As our local PBS station decided to push Masterpiece Mystery from Sunday at 10 to Monday at 9, my wife and I realized that we would be consuming Sherlock a day later than everyone else in the US which is already watching it later than most other people in the world. This confused me a little bit since our family primarily consumes media via “New Media” methods. We no longer have a cable subscription. We are cord cutters, and we stream shows from Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu+ (as well as a few other sources) for most of our viewing habits, so appointment viewing is something we are out of practice doing. So, my wife and I were watching… over the air… like chumps. We could not pause to run to the bathroom, we could not rewind when Cumberbatch mumbled something, we could not have any control of the consumption. It was as if we were back in the 90’s with an incredibly crisp picture because HD over the air is A-Frikkin-Mazing. Anyway… this made me realize that I have embraced the “New Media” model almost wholeheartedly.
The topic for this week is “New Media” and questions this week come from Lrd Pithy, Chris Corrigan, Kelly, Meg, Tom Merritt, and some other guy. Onto the questions!
1. Do you think your grandchildren will look back on podcasts with the same tolerant smiles with which we think of radio dramas?
Do we look back on radio dramas with tolerant smiles? I don’t think I look back on generations before and think,” Look at those rubes not watching stories with the eye-holes like chumps.”
2. Going all sepia-toned now, when I was a kid there were three channels. Everyone was basically watching the same thing. As new media allows for more specialization to the viewer are we in danger of becoming more isolated in our self-interest bubbles?
Yes, but not really. It is a contradictory answer because the communities are starting to coalesce around topics and not geography. I have had more cross-pollination of disparate ideas through my online artistic communities than I do within my workplace. The online art community is one of choice, and the work is one of proximity and necessity. So, while our entertainment delivery is starting to balkanize, it is causing the communities consuming that media to globalize.
3. What is your favorite cat video?
The one where the cat jumps in the box and the box falls over. Oh, that one kills me every time. Am I going to link that vid for you? No, No I am not. Just go to YouTube and search "Funny Cat Video." I am sure you will find it.
4. What and when was your last Tweet?
@thegynomite maybe he is just playing the odds? 12:48PM - 21 January 2014... you don't need the context
5. Did the new MySpace fail?
If you are asking this question, yes.
6. Oh you can watch soccer online you know…:-)
I am aware of that. The feeds are sometimes terrible and I am constrained to my computer monitor and office chair for my viewing pleasure. I need a way to stream sporting content to my TV’s. That is how I watch US National Team games though.
7. So new media questions…what was the first thing you made on the Internet? How did you first participate?
Hmmm… The first thing I made on the Internet is an interesting question. I would have to point back to the first incarnation of my blog. It was called “Under Construction” and this is the direct extension of that blog.
8. Which new media innovation drives you mad?
Geofencing
9. How has new media made your life better?
I pretty much get to watch what I want when I want. There are exceptions to that rule, but in general...
10. Which new media innovation was a fulfilment of your childhood fantasies about what the world would look like in the year 2020?
Streaming live video with a chat function that allows for massive live interaction with the on-air personalities.
11. Since "new media" includes Netflix, what show have you most recently "binge-watched"?
hmmm… I binge watched the first 8 episodes of “House of Cards.” I was ill for 2 days and plowed through 4 eps a day whilst I was conscious… I got better and have not watched the last 4 of season 1 because I found none of the characters to be even remotely likeable. I might go back and watch the last 4, but most likely not.
12. Why do men watch Youtube videos almost anywhere with the volume on and women almost never do anything remotely as annoying?
You aren’t either not hanging out with the right men, or you are not hanging out with the right women. Most likely a little of column A and a little of column B.
13. I've been interested in how new media reframes or redefines intimacy. For example, if you spend several hours a week listening to serial podcasts - there's often a residual sense that you KNOW these people. They've shared sometimes deeply personal or vulnerable information - and that creates (in my experience at least), the feeling that you are near to these artists and creators, that they are almost part of your real life. I'm not sure exactly what the question lurking in there is, but with so many self-produced audio and video artifacts, I think there is interesting consequences to immersing yourself in the life and experience of others who you've never met.
This is an interesting conundrum. In some of the 20 questions with podcasters I have asked how this intimacy disparity manifests for them. This is an interesting phenomenon because in interactions with these podcasters, I have a leg up on them. I am currently asking 20 questions with very popular comic and podcaster from Australia, I will ask him this…. stay tuned (his answer is awesome, btw)
14. Do you think we'll see podcasts get a new name, or will it just survive as an anachronism like album?
I think much like albums have been truncated to LP’s and EP’s, podcasts will also get a shorter name with some anachronistic relation to why they were called this.
15. Will we still have "hit shows" or will things become so niche, they will only be hits in their fan base?
There will still be “hit” shows, but the definition of “hit” will be redefined, much like it is currently. “Everyone and their brother” watched the Breaking Bad finale and that is a critical and substantive hit in the modern era of the cable subscription model, but it’s viewership was only 10.3 million. If we look back into the 90’s when cable was taking over for broadcast as the defacto delivery system for TV content, networks were still creating the most watched content. MacGyver’s series finale pulled 13.1 million, Friend’s series finale pulled in 52.9 million, and Seinfeld brought in a crazy 76.3 million viewers. Breaking Bad was a “hit” but did not do as well as a struggling and dying MacGyver show viewership-wise. Then think about before cable became the primary delivery system. The highest viewed episode of Mork and Mindy in its second season had 20.2 million viewers. The number of viewers for a “hit” will hover around 8 to 15 million, but this metric will also be redefined eventually as more people watch shows asynchronously, but I am not sure how one can quantify that kind of hit over time. I just got to use the words asynchronously. Awesome. You made me do some research... not so awesome.
16. Bandwidth gets better, streaming gets better but video codecs remain complicated. Just the way it is, or will we ever get the 'mp3' of video?
I think one of the issues with video codecs is that there has been a continual upward shift for video resolution. In my opinion, until there is a plateauing of video resolution, there will not be a standardization of video format, and once that format is standardized, there will be an effective cap put on video resolution.
17. How many cable companies survive the transition into providing service over the Internet and why?
The bigger conglomerates will survive as well as the people generating superior products. You can already see tentative forays into the new spaces. Disney creating the Marvel shows just for Netflix, and the HBOgo app are the 2 items that come to mind immediately. Upstarts will become larger though. Places that find niche audiences and start to become more mainstream. I think Nerdist Industries might be a winner in the new space. They are 1 show and a movie away from being BIG.
18. 3D? Ever?
Limited success, 5 years. Not all stories are usefully told in 3-D movies… 3-D will be bigger in gaming as games take a larger share of entertainment and story-telling and make the gamer part of the story. 3-D does not work very well as an omniscient 3rd person viewer.
19. Games… how will they continue in new media?
This is an interesting question. Games will continue to take market share of the entertainment space because of the interactive component, however, I predict there will be a few gamers who will make it big with “how they play” story based games. People will want to “ride along” with them through their games as a kind of performance art. You can already see some of this with sites where you can watch people play through a game. In this instance I am talking about gamers almost becoming improv artists within a digital theater. People will pay to ride along with the gamer as they go into a game environment much like watching a musician play a concert.
20. Do you have a favorite “new media” property?
Not one in particular. I really enjoy the creator owned content more than corporate content that is merely being distributed through less traditional means. For entertainment podcasts, I will always queue up Walking the Room, Never Not Funny, Comedy Film Nerds, and Nerdist. For tech news I gravitate to Tom Merritt’s Daily Tech News Show and Tech News Today over at TWiT.tv. For cord cutting information and news about what is possible to watch and how to do that the only show worth mentioning is Cord Killers. Those are the must listens and must watches of my new media, even though I have 35 more podcasts that I listen to. I also watch as many MLS games as I can with the MLS MatchDay. Although I get locked out of local games or nationally televised games with that platform. This year, I hear all the games will be streamed via the YouTubes, so this could be a good year for me and MLS. For traditionally created content that I consume non-traditionally, I watch Arrow, Agents of SHIELD, @midnight, and Key and Peele on Hulu+. Sherlock last night was the first thing since the Summer Olympics in 2012 that I have watched over the air. The PBS channel on our ROKU is very well used and the Smithsonian channel is one that the fam likes as well.
To recap:
Class this week will be difficult to get the preparatory work done
It will also be relatively easy to do the final work
but that prep stuff is going to be massive though
I currently have 8 unlistened/unwatched podcasts in my queue
By the end of the night there will most likely be more
Might try to watch Sherlock again on the PBS channel on our ROKU
I have so much to do
And I am also hungry
What’s up with that
Cord cutting was a good thing
I do miss the EPL on our TV though
I will definitely have an interview for you next week
There is a good chance that I will have 2 in the bag by then
They are both awesome, so look for them
Have a great weekend, everyone