful examples of user experience. People plus the Internet equal emergent properties.

By envisioning new ways to take advantage of the underlying Internet, the experience of TV is limited only by our ability to code a convincing and powerful environment. The medium behaves how we choose to interact with it; and we interact with it depending on how we choose to build it.

What the interface is will define the content, and vice versa. Sometimes a simple, clever interface is enough to set off a chain of events.

Aspects of the other media will bleed over. Games, chat, location-based services, social networks, RSS: All of these will be possibilities for inclusion—all will be familiar to new audiences.

Then there is the other code: the law. As many more distribution networks emerge, expect regulatory agencies to insert themselves to some degree.

2. Scalable
Internet television defies confined boundaries

How will your show look when it’s as big as a postage stamp, or spread out over a wall? Getting over this challenge is fundamental. Clearly some types of video will exist in only one realm, but learning to design for all sizes is an interesting challenge.

Different types of screens imply different types of interactions. Do they split or do they work seemlessly? I think you’ll begin to see a range of content made for multiple mental states, and different levels of engagement.

I recently worked on a Web site for one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world. Think big ears. What interested me the most about the website was the mental range it had to accomodate. Normally we deal with different user segments with different goals. But in this case, because of the age range, not only were the goals very different, the cognitive abilities were at many stages. I think that some kind of thinking about different cognitive abilities at different scales is worthwhile. As is some of the basic premises for entertainment. Does something delicious, sexy, cute at one foot stay the same at 60 feet? Or does it become grotesque and bizarre?

3. Universal
Content is physically pervasive and propagates throughout the mediasphere

We’re used to the ubiquity of TV sets in living rooms. They’ve changed our household routines. What happens when TV — and multiple forms of it become standard just about everywhere. How does that affect us? Do we tune it out? Become immune? Or do we change some other way?

How about when cameras are everywhere, even just potentially? It seems like every month or so we hear about a scandal or see a funny video of a teacher or some other figure of authority caught behaving inappropriately.

Online video has the potential to disseminate – where it lands is almost impossible to determine. It takes on a life of its own, as we ponder where it began and where it is going. Such viral characteristics explode our notion of TV.

Design to take advantage of this self-propagation.

4. Mobile
Content is available anywhere, anytime and can be both personally and locally relevant

TV is more than just a fixture in the living room – content now has to compete with a moving backdrop. It can also be focused for personal needs, interests, and tied to specific locations. Content creators have the ability to cater to niche markets on specific topics in specific areas.

What you want depends on where you are, but just what personally locally relevant means could use a lot more research and invention. After a lot of hype some people are wondering if mobile video is at all useful—especially in the US, where most people drive and don’t have an hour sitting on a train or bus. Even in Japan, where the reverse is true, I would often ask people with TV phones if they used them. Most often they didn’t, and if they did it was only to watch sports or some kind of really important news.

Sometimes the experience is less than overwhelming, and mobile video doesn’t seem so useful, but like Benjamin Franklin said when he saw the first balloon carry humans: “What’s so useful about a newborn baby?”

One thing that I think would make mobile video more interesting is if there were screens around that could be driven by your mobile device. On the plane, the train, or other spaces, if you could control what you see from your own device, carrying all your content and personal information, it would make things very interesting.

5. Multiple Program Formats
The medium is shape-shifting to accommodate new tastes and delivery mechanisms

The television show in the era of large network control was defined by a 30-minute show divided into ten minutes of rising plot fever punctuated by an afterglow of a couple of commercials. Just as new devices and delivery mechanisms have broken this mold, they are also giving rise to entertainment and news that isn’t straight-jacketed by the old format.

6. Community
The audience is as important as the show, sometimes it is the show

There’s a growing symbiosis of people and the programs they see. Watching, while a personal experience, is usually given context by a social setting. As interfaces become more sophisticated, online experiences of watching are more frequently defined by the quality of the social network — the self-organizing group that shares interests and commentary with each other.

In the case of many new properties, the social network is the greater value to the participants than the content itself. Some networks will reinforce current social groups, some will create new ones; there will be a community lifecycle to affect the whole process. Everyone can be famous for 15 people.

Amazing production quality doesn’t matter nearly as much as the ability to attract and sustain a group that connects with what you’re making.

This touches on political issues; on what mobile visionary Howard Rheingold calls “smart mobs.” The Wikipedia defintion: A smart mob is a group that, contrary to the usual connotations of a mob, behaves intelligently or efficiently because of its exponentially increasing network links. This network enables people to connect to information and others, allowing a form of social coordination.

7. Networked Technology
Parts working in tandem make up a greater medium

But there’s another side to mobdom, as my friend Erik Adigard has said:

“The ‘mob’ is not just people who have figured out how to rally, it is also the mob of devices that have figured out how to network.”

So this includes a community of devices. And like any community we need to start imagining the type of interactions we want.

In the new network all devices are a linked part of a greater system. A person may own all screens, so paying attention to, and designing for both the overlap and differences is an interesting issue for designers and content creators. While no one wants recycled remakes delivered unceasingly to their home and phone, an orchestration of many devices to deliver new types of programs could be provocative.

For instance, imagine you were learning a language. You might watch a show in the morning at your main home screen, and then find yourself interrupted at several points throughout the day on mobile devices to reaffirm what you’ve learned. That’s just an example. There might also be a growing desire to access your online roleplaying game at different points of your day.

Which brings us to…

8. Always On
A constant panorama of media broadens our peripheral vision and attention span

Television in the days of old was either on or off. There is now a growing, important continuum between active and passive, changing how we watch and interact with video. This is ripe for exploration. In some cases content may resemble a revival of Push, or ambient wallpaper. In other cases, like massive multi-player games, simulations would include the option for players to experience it passively and cinematically.

Again, as screens are in more and more places, used for different types of interactions, you’ll need to think of designing for different mental states, from much more passive to much more engaged.

And just as screens might always be on, cameras might also. That might well affect how we behave; our public masks in the reality shows that make up our lives.

9. Viral Viewership
Viewers find and label content, and then it finds its audience

Viewers define what they’re looking at, and promote it with context that makes sense to them. Was that supposed to be a speech by the President? Now it’s a parody of self importance and bumbling. The most interesting stuff might not have a category mapped out and a slot in which to market it – or it might be much more interesting outside of its usual slot. Useful, user-defined tagging, is crucial, fundamental functionality in this new environment. But beyond that, it’s giving up some control

Hits can grow over time. You don’t have to make a big intitial splash. In the old days if people didn’t tune in at, say, 8:00 pm on Wednesday—the day you ran your show—it was over. Now popularity could come in waves or a steady-growing bump.

Word of mouth is more important that ever. That means quality is more important than ever. Content creators can’t rely on hype to make everyone tune in.

Remember, you might not be able to find your audience, but your audience knows how to find each other. Give them the tools to do that.

10. Open Stream
Harnessing the value of content must allow for free, paid, and in-between

Though online content companies may want to rope off their playground to charge entry, an open field attracts more people and more value. A great many interesting things are being created online by people who don’t intend to charge for it.
Consumers and producers both carry new, often opposing expectations of ownership.

Innovation comes from giving users freedom to act, and sometimes that means just letting them play.

Producers often sell things with the expectation that they can change it whenever they want, or limit use. They wouldn’t get away with that in the physical world–can you imagine a shoe company installing an upgrade that kept you from running fast? And yet they’re surprised when consumers want to similarly take advantage of digital to make copies to give to their friends.

What can we learn from Rock n Roll?

Look at music. (Because I wrote a book about what happened when music hit the Internet, I sometimes return to that as a guide.) What the Internet, along with mobile devices like the iPod, has done is to make music both more present and somewhat less potent, or at least a more diffuse cultural form. The long tail affect.

It’s hard to imagine doing all the things with video that we’re used to doing with text, but it’s worth looking at music. By slapping some text wrappers and other markers around a music file, all of a sudden people can search it, organize it, tag it. Giving it a web address gives it a life of its own. Some people don’t like this.

“I am warring against the culture of the Internet. I will depopulate Silicon Valley as I move a Roman legion or two of Wall Street law­yers to litigate in Bellevue and San Jose.” So said Edgar Bronfman, Executive VP Universal Vivendi, at a speech in San Jose in 2000.

That’s the wrong attitude to take. I’d like to hope the age of depopulating cities is over, even in boisterous CEO speeches. It didn’t do much good.

Thankfully the movement towards online distribution of television seems less fraught with legal battles and posturing. But the apparatus of legal threat is still there, and everyone feels its hot breath. I think that will be with us for a long time to come, so here’s my plea to the people at the helm of the entertainment/legal industry:

Reward user innovation; at least allow it. The audience might be inventing your future.

And to the rest of you: go and invent that future!