Moving into 2016

I’d like to kick off 2016 with my favorite technology topics from 2015. I don’t mean to say that these are the most important tech topics of 2015, just that they’re the most interesting to me.

In January, I wrote that I think there’s going to continue to be increased opportunity for American media abroad. I still think this is true. Hollywood’s growing reliance on China for box office revenue, for example, shows this in one way. As media creation and delivery tools become more efficient, we’re seeing a decentralization of production, as well as production with global consumption in mind.

The audience for content is not tied to physical location — this has been true for some time. If the world continues flattening, new markets for American content will continue to emerge. I’m going to add that this is now dovetailing with a secondary trend: hyper-targeted video content.

Streaming Video: Hyper Localism, on a Global Scale

Netflix has announced they plan to release 31 original shows in 2016. If you account for both these and those from their competitors, as well as traditional media and cable, you’re left with a staggering amount of shows to watch. It would be impossible for a single person to watch it all — and Netflix may not intend for you to.

We know audiences are splintered. With an unlimited number of cable channels, each came to focus on a particular demographic. I would say that Netflix is taking this idea, and is magnifying it on a global scale. It feels like Netflix is almost building a global television network.

For example, Ricky Gervais is launching a movie on Netflix this year. If he instead had a show on Comedy Central, he’d be limited to “Ricky Gervais fans in America.” His British fans would miss out. Netflix’s platform gives him the opportunity to speak not only to his fans in America and the UK simultaneously, but also to “all Ricky Gervais fans, everywhere, simultaneously.” The opportunity for audience reach is staggering.

Startup Culture

I don’t think it’s an accident that it occurred to Netflix to launch content this way. The ideas behind their streaming strategy are central to the technology startup culture from which Netflix was born. Today’s technology startups are driven by the goal of using advancements in technology to address unmet opportunity, while using a structure wherein they start small, before systematically advancing to as large a scale as possible. To my mind, this is exactly what Netflix has done with its streaming platform and video content strategy. Just as they did when they first launched their streaming platform, they tested the water of original content before embarking on 2016’s much larger slate of shows.

Over the coming years, traditional media will not disappear, but it will own a smaller piece of the overall media pie. Streaming services are sure to continue taking a larger and larger portion of the media audience, accumulated via numerous slices of hyper-targeted video content.

Coming Soon for the Blog

My plan for the next entry of Creative People is a podcast episode — it should be up in the next month or so. I’ll see you then with a guest interview. Thanks for reading!