Frédéric Abella

The first real change of internet is its countless capacity of media distribution.

step 4 – everything is reachable…

Since the beginning of humanity to now, the number of pipes between a content and a person has increased, with a good acceleration in the second half of the XXth century. With Gutenberg, books number has increased. Radio was created and the number of radios increased. Cinema was invented , then movie theaters built . TV appeared and TV channels were overflowing. But at the end, they were not that many.

If Paul had created something, a piece of information, a song, a film, the number of pipes to go from him to someone else was fairly skimpy compared to the number of Pauls who create things, and to the number of Maries who can be interested. 60 millions only in France. How many can have an article published in Le Monde? How many can be signed on Virgin label? How many can talk on TF1 channel? Very few.

Today, an old pipe is just one pipe amongst billions of others.

Imagine a world with 1 pipe, the Pipe.

Talking about creators, on one side, you have Paul and Vincent distributed by this unique Pipe. On the other side, you have a millions of sad creators not distributed. Paul and Vincent are happy as they won the competition to be in the Pipe. The Pipe is happy. It makes money from people who want to access to this unique content offer, as there is nothing else.

Now let’s change the rules in one day and add enough new pipes to make the millions of sad creators reachable. The creators are happy as they are reachable by anyone. And a lot of people abandon the old Pipe to new ones to see those unknown creators and their fresh contents. Even several pipes at the same time, switching from one to another in an instant. The old Pipe doesn’t understand what is happening and why it is loosing money. It is not unique and mandatory anymore, just one next to others. And Vincent and Paul? Ditto. Even if they still make money with the old Pipe, they make less and they need to find other ways to people. Meaning other pipes. Moreover they are now again in competition with the other creators. The old Pipe, Vincent and Paul are just drops in the ocean.

That’s why the newspapers are fighting to survive and press agencies are not unique news producers anymore. MySpace, Twitter , Facebook are pipes and creates millions of pipes. Justin.tv offers more than 400 000 live video TVs, and even Le Monde is now a TV producer. That’s why knowledge is under everyone’s thumb and not only in libraries or museums.

step 5 – … but everything is not reached.

Here is George, one of the ex-sad creators of the Pipe world. He creates a song, records it on his computer and upload it on his MySpace page. The song is reachable by anyone anywhere in the world. George payed nothing to be reachable. No, he has earned nothing yet. Nobody comes to listen to the song, because noone knows it exists. But it is reachable. If Marie wants to listen to it, she can. But this futur fan has not a clue it is here. And Marie has not enough time to search or listen to George’s song. So what?

The competition now is not to be reachable anymore, but to be reached. What is the difference between a pipe-drop and another pipe-drop? between a content-drop and another content-drop? So how to be a different drop?

As a pipe, to be close to the person. Marie has a limited capacity of attention or choice. I remind you the whole story is to lead a content to her. So this content needs to be in the funnel to her attention. And as the funnel end is close to Marie, the winners need to be as closely as possible from Marie. Long time ago, in a theater. Today in the house with TV and computer and tomorrow in the pocket, with mobile.

Here is Zillion TV. As a pipes’ owner, Lagardère invests in mobile. Yahoo, a portal-pipe, wants to be mobile. Everyone wants to be on the Iphone, as SFR TV or Orange TV.

As a content, to have a reputation. If Marie knows the George’s song exists, it is because she heards about it, amongst a billion of other songs, as it is reputed. Reputation can be build by being promoted by a lot of people (social recommandation with tags or as Susan Boyle), or by one reputed person. And there is already deals between reputed contents and reputed pipes  (Sony and Youtube , Disney and Youtube).

Yes old few pipes are still there, close and reputed, and specially TV. But for how long….

by Frédéric Abella

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