I found a link to Barrett Garese’s article “Scarcity, Experience, and an Old Seat at a New Table“, via ArtfulWriter.com.  A lot of what he talks about are ideas I’ve been working on since I started Stranger Things, but like any good writer, Garese really clarifies the problems and challenges we face in the new media landscape.

The entire article is worth a read, but there are several passages worth more careful attention…

• “Piracy is a distribution model”

Garese doesn’t say this outright, but he acknowledges (as should we) that piracy IS a common method of distrubtion today: legal or otherwise, it’s happening.  The wise distributor will find ways to work this to his advantage.

• “What will become the uniquely ‘online’ media experience?”

As Garese points, out, most online entertainment is really smaller-budgeted film or TV experiences, loaded on the Internet.  This is no more appropriate than the filmed stage plays of the 1930s/1940s.  For online content to thrive, creators have to lock in on what makes the online experience unique.  If I had to put it in a word, I would say interactivity.

• Content creators stand to lose less than distributors.

While I would argue some of the finer points of this idea, it has a ring of truth.  As long as you can create content people want, there will be room for you in the marketplace somewhere.  It’s a matter of finding out how to adapt your voice to the megaphones available.  Distributors, especially of hard product like DVD, may find themselves in the cold in ten years.

• “Free Google Internet????”

Check out conclusion #6 near the bottom of the post.  This caught me completely by surprise.  But some research turned up a few older stories (Google offers free Wi-Fi in Mountain View, CA / What’s Google doing with all that Dark Fiber?) so I’m more inclined to believe it.

• • •

Above all, remember that this changing landscape should only worry you if you’re already invested in it: i.e., if you have a show on television, or have a DVD distribution deal, or a three-picture deal with Paramount.  If you are still at the bottom, working the angles to find a way in, you couldn’t be in a better position.  This changing landscape will favor the fast-moving, industrious creative-types.  It will mean hard work, but that’s a small price to pay to see the dawn of a new age.

As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

– Bob Dylan

Related posts:

1. Google’s Coming Monopoly on Knowledge
2. One Step Closer to an Interactive Future
3. NY Times: “Indies Going Solo”