I have a strong feeling that after Jan 27 2010 nothing will be the same anymore.
Can't really express why I do believe so so strongly, but I have no shame in forecasting that the advent of the Apple tablet will revolutionize the way we access contents, forever.
I am also very confident that this shift will be much more impactful than the Gutenberg revolution as it will involve also a big behavural change not only on the producer's side, but most of all from the side of the consumers.
If we look back to the introduction of the iPod in 2001 we will remember that the novelty of carrying all your music library in our pocket was seen as a tremendous improvement in the music and audio usablity, but nobody did predict that it would have also changed the entire music industry. Of course the revolution was caused by combining of the spreading of file sharing with the introduction, for publishers, of a brand new outlet/competitor such as iTunes.
The iPod and iTunes have set new standards to wich every musician, studio owner, record label , music executive and shop owners had to cope with. Many jobs were lost, multimillion contracts vanished and the only really beneficiary of all this ( apart from Apple ) was us, the consumer; only considering the freedom of buying one single song instead of the whole album is a clear sign of this.
CD will also vanish from shelves, and music will be purchased and stored directly on the cloud in order for us to also have the extra freedom not carry our personal ipod and laptop around the world. All we will will need is an internet connection and an interface to access our storage.
Now let's jump ahead to January 27 and let's pretend that Steve Jobs really pulls off the tablet, and that device will become the iPod and iTunes of publishing ; can you see the shift it will cause?
Let's wear the shoes of the content producers:
Book Writers - They will be able to publish their titles on the tablet . Hardcopy will be sold in the shops, but I have a feeling that soon enough if you will be seen carry a hardcopy book in the streets of NY you will be steared at the same way as smokers are perceived now.
Also as an author, I will be able to publish the book directly on the tablet in all the possible language version. If I want to add a latest chapter I will be able to do so without going to re print.
Magazine Publishers - Sport illustrated tablet edition will have international and local news ( dected by the internal GPS feature . I will be able to subscribe to the magazine and store it on the cloud in order to retrieve it ten years from now without having to search in my cellar. The E-Copy will also embed audio and video.
Advertisers- Their will be able to place multimedia location based ads ; I will be reading my E version of teh National sitting on a JBR bench, and if I am hungry the tablet will display all the nearby restaurants, I will be able to browse the menus, compare the prices and make my decision.
Now let's wear the shoes of the end user:
I will be able to carry my entire music library, books library, magazine library office documents etc, on a 10" screen device. I can copy paste and send links with a swipe of my finger, I will be able to do everything, I mean everything as long as that I have an internet connection. Live video chats, watching a movie, buy a song, e banking etc; the entire digital experience.
There will be no looking back, it will be the change of an era.
Who loses and who wins in this shift?
The consumer will win because more options will be available, many more options.
The media movers will lose. For media movers I intend all those entities that don't create but only buy, sell, distribute content ( Record Companies, retailers etc,)
We are going toward an age where creativity only matters, and we will be able to deliver our "content " autonomously without having to give a cut to the "Middle Man" ( Dubai , ouch ! ..)
In an enviroinment like this the pure talent and the innovators will emerge due to the natural selection that the internet has get us used to; the rest will slowly vanish.
And all this, to my belief will commence on October 27 2010 : A small step for Apple..
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