The Evolution Toward Friction-Free Media, Part 1

By Michael Wolf | August 20th, 2007

I just published a new white paper for ABI Research (“Free research, get yer free research!”) entitled Digital Content Unleashed: The Slow but Inevitable Race Toward a Friction-Free Media World [PDF]. The takeaway term from the paper is “friction-free media”, which is how I am beginning to encapsulate the common goal between digital media consumer devices, delivery networks and content. The problem today, in my opinion, is there is too much friction in the entire experience, as content flows from its source to the end user, there is usually some point along the way in which it all breaks down. Whether its some overly restrictive digital usage rights, the wrong codec or media format, or the network connection breaks down in the cloud or the home, way too often the consumer is ultimately disappointed in the experience. In other words, too much friction.

Think about your own experiences. We in the technology industry have all tried new devices, ways to recieve information or content, as well as some new alternative delivery network. Sometimes – not very often, and certainly not frequent enough – we are delighted by the new experience, where everything clicks and we can see how it all just works well together. We see the promise, how a recipe of hardware, software and service is baked together just right for a great consumer experience. The whole thing just smells like a game-changer.

But more often than this – most of the time in fact- we are ultimately disappointed. Sometimes its the device itself (it won’t play back some content we purchased, it can’t get assigned to the network, etc…) or the network (the network goes down, the speeds are way too slow for the content, the network is congested, etc…) or the media (its protected by some DRM we can’t unlock, the rights assigned to it are overly restrictive, the media format is not the right one for the device, etc…). Sure, I probably try more new technologies, networks and content types because that’s the business I’m in, and that leads to me experiencing more problems or issues as companies roll out their largely untested, bleeding edge offerings.

But more often than not, these offerings have been rolled out on a wide basis and somewhere along the line something fails.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll spend some time talking about where I think the experience breaks down, and how ultimately these problems will be resolved. It’ll be a long process, but I think it’s invevitable – and necessary – that we as consumers get less friction as we try to consume our media. There is too much riding on the transition to networked based delivery, and I think just as last century we took a while to move from small and grainy black and white screens with 3 channels to a world of 100s of channels in HD, it will also take some time to make this new networked based entertainment economy work right.

But, somewhere along the way, we’ll finally eliminate the friction, or at least most of it, and consumers will be able to enjoy content anywhere and on any device over any network.

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Related
The Evolution Toward Friction-Free Media Part 2: The Home Network