Apple of My Eye?

I woke up the other morning to discover Steven Jobs and his crew at Apple Inc. has once again re-imagined how we receive and enjoy our entertainment. Disney has jumped on the bandwagon and joined with Apple to provide content for the new IPod.

Here’s some random thoughts I have on this new IPod (some of these ideas are rather plebeian, but then again, so am I) :

This is a new distribution method and as such will have little impact on the content itself. After all, does your Tivo affect what you watch? No, it affects when you watch it.

This will be a great thing for commuters on trains and busses.

Ratings on this end of the media spectrum will be more accurate because Apple will know immediately who downloads what. This is good news for advertisers.

I’m wondering if the idea of commercials for IPod hasn’t been suggested. If I have to watch two or three commercials, but I get a download for half-price, then I’m going to think about watching those commercials.

This will cause a shift in revenue for theatrical, TV and DVD as VOD (Video-On-Demand) matures.

The technology end of this new distribution method – server farms, fibre optic cable, satellite, etc – will offer opportunity for investors to make some money. Comcast is very happy.

As John Rogers stated here, Apple has locked people using their video IPods into Quicktime which is not exactly conducive to putting the scope of media in the hands of the little guy. We need the ability to quickly upload content from a variety of formats – QT, Windows media, Bittorrent, etc...

We need more minds (from other than Apple) working on this new distribution method to explore its potential applications and implications. The fact is that distributors will still control everything. We need the entire model reworked in order for it to really affect the creators.

The networks are offering these programs after they premiere on television, which is a bit of the old “dragging of the heels” when it comes to launching a new distribution model. Original content for this method will be the mark of whether or not money can be made. That’s going to be awhile and it isn’t going to come from the studios.

I’m not sure if this IPod is the device we should be looking at, but rather the V-casting that we see on cell phones or some of the other devices like those mentioned in Roger's post. V-Cast seems to be more of a new media than this video IPod. It has internet, text components and applications to it that make it a slightly different experience.

There will be more thoughts, musings, drunken ramblings from me on this and how this is going to affect writers. Certainly there is a lot to think about after I do more research.

Stay tuned...or logged on...or whatever it is you kids say nowadays.