Attention Scarcity and Podcasting/Broadcatching

Great Article (thanks, umediated !) about the fact that you can read dozens of blogs in a day, listen to a handful of music streams, and listen to one or maybe two podcasts at the most. Great point. Hate to see what he'd say about videoblogging. Seriously though, I can say that I don't have much time to watch videoblogs and I'm two weeks behind in the Source Code. But this makes total sense to me... and Dan Melinger is a genius.

I'm just starting to read his thesis paper "massiveMEDIA" right now, only a few pages in and I'm very excited by it (see previous posts on excitability). Here's the two things that really got me.

First, his thesis statement:

Democratization of television distribution is possible when existing network technology and social software concepts are united with the right user interface.

and second, these two defintions from his glossary:

Lean-back media :: Media, and the delivery scheme through which it is provided, that is suited to mostly passive consumption. Lean-back media is good for when you are sitting on a couch and most the interaction might take place using 6 buttons on a remote control. This type of media is the opposite of lean-forward media.

Lean-forward media :: Media, and the delivery scheme through which it is provided, that is suited to active consumption. Lean-forward media is good when you are sitting at a desk at your computer. Interactive art, interactive CD-ROMs, and most websites are examples. This type of media is the opposite of lean-back media.

These are great terms and definitions, I'll have to start using them (with appropriate credit of course).

Back to the scarcity issue, I don't need more media, overall I need less media, I need more specifically interesting media. I don't need 5 shows a day, I just need a single show a week that I like enough to always watch and share with my friends and neighbors by sponsoring on the local cable channel. Whether it's a musical sub-genre, a civic rights issue, or 5-minute life lessons with someone's Grandmother (how to make banana bread?), I'll download it, watch it, and sponsor it for playback if I care about it enough. This kind of niche following approach is defined a bit in this term:

Narrowcast :: A word that references “broadcast” as its corollary. While television is usually broadcast to a large population, internet media can be broadcast to individuals or small groups of people.

The Scarcity is to be expected, the content will catch up, particulaly when we adopt the use of a couple more of Dan's definitions:

Set-Top Box (STB) :: A piece of hardware that interfaces between a data network that distributes media and a television monitor.

If you're interested in the concept of the Set-Top Box, check out the following resources.

One, Dan Melinger's own set:TOP box (I think he calls it miniMASSIVE) which he demonstrates for Jay Dedman at MomentShowing. Part One and Part Two .
Two, Drazen Pantic has outlined this concept in an article here. He's built a MythTV box that interacts with his torrent community. Very awesome.

Three, start building your own box. Go to this page for info about the hardware and here for a nice how-to

EOT