My free video is loading…
Posted on April 12, 2006
Filed Under media, video | Comments
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Disney is making not only good content - but their best and most valuable content, i.e. Lost - available online… for free.
My first reaction was disbelief. My second reaction was delight. My third reaction was - “Damn. I just paid $34.99 for the season pass of Lost on iTunes.”
This really does change things. As the WSJ reported, this is just the first domino to fall… others will follow suit. Congratulations Disney, and here’s hoping that the model exceeds all your expectations. If this actually works (for users, advertisers and Disney), many good things ensue.
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8 Responses to “My free video is loading…”
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I put together a table of the options for ABC video
Your iPod season pass still has advantages over the mooted free model.
I think we’ll see even more options here.
Yeah, I hope they don’t take it off from itunes though. I prefer to ‘own’ the thing, and without commericals.
It’s not money wasted.
It should always be brought up, in my opinion, that these activities are always in the companies’ best interests. This goes along with the age-old addage, “Nothing in this life is free”. I don’t mean to sound skeptical, but I think we should analyze why a big content-owner like ABC/Disney is willing to make widely- & freely-available their content, which up to this point rakes in billions.
I think it is not unrelated that Bradley has posted this in his blog, because quite a large following is beginning to develop around other free content that do not actually depend on any kind of pay model - Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Google Video (though this obviously has content you can lease as well), etc. This is very-much related to the other topics he’s posted on here that, to some extent, actually generate content of interest from the power of the masses without charging a dime (yet?).
I enjoyed the the freedom of not having the large content-conglomerates overtaking the Free world. Now this changes things, and I wonder if its for anything but a negative overall effect.
Too pessimistic?
Abu,
While I understand your desire for a (more) conglomerate free world, the challenge is that consumers need a way to sort through all the noise and find content meeting a certain quality bar. Secondly, for that content to be created it does need a forum to ensure that the brightest, most creative out there can be paid substantially more than if they did their next best alternative. Today conglemerates provide both those services (some and sometimes better than others). The three sites you cite work in part because the content on them is relatively easy or cheap to create. Better sorting, tagging, editing and monetizing support to creators must be created before we can go beyond media companies….I definitely see steps being taken in that direction by Yahoo and others but we still have ways to go.
Neela,
The other issue that I was hinting at but did not explicitly express is that our content is essentially chosen for us by the media conglomerates. Our TV shows have the same formulaic plotlines & setups, our music has the same topics, subjects, & “sound”, and our movies have the same messages, themes, & overtones. I, personally, have long since stopped consuming (for the most part) any of the examples mentioned above, but I am not so out of touch as to be unaware of the mass-production of content.
The dark point I am dancing around is that our entire culture (”we” being the West, and particularly, Americans) is being effectively force-fed by these media companies rather than developing from the people. Without getting into a tirade about what that mass-produced culture actually is, I really just wanted to point out that the “free” model is far superior for the points you’ve mentioned - sorting through the “white noise” and determining what really is good. Obviously, there must be measures put in place to counter spam & artificial value inflation, but these will develop & mature out of necessity.
Am I saying anything about the evils of a purely capitalistic economy? Well, even if I was, that wouldn’t be applicable here, because such an economy doesn’t exist anywhere of which I am aware. But removing power of mass-control from the hands of the few is never a bad thing.
How ominous-sounding was that?
Bradley,
I figured commenting on your blog was the best way to get a hold of you. The HBS high tech alumni association (www.hbstech.org) is putting on a big online video event with Mike Arrington, Google, AOL, et al, and we asked one of our Yahoo contacts to approach you about speaking on the same panel. We haven’t heard back yet, so I thought I should get in touch directly.
The event is the evening of June 6 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. We would love to see you there. Let me know if you can make it!
Thanks,
Chris
[…] This could make the $1.99 per episode price for TV on iTunes or MySpace a compelling business model in comparison. Does anyone know how many videos have been sold on iTunes or MySpace so far under this model? Then along comes ABC with free episodes of Lost … http://www.elatable.com/blog/?p=21 … and 24 on MySpace compliments of BurgerKing: http://myspace.com/burgerking […]
Brad,
I recently became a fan of yours after reading the WSJ article by Lee Gomes (”Flicker of Hope…”).
I was hoping to connect with you to discuss my company (eGolfScore); after reading your comments in that article, I truly believe you will “get it”
Let me know, thanks…Joe