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More from Barry Diller
We have access to mind-numbing amounts of data - the trash and the
treasure, the ridiculous and the not-so-sublime ... We were promised
that all these new options would enrich us. And yet even with this
gluttony of choices, our diet is getting thinner. Meanwhile, we're
becoming cluttered with all kinds of info-accessories: CD-ROMs, computers,
online services, the Internet. And not only is it decreed that we
have to try to comprehend the tonnage of stuff we're supposed to read,
but it is ordered that we have to understand and use all these new
technologies or we will be fossilized. All this information and all
these new products were supposed to make life easier, but now we work
harder, longer - just to stay in place and keep up. I point all this
out not because I'm a cynic about the power of technology - far from
it. But I believe the acceleration of daily life, this confusing mad
rush to get ahead of the future, the speed of life in and about the
media, is eroding our ability to gather the building blocks to do
the real and necessary work of creating new products. - 1995
~~~ What's
the old saying? "A rumor goes around the world in the time it takes
Truth to put its boots on." Today, Truth wouldn't bother getting out
of bed ... When we become information-savvy in a very superficial
way, we get dragged along on the dumb current - scanning for patterns
and trying to copy those that work. It gives a false sense of security,
a dreamy delusion that success will be found by repeating the pattern
again and again ... We are on the brink of a great convergence - where
the computer, the television, and the telephone will meet to create
truly new communications products. Who knows how they'll get along?
Who knows what the result will be? What we do know is that the time
for hype has passed. And the time has arrived for us to do the tough
conceptual work of coming up with a new discipline, a new vocabulary,
a new paradigm for what is emerging. - 1995
~~~Right now, no matter what
kind of publication you put out, you're all asking the same questions:
Are we still relevant? How do we make sure, when we're riding down
that info highway, that we don't get a flat or become roadkill or
some other ridiculous cliche? The irony is, you're victims of your
own hype … fear of displacement is misguided. When cable TV arrived,
people said, 'This is the end of the networks.' No. That's insane.
There is no such thing as real displacement. Movies survived television,
and radio is hardly extinct. To worry about displacement is futile,
and to base plans on it is wasteful. Of course, that doesn't mean
you shouldn't explore new technologies ... We will fall short if we
impose our own familiar business models on the coming convergence.
Telephones were not just telegraphs with voice. Computers weren't
just calculators with keyboards. And in the future, no one will call
your product 'magazines with sound and moving pictures.' We have to
resist media imperialism - the tendency to colonize, to define new
technologies in terms of the old ... Redefine, don't repackage. Redefining
the mission of your ventures is slow, brain-bending work. Right now,
that message is lost on too many people. There isn't a single gold-paved
road to success in this new environment. There is no road map or users
manual. It's not something you can research. And there is nothing
to be gained by forcing new opportunities into the boxes of past experience.
What we need to do is slow down. To relax. - 1995
~~~Successful convergence
means having the willingness to subordinate your media expertise instead
of imposing it. It means treating a new medium on its terms - not
yours. It means having the patience to relax and follow your curiosity
instead of hyperventilating and chasing the crowd. We need to be convergence
contrarians - willing to challenge conventional wisdom, yet able to
explore other possibilities. Now I don't care what software, hardware,
firmware, floppyware, infoware, or underware that technology convergence
creates for our creative communities. I just care that real editorship
is involved in the process, contrarian and contentious all the way,
because I trust absolutely that interesting things will follow. -
1995 Today and for the next 20 years, those who are awake, and able
and willing, will be playing that same defining role in what is surely
going to be a radical transformation of all we hear, see, and know.
And what a piece of great, good luck it will be to have been present
at the creation. - 1995
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