I got hipped to this by MovieCityNews. I had not read John Battelle before, but in his broadside he sums up what he doesn’t like about the iPad and he sums up our current situation pretty damn well:
Media traditionally has gained its profits by owning distribution. Cable carriage, network airwaves, newsstand distribution and printing presses: all very expensive, so once you employ enough capital to gain them, it’s damn hard to get knocked out.
The web changed all that and promised that economics in the media business would be driven by content and intent: the best content will win, driven by the declared intent of consumers who find it and share it. Search+Social was the biggest wave to hit media since the printing press. And the open technology to make better and better experiences has been on a ten year tear: blogging software, Flash, Ajax, HTML 5, Android, and more and more coming.
Read the rest of the article here. I look forward to reading more of him in the days ahead.
We are in a battle where the hope and promise offered by a free and open internet is challenged by the traditional drive for total control by excessive capital.
