Jan 09
19
Ostriches Are Not Invisible to Tactical Nukes
Why is it that we love to speculate about what is going to happen to someone else’s industry, business, economy, (you name it) – but we are less enthusiastic about accepting the inevitability of change to that which we are directly involved in?
Is it because we are all infallible?
Is it because we think we are sufficiently knowledgeable about how change is unfolding that we will be able to adjust the levers sufficiently to ensure that we get through whatever is coming at us from the opposite direction? Or is it that we (ostriches) sometimes prefer to ignore those factors that could mark disaster for our industries, businesses, etc?
The fact is that technological change happens at a relatively stable rate. It is the lack of adaptation to technological change that causes the tsunami-like changes that affect industries, and they are largely predictable. The problem is that often we are so pre-occupied with trying to achieve quarterly profits that we neglect to change in such a way as to enable long term sustainability.
I was looking at 24 Things That Are About To Go Extinct on a news site in Canada . Below are a few of the entries that are being made extinct by convergence:
The interesting thing is that this data is all about the economic impact of the Internet.
It wasn’t very long ago that media stocks were hot. Now when you look at how media businesses are being disrupted you would have to wonder what anyone saw in them.
Meanwhile content continues to expand its revenue base in spite of the Internet and in spite of P2P. At Perceptric we have been wondering what new business models will enable the content industry to keep on growing in spite of P2P – or whether P2P is such a strong marketing force that the freedom of some content actually helps generate good old fashioned sales of the media from good old retail.
The content industry has been pretty adept at changing to ensure that it has been able to both meet the consumer’s needs and its own needs over the last ten years as the Internet has boomed.
But again, I wonder whether there is a real appreciation for the speed with which disruptive change can take place.
Here is an abbreviated list taking it to my Top Ten of “Things That Are About To Go Extinct”
No 10
Movie Rental Stores
While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a quest of Circuit City. Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.
No 9
Dial-up Internet Access
Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.
No 8
Phone Landlines
According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had landlines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.
No 7
VCRs
For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.
No 6
Drive-in Theaters
During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theatres in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since 2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so there isn’t much of a movement toward reviving the closed ones.
No 5
News Magazines and TV News
While the TV evening newscasts haven’t gone anywhere over the last several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they have today is half that.
No 4
Classified Ads
The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.
No 3
Analog TV
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or satellite providers. For the remaining 15% — or 13 million individuals — who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air. If you are one of these people you’ll need to get a new TV or a converter box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital.
No 2
Answering Machines
The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to No 20 our list — the decline of landlines. According to USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New York; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It’s logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.
No1
Incandescent Bulbs
Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes,100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Light bulb(CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.
Not listed but perhaps more disruptive:
The decline of the shiny silver disc as a means to convey media to consumers…. As consumers embrace P2P we will start to see the decline and disappearance of the CD. It will take a few years, but this will be one of the major disruptors of our age.