In Part 3 of Being Digital Nicholas Negroponte discuss something called VOD or video-on-demand. Negroponte implies that VOD or some variant of it will become the norm. He actually predicted the end of video rental stores entirely within the next 10 years. Since the book was written in 1995 that prediction has not entirely come true as we still have a local Blockbuster in just about every major city across America. However, Negroponte was not far off the mark. Today we now see Blockbuster commercials that are advertising the ability to order movies online and receive them in the mail, while maintaining the option of renting movies directly from the physical store.
This turn Blockbuster has taken is due in part to the success of NetFlix, who offers only online ordering of movies and does not present the option of a physical location. Also, there are a few websites that now offer the ability to pay with a credit card and simply download and watch a movie directly on your computer, such as MovieFlix.com and MovieLink.com. The change Blockbuster has made is ironic because Negroponte mentions how former Blockbuster chairman, H. Wayne Huizenga claimed that “87 million American homes took fifteen years to have a $30 billion investment in VCRs and that Hollywood has such a big stake in selling him cassettes that it would not dare enter into VOD agreements” (Negroponte 173). Obviously this statement has proved to be false. VCRs are swiftly being replaced by DVD players, TiVo, and faster computers. Also, Apple has come out with the AppleTV which allows users to transmit videos from their iPod to their TV.
These various items lead me to discuss Negroponte’s points about asynchronous viewing. Basically the idea is that Television has required massive amounts of people to watch any particular show or movie only at the time it is being broadcast, thus synchronously. The newer technologies discussed above are allowing people to watch shows and movies at their leisure, thus asynchronously. I can now decide to take a class at 8 p.m. and not worry about missing American Idol because I’ve programmed my TiVo to record all instances of American Idol for me, thus allowing me to watch the program when I get home or whenever I happen to feel like watching it.
The future Negroponte predicted for television, VCRs, and video rental stores is not quite here, but it is definitely coming. Perhaps if he had given a 20 year time span rather than a 10 year time span he’d have been right on the money. Regardless, the way we think about viewing media has already met his expectations and that is exciting to me.
Works Cited:
Negroponte, Nicholas. Being Digital. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
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1 comment:
Indeed, I am an asynchronous viewer, too. How is this fact changing our lives? That is, what are the results of this change, and where is it going to lead?
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