People can download a CD-quality song for about 99 cents. And they do
-- to such an extent that the music industry has been truly revitalized
by this.
Knowing that, I find it amazing that people (the same
people in many cases, I'm sure) will pay $2.50 or so to download an
inferior-quality snippet of a song as a ring tone for their phone. When
they tire of that ring tone (as they inevitably will), they'll go buy
another. In many cases, too, they will lose those ring tones when they
switch to a new phone -- and will buy them all over again.
Folks
in the wireless biz I've talked to marvel at this, and shake their heads
(all the way to the bank).
Consumer expectations can change almost daily. Mine do. As I boarded
my flight from Toronto to Vancouver last Saturday, I looked expectantly
(hopefully, eagerly, and, in the end, disappointedly) at the seatback in
front of me. The last several flights I'd taken with Air Canada had
tempted me with a piece of cardboard on the seatback promising great
wonders - okay, moderate wonders in this day and age, but wonders
nonetheless. Hallelujah, I said. I can't wait (and I still can't,
notwithstanding what I'm about to say). Though I've never experienced
Air Canada's personal video-on-demand VOD offering, and though I was
previously reasonably content to watch video on the shared screens of
the airplane -- or enjoy the personal-choice viewing experience
offered by my the media potpourri stored on my laptop, my expectations
had now been heightened - and came crashing down. Yet even as I
contemplated what this new on-demand-video-meets-commuter/vacationer
world might offer, I found myself already expecting further
disappointment in the offering - without even experiencing it. Will it
allow me to play the CDs, DVDs or MP3s I brought with me? I doubt it.
Will it let me use it as a computer monitor for my laptop? (And would
my laptop battery actually last long enough for that to matter, anyway,
since there's no power outlet to be seen here in economy class - though
maybe that comes with the VOD experience?)
And just what
entertainment offering can I expect? Will it be the same selection that
I see on long-haul flights today - just more of it? I've never been a
fan of Friends, or a regular viewer of Will and Grace (except on
airplanes, as it happens). And there are many movies I've only seen
(and would only ever see) on airplanes - and some of those multiple
times.
That day, I exalted once again to my wife the wonders of
being able to check in for my flight before I left my house. I still
love doing it - even though it's now against my better judgement. I
once had to cancel a trip the night before an early morning departure
but, being the early-adopter-with-all-its-perils consumer, I'd checked
in 12 hours before the flight. Did you know that your options become
severely limited once you've checked in - even if you haven't left home
yet? Anyway, enough about my check-in highs and lows. Back to the
personal media experience... as is often the case, my expectations as a
consumer changed that day - and the disappointing reality is that I
never got to enjoy an unjaded experience of the latest-and-greatest
offering from the world of aviation because my expectations were given
the opportunity to soar higher than the ability of the world around me
to meet them. My reality will never catch up with my dreams.
Thankfully,
I could take comfort in watching, on my trusty old laptop, the Hill
Street Blues Season 1 DVD I brought with me. And 25 years after it came
out I still believe this is the best TV series ever and it
stands the test of time remarkably well.
So what is blogging really? Is it an irrelevant self-absorbed form of
expressionism - akin to the common diary - but with an exhibitionistic
aspect to it? Look!, we say. Here are my (possibly censored)
inner-most thoughts on life, religion, society or why the Leafs suck
this year? Or is it more than that? The answer probably exists on two
levels - on the first, blogging has the potential to be a permanent,
immutable representation of the thoughts of an individual or a
generation or a society as a whole. Blogs may have the permanence of a
hummingbird's wing-beat or the lasting impact of a trilobite fossil.
Who knows? On the second level - blogging is an almost-mass-media way
of publishing the worst possible mindless crap to a vast potential
audience. Is this such crap? Perhaps -- you get to be the judge of
that. Are the instant messaging conversations of teenagers, like, you
know, any better or worse, or more or less deserving of a place in the
vast permanent digital record than my contemporaneous thoughts?
