This weeks reading, “A World of Differences“, looked at the ever changing market in the entertainment and media global industry. The discussion of the rise of digital media and digital consumption was fascinating as it really does feel as though we are heading into a world where everything is online. The emergence of Netflix has begun to shape the way entertainment and media is produced and released with the introduction of on demand personal programming. the reading discusses this as ‘bundles’ in relation to tv, films and primarily music, Apple music and other services which allow users to pick and stream whatever content they want.

The entertainment and media industry is facing a an era of change and companies must be able to adapt in order to stay relevant. People now want to be able to watch what they want, when they want and how they want, be it across multiple platforms or multiple forms of storytelling and media entities must be able to keep up with that.

What I found interesting was the content is king section which discussed how, despite newfound access to global content, it was the local content being produced in countries like Australia, Denmark and China, which still brought in the highest viewers/buyers. I am interested to see how (or if) this changes in the future when technology and digital media becomes even more accessible and prevalent in society.

Megatrends

What are megatrends? I do wish this article had described them a bit better. In all honesty, I found it a little difficult to read. A lot of it was very, not gonna say technical, but more technological than I could really understand. And quite a bit, especially the first few sections, were simply describing various types of technologies and only very briefly discussing their potential impact on the world. What I mostly understood was that megatrends, or in this case the fourth industrial revolution (what were #2 and #3?), is major advancements in technology which will have serious impact on society in the next ten years.

The section I found the most interesting was this table of tipping point predictions.

I was fascinated by the prediction that by 2025, 90% of the population will be using smartphones. Now, I have to assume that this “population” is that of the entire world, as other predictions would specifically state the US and this one didn’t. And I totally get how 90% of people in the US or Australia might have smartphones (although 90% is still an insanely high number), but there area whole lot of people in the world, and most are extremely poor or live in places where they have no access to these kinds of technologies. smartphones and al other kinds of the advanced technologies discussed here seem so, not only prevalent, but necessary, in our every day lives that we cannot imagine life without them. But for millions out there, this is just not a possibility, they may have never even seen a smartphone, and I can’t imagine that changing so drastically in just 9 years (and I can’t really see Apple ever lowering their prices).

On a slightly unrelated note, 10% of people wearing clothes that connect to the internet??? What on earth even is that. why would clothes need to connect to the internet. Unless clothes includes glasses, like google glass or something. but who needs t-shirts that play youtube videos? seriously.