I personally found the 90’s a boring era in the grand-scheme of things, whilst some of the most genuine and innovative bands emerged during that time (Jane’s Addiction for one) I don’t think, by and large, that the 90’s was a period noted for its ability to empower the public or create any tangible sense of change.
A worldwide recession, the Gulf War, the dot com boom bust saga and every kid wanting to be Kurt Cobain – hardly the marks of a memorable moment in history.
But as we entered the current decade, a palpable change was in the air – technology began to evolved at a far faster rate, becoming cheaper, smaller and more accessible in the process.
Suddenly your computer has morphed into something vastly superior to just using Microsoft Office and sending an e-mail. The Internet has shifted into not only a place to share information, but has now lead to the creation of new business models, worldwide political movements (the Obama campaign) and broken down the barriers into many fields of work, previously off limits to the average man in the street.
With broadband penetration continuing to rise, so to is the change in people’s habits in the digital realm – a shift away from conventional media and a sharper focus online. Conventional free-to-air TV audiences are shrinking, magazines and print media are watching their revenues vanish, retailers continue to see sales slump whilst radio is seeing a decline in their popularity. So what is happening here?
It’s very simple, as technology gets faster, as our lives continue to become a blur, people want content (be it music, news report, a TV show, a movie) instantly and on demand. That’s why on the graph below, On-Demand cable shows and the Internet are experiencing growth.
Current figures show an increasing number of Internet users searching for a particular news article, rather than visiting a site FOR the news. They’re finding out about breaking news via RSS feeds, referral links, blogs, forums, social-networks and status updates on sites like Twitter.
It’s an easy question, why would you buy a paper which is already dated before you’ve pick it up, when you could just as easily find out what is happening in real-time and for free? And just wait until mobile technology becomes even more seamless.
Lost in the suburbs? No need to fumble through the street directory, use Google Maps on your BlackBerry or iPhone. I do.
It seems less and less people are reliant on the influence of tastemakers in the media too. If they don’t like what Channel 7 has schedule for tonight, they’ll sit on YouTube instead or download their favorite show illegally. I don’t want to listen to the same 5 tracks being played on radio, I’d rather sit on MySpace and discover music on my own terms. It’s becoming that black and white. Active consumption of engaging content, verses the predictable passive offering.
But perhaps most interesting of all, set against this backdrop of average Joe changing the rules on the major media outlets, is that a new phenomenon has begun to emerge.
The startlingly ease with which to download anything you want illegally, combined with the power to sidestep the need to build a site or host content (MySpace, Vimeo, YouTube) and all tied together with the cost of cameras and laptops continually getting smaller and cheaper – has truly put YOU in control of the entire show.
Jeffree Starr - Personal Branding In Effect
We’re all collectively in the center of one of the most creative periods the world has been in, since the 1960’s. Just like then when people were busy creating an idea of what they wanted life to be like, people now create the idea of what their life actually is. True or make-believe, its all down to perception and more importantly how well you manage yourself as a brand.
I realize that seems like a rather peculier thing to say, the notion that you’re a “brand” in much the same way Coke-A-Cola is – but you truly are.
What is the difference in going to an interview in a sharp suit with a crisp shirt and uploading a great photo of yourself for your friends to see? They both serve the same purpose. You want to be percevied in a certain manner. (It’s funny to me because photos more than anything give you a very distorted view of the world, 90% of the time they are posed, forced and only attempt to show you the happy times. Rarely do they reveal the story going on behind the scenes.)
Say you upload photos of you and your partner. You want everyone to know you’re happy, that you want the same things in life and you want me think of you as an item and not individuals. That is precisely how a brand such as Coke operates, when they sponsor a summer festival so they be more aligned to people who like music and go to parties.
More and more people spend their majority of their time online, maintaining their favorite brand in the world – themselves. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing at all, but if someone is uploading a video of themselves to a social-network, that is time which was previously spent potentially watching TV or reading a magazine.
Suddenly the public are the programmers, user generated content is by far the most watched and consumed on the net – not the major networks.
Now there will always be professionals when it comes to music, online journalism, photography, design or any other creative medium. It’s all very well downloading the brand new Photoshop Suite, but at the end of the day you still need the talent to use it effectively.
And yes, there will still be blockbuster movies and mainstream bands on account of million dollar budgets and sponsorships. But now those outlets are not merely restricted to the privledged few – anyone can make their own indie movie, without financing from any of the corporate film houses.
Anyone with a decent internet connection can create and that’s the beauty of the era we current find ourselves in. Modern day technology provides you with the tools, society has given you the requirements and now its down to you – to piece it all together.
So what are you waiting for? Fire up your Macbook, log on and join some social-networks MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, register on photo and video sharing sites Flickr and YouTube, create a blog on Wordpress or Blogger and promote your content to a worldwide community via Delicious and Digg.
Total cost? $0
Benefits? Millions of eyeballs waiting to see what you’ve got….
Welcome to 2009 people.
Alex
Devil's Advocate says:
Far from being a period where there was no ‘tangible sense of change’, in my mind the Nineties was the decade where the foundations were laid for the technological advances we’re reaping the benefits of today. From the Internet, to the start of Digital TV and online shopping, and beyond. This was just as exciting to me as the release of the latest update is today, if not more. In the UK, at least – this shift, coupled with the arrival in government of New Labour in 1997, led to a feeling in the air of opportunity, and the breaking down of boundaries. I accept that this was not so much the case in the early part of the decade.
However, certainly towards the end of the Nineties, as email and mobile phones became accessible to the masses in the West, I think that there was a definite sense of empowerment and freedom.
Of course, in the past few years the rate of development has increased exponentially, and we look forward to the arrival of the latest software, or mobile phone, or digital camera with excitement. But this is coupled with the nagging feeling of always being ‘out of date’ – ‘My iPhone isn’t the latest model’, ‘There’s a faster internet connection available for the same price as I signed up for only three months ago’, and so on.
While there is no denying the endless possibilities of new technology, and the sense of empowerment it delivers, do we not now demand and expect the incredible power of said technology? Do we really feel lucky, or are we complacent. getting pissed off when Google Maps doesn’t work, or a given street doesn’t have Wi-Fi?
Furthermore. now, more than ever, we’re living in a two-tiered society. The haves, and the have nots. Those with access, and those behind a digital barrier as impregnable as the Berlin Wall.
For those of us on the ‘right’ side of the divide, we are lucky enough to have access to chat rooms, messageboards, online forums and so on.
In Jurgen Habermas’s work on the Public Sphere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurgen_Habermas
, he detailed how the 18th Century European bourgoise would sit in coffee shops, and discuss the issues of the day, giving their opinions and listening to others’, and coming to a consensus. Whilst it was intended to be a ‘check’ on government, and a reaction to being force fed policy and passively listening to the representations of the state, it was mainly accessible to those with money, or access to the printing press (i.e. those who could read), rather than being open to all, as it was intended.
Now, more and more people have the opportunity via the mediums listed above, to discuss the issues of our day. Arguing, debating, coming to a consensus.
One of the biggest benefits of the Internet, in my mind.
But still the great majority of the people on the planet don’t have this access, and as great as it is for the fortunate few of us to be able to sit in a cyber ‘coffee shop’ and find out about the world we live in, and demand change on a raft of issues, and give our opinions and listening to others’, our network is still closed. The vast majority of people on earth do not have access, and won’t in our lifetimes.
I use the Internet for my news now, rarely buying a newspaper. Like you say, they’re out of date by the time you pick them up. I remember delivering newspapers one Sunday morning back in 1997, and the headlines screaming about Exclusive Princess Diana photos, of her in her bikini on Dodi Fayed’s boat. I’d already heard that she’d died before I left home that morning to stuff the first News of the World through someone’s letterbox.
While ‘traditional’ media is no doubt experiencing huge decline in terms of audience (on demand being so much more accessible nowadays), and the MySpaces and Facebooks and YouTubes and Pandoras are on the rise, this leads to another change in user habits, but one which is by no means (to my mind) entirely ‘better’.
From the invention of transistor and car radios in 1950s and 1960s America, where teenagers would drive their parents’ cars out late at night with their friends, or listen under their pillows to DJs such as ‘Wolfman’ Jack
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7307738.stm
or ‘Moondog’ Alan Freed
http://www.alanfreed.com/biography.html
, to the major sporting events on tv today, the main draw was and is its ‘liveness’ – of a sense of being part of something bigger, connecting with others who felt / feel the same, and wanted to experience something that they weren’t used to, something new (in the case of the rock and roll music first played in the 1950s, and which the teenagers listened to for the first time). Whilst MySpace and its ilk serve a similar same purpose today – the discovery of new music and not the usual pop-fare delivered by the major radio stations, there isn’t the same sense of ‘liveness’ and being truly ‘connected’ to others as there is with live media.
Why do old ladies who live alone have the radio on all day? Because they feel connected to the other listeners, who are experiencing the same event, at the same time. They don’t feel so lonely.
Why, when a film comes on TV that you own on DVD, do you sit down and watch it? You could have put your DVD in the player and watched it yourself. But no, it’s the sense of ‘liveness’ and connection with others that attracts you. There is not yet an online enterprise which satisfactorily replicates this feeling.
And while, yes, our user habits are changing, are we are now becoming more isolated at the same time as we’re becoming more connected?
We post messages on our Facebook walls instead of picking up the phone. We surf the Internet all day by ourselves, and don’t go in the streets and play sports with our friends.
We live in a world where it’s easier to send an email to a person in the office downstairs than it is to go and wish them a good morning in person.
In a world of ‘on demand’ – of access to everything when we choose, are we not at risk of missing out on the ‘liveness’? Of not witnessing something as it happens, in tandem with others? Of becoming prisoners of our online coffee shops, while those ‘less fortunate’ play football in the streets, and occasionally look through the windows to see what all the fuss is about?
Welcome to 2009, indeed.
May 11, 2009, 7:19 AMTwitted by alexwain says:
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May 11, 2009, 11:16 AMprinter cartridge supplies says:
The 90’s era remind me how my mom and dad get to hang out. I even asked them to compare their lives before and today and they simply answers with “no comment”. Hahahaha
May 11, 2009, 11:18 AMDarlena Soria says:
I adore your weblog very much. Will read more. Keep up to great work on it. Thanks
May 11, 2009, 5:48 AM