by Aanarav Sareen on October 4, 2011
Media has drastically changed over the past few years. Decades ago, people bought albums. Then came CDs. Finally, it came down to singles and MP3s.
The same applies to video properties. Few years ago, people paid for what they wanted to watch. Blockbuster thrived on that model, but failed to innovate. Other video stores suffered due to their lack of scale.
However, with introduction of online media, individuality has gone out the door. Services like Pandora, Spotify and Rdio have started a trend towards unlimited access. Netflix has been leveraging the same model — unlimited access to a vast catalog. Not necessarily the choice you want. But the only choice you have.
Amazon has taken the same approach with their Prime offering. Unlimited access to a small library of content. Just like any media property, a catalog grows slowly. And you can bet that Amazon will leverage its bargaining power to make their MP3 service unlimited and fight aggressively to grow its video library as well. In the next few years, it won’t be surprising if Amazon’s media offering is larger than the entire Netflix catalog.
Overall, this trend towards unlimited media is only going to benefit distributors and not customers. There will be a point where consumers and passionate fans are no longer going to accept fragmented offerings. Knowing the media licensing model, there will never be content parity across platforms. And sadly, that is one thing that will continue to hold digital distribution back.
by Aanarav Sareen on October 3, 2011
Amazon has been one of my absolute favorite companies. They made buying books easier. They made e-books popular. And their customer-service is stellar. What company gives you money back when their shipping vendor delays a package for 1 day?
A few years ago, they introduced the Kindle. It was priced high for market penetration. However, with their announcements last week — the Kindle is now a mainstream device. Starting at just $79 and all the way up to $199, e-books will be mainstream. As an author, that is great news. No other digital reader or media playback device can even remotely compete in this market.
Another big thing that Amazon has done with the Kindle Fire is firmly established itself in the media space — music and video.
Amazon was the first major player to offer DRM-free MP3s. Apple — the big behemoth had to follow suit. Amazon now has a competitive Prime video offering, which allows users to stream TV shows and other movies on the device itself.
As someone who recently canceled his Netflix subscription, I’m looking forward to exploring Amazon’s media offerings. It’s going to be an interesting experiment.
Last, but certainly not least, the Kindle Fire is very big news and just the beginning.
by Aanarav Sareen on October 2, 2011
By far, this year has been one of the most interesting ones. From traveling to Italy for dinner and having wine under the Eiffel Tower, it has been a lot of fun.
On the work side, the group has worked with companies and agencies to launch new cars, new phones and a whole lot of great products.
I also launched my second book — Digital Media for Business — on September 6th. If you’d like a copy, send me an email and I’ll send over a free one for your reading pleasure.
I’m also changing the tone of this blog. Everything from here on will be direct; with harsher criticisms.
So — stay tuned as we reboot!
