The End of Tangible Media is Clearly in Sight

I want to make a bet with you today. By January 2014 I will wager that in the US almost all forms of tangible media will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct. I am not just talking about print, but all tangible forms of media - newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software and video games.

Don't believe me? Consider the following news items, all of which broke in the last month ...

• Microsoft (an Edelman client) yesterday opened up a store to sell all of its software online for immediate download (November 13)
• Apple is selling record numbers of downloadable games for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This is attracting publishers because the lack of physical media is better economically for both consumers and video game creators (November 12)
• Oprah sparked a deluge of traffic when she endorsed the Amazon Kindle as the next big thing (November 3)
• Lots of alternatives are emerging for ebooks including the iPhone (November 3)
  
  
• Microsoft is set to open up the XBox 360 to user-generated games on November 19, all of which will only be available via download - there will be no DVDs (October 30)
• Netlfix is making its catalogue available over the Internet and on set-top boxes like the XBox 360 and soon TiVo (October 30)
• The Christian Science Monitor said it is folding its daily print edition in favor of moving it online (October 28)

Finally, if you need further proof, when was the last time you bought a CD? Exactly. For me it was back in 2003. I haven't purchased a newspaper in at least two years and the number of people who I see toting them on my morning train have declined too. I canceled my last print subscription this month and I am now living 100% "media green." Also I recently signed up for Safari Books Online and I am liking it a lot, though it's pricey and their iPhone client needs a lot of work.

We're moving fast toward becoming a society that consumes media entirely in digital format. Part of it is environmental, but a lot of it is because of broadband and connected devices. Now of course it will take a long long time for this to become a global phenomenon. But in the US at least, the pace has picked up a lot just in the last few months. Further, with the very green-aware millennials set to become the dominant demographic in the US by 2010 I would expect you will see even more of this.

So what do you think? Participate in the poll below. (Feed readers will need to click through)

Comments

[Mitch Joel - Twist Image]

We all drink from the same water cooler, so I will caution against the whole, "I haven't bought a magazine in two years... so everyone else will stop too," line of thought. We are all very early adapters and while the Web, RSS and digital-on-demand is part of our DNA, take a long hard look at the overall mass population and what they do. RSS (as Steve pointed out) is not exactly cracking through mainstream, and as much as we all love Twitter, most people do not get it.

Media will shift and it will evolve. I recently Blogged about how all industries that have physical products that become digital go through tremendous turmoil (you can check it out here: Digital Is The Great Disruptor - http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/digital-is-the-great-disrupter/). Won't it be interesting to see which types of "physical" devices we'll need for all of this digital media?

Lastly, I really wonder how "green" this will be. The last time I checked, there are not organic battery farms anywhere and electricity and electronics are a huge part of our ongoing challenge to truly be a little greener. For us to consume all of this mass media is going to take a new kind of waste, which is going to have an impact.

[Alex]

I believe you do not go far enough, we will see all food products digital within twenty-five years.

[Rex Hammock]

Steve, what are you smoking? As much as I share your digital lifestyle, I would no more predict what you're predicting than suggest flat screen monitors will replace all original paintings on canvas. Moreover, your claim of digital media being "green media" doesn't hold up under analysis like that done by Chris Anderson.

I do believe that digital media will be -- and perhaps already is -- the primary media in our lives. And I believe certain types of "tangible" media will be in decline: CDs DVDs and newspapers, especially. Certain types of publications in the magazine format will go away -- newsweeklies, for example.

But I'll take your bet on the printed book and and the printed magazine. If we can come up with a definition of what "decline" means. Extinction, I understand. Decline is too squishy.

[rod]

OK Steve, how much? I've got $100 says you're wrong on this one.

[Ian Kemmish]

Well, I suppose we snooty Europeans could point out that books have never been that popular in the US!

But seriously, I first heard someone make that prediction in 1991, and I've heard it pretty regularly every two or three years since. None of those people were right, why on earth would you be?

Currently I'm reading Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamzon - a Russian hardback book and an online English translation to help me out when I get stuck. Even though I'm only a beginner in Russian, I find the book easier on my eyes, brain AND hands than the online version....

[JB]

Check out iCandy at http://icandy.ricohinnovations.com/ for a return to tangible media.

[Joe]

According to predictions, the paperless office was supposed to be here already. Paper offers a comfort that digital cannot. Digital is great for skimming and searching, but cannot offer the deep reading experience of print. Do a search for "is google making us stupid" and read the article from The Atlantic if you want a great argument for why this prediction is invalid.

[Curt]

Interesting discussion. As I read the posts I pretty much can agree with at least parts of all of them. We run a small business on the side for MIDI and MP3 format backing tracks. While the type of music we create is more for the 40+ plus crowd I had big hopes that they would all get the buy "online / download thing". Turns out that while most customers would like to have the product we have found many of them just don't understand the online way. None the less we continue to look for new ways to help them learn and take advantage of using the technology. Of course I suppose it could be know one wants the product!

[John Barton]

Paper doesn't require batteries to use it. You can take a map and compass into the woods and find your way out. You're pretty much screwed if your GPS equipped Iphone dies on you.

You can hold a book in any number of positions and read it in lots of places.

I predict that what will happen is that books will go to print-on-demand rather than print-on-speculation. Right now we print books to stock on shelves and hope that enough people buy them.

In the future this will diminish as people will have the ability to get the content in digital form or if they choose in printed form in any number of ways. I might like my copy of Atlas Shrugged leather bound while you might prefer a paperback and someone else is fine to have it on copy paper.

I predict that people will store written content that they really treasure in this manner and that owning books will become a status symbol of sorts.

Once in a while I will buy a copy of Wired and it takes me about a month to read it all. Why? Because I like to read the articles in the down time. I never ever go to Wired online. I read a few other periodicals the same way. Not because I am hungry for information but because I enjoy the tactical sensation of reading an interesting article in a medium that is always "on" and requires no batteries.

When I find a good book it's a welcome relief to close the laptop and curl up with it. I don't have a Kindle but I don't suppose I could curl up with it quite as easily. Although I do get into quite weird positions when using my laptop :-)

It will be many more generations before paper is gone, if ever. The paperless office is however in some ways becoming a reality and in others not so much. Now we have the ability for example to create documents much faster and any person who is halfway competent can produce flyers, reports and the like. However we don't have an equally easy way to share all those documents in real time as when everyone sits down with the same document in paper form in front of them.

I have tried every form of online collaboration that is freely available to communicate and collaborate with my colleagues around the world and they have all failed. Not enough bandwidth, incompatible systems, too much learning curve, uncomfortable to use, you name it. However when my colleagues PRINT the document and we both are on chat or on the phone then it's really easy to work out the issues.

Printed documents have a tangible, solid, permanent, this is what you've got no hopping around, kind of feel to them. They force you to really absorb and pay attention to what it in front of you in a way that online text does not. At least not for me. When I read online my mind wanders. When I read printed material I focus on it.

[OmBliss Tantra Kriya Yoga]

I am very excited about this trend. AS a Tantra Yoga teacher, I am working on developing ways to offer this knowledge and teaching all via the web. Online Video and Audio as well as eBooks are a powerful way to reach people all over the world.

I do notbelive tangible media will cease to exist all together. People still love to touch and hold things, and even though I do foresee a great decline, I do not believe it will be wiped out. It may turn into some sort of fashion to actually have something tangible (c:

Thanks

[Rob Usdin]

I think you have to temper this theory with - as someone said above - "we all drink the same Kool-Aid."

You - and the folks you surround yourself with, interact with and deal with on a daily basis - are a part of a digital elite culture. I'd be more inclined to agree with you if you stressed "moderate to sharp decline" rather than completely gone. You're speaking more anecdotally from your own perspective then you have thought through the varying realities associated with what you are saying.

With the median household income in the US at $48,000 a year - for physical media to be almost gone and digital to be the way most people consume media - we would need some pretty steep advances with a low price point for this to happen. You're not going to see a guy standing on a street corner in Harlem with a Kindle. It's just not there yet.

Additionally - there are forms of media which haven't caught on to the digital revolution completely. Mentioned above are larger format books - and I would add to that children's books. You're not going to give a 2 year old a digital device to read a book on, but you can give them a board book.



Anecdotally - for me: I can't give my 5 year old a digital device to read something like Flotsam by David Wiesner but she can pick up the book quite easily. She can color on Crayola's website, but a coloring book and crayons are just as much fun. She can read a Disney Princess website, but the Disney Princess magazine - again, can be just as interactive with a pencil to do a maze or a puzzle.

Myself -I can't get a lot of books I would want to read on my iPod touch for it - unless I turn to a usenet newsgroup for a pirated scan. I read comic books - and in that case too - I could read them on my iPod Touch, but I need to download them from a Torrent, and convert them to be read on the iPod Touch - which is again - piracy.

You ask the last time I bought a CD. It was last month. I had to - it was the only way to get the bonus tracks released only on the version of the CD sold at Target. If I want a full album - I will buy the CD. If I want individual tracks, I buy them as singles on iTunes.

For DVDs - like a book - there is still something about buying a box set of a season of a TV show - the collectors versions of the Simpsons or Star Trek come to mind with their hard plastic shell cases. Being able to pull it off a shelf and hand it to a friend and say "here - watch this" is just as much or more social then saying to them in email - "here's a link to the whole season of XYZ on Hulu."

So I don't think it will go away. For disposable things it will decline steadily, but we are humans living in a physical world and as such we still need physical objects to hold, touch and interact with. Nothing will be able to replace the feel of turning from one page to the next in a book with your child on your lap, as she sits wondering where that book will take the two of you next. A screen just won't cut it.

--*Rob

[Don Lafferty]

Sand and electronics are a bad match.

Beachgoers will never give up their books.

[Joelle Nebbe-Mornod]

One one side I agree with you - I have bought perhaps 2 CDs in the last 5 years, all the rest I get online. I buy a newspaper maybe once a week (and rarely read their sites either - i get my news directly more specialised). I no longer subscribe to magazines, although I buy them now and then when travelling.

On the other hand I still read books, although once an ereader truly has a high res, low power screen (they are getting close!) + the ability to annotate, I will probably no longer print documents I need to study and review, and might get a proportion of my books electronically. Things I want to read more than once in my life I will for a while certainly continue to buy in book form (If I had bought some of the books say from 1992 that I reread recently in electronically form back then, it is unlikely I would be able to read them on anything today).

The big issue with moving to digital is of course longevity - I own and can read books that are 100 years old, I can go to the library and consult newspapers that are 200 years old (carefully), but I cannot open documents I wrote in 1996 and I struggle to play videos from 1999. And ignoring the format issue, Paper and CDs have a much longer life expectancy than hard drives. Yes, there is online storage, but even online a phenomenal amount of information has been lost forever. This is a huge issue for the library sciences, and one where progress will be made.

How do I make sure all my digitalised formats stay readable? At the moment it is a costly operation both in time and money. What happens when in 10 years you cannot find devices that play MP3s anymore? At the moment the onus is on me, the owner, to keep converting data, which is time consuming and sometimes expensive. That is something the average person might not keep on top of, as my having files from 1995 in Word for Mac shows.

Granted this can happen to tangible media too, eg super8 film, magnetic tapes - all disappeared. But the formats that are universally accessible, like books, will have a place until universal access is in existence for the digital world. Without needing a device.

[Michelle]

ohhh! I don't care about everything else, but I'm glad to see some people agree with me about books! There's nothing like carrying around your book and reading it wherever you want.......Kill the newspapers and everything else you want, but not the book!!!!!

[Robin Browne]

Another angle to this are the possible global impacts on "others" of all of "us" going completely digital - seeing as, for example, demand for coltan in electronic devices is helping fuel a vicious war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa. http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/23/corporations_reaping_millions_as_congo_suffers