Inside Music MediaJerry Del Colliano

Revolutions don’t last long.

The popular Internet movement took place in the late 90’s and during the past ten years we’ve seen unprecedented disruption to brick and mortar stores, the U.S. Postal Service, the telephone company and, even more dramatically, media – all at the hands of the Internet revolution.  And that’s just a small list.

TV has resisted online connectivity choosing to cater to older viewers.

Radio hasn’t even acknowledged the Internet revolution let alone the growth of social media.

Newspapers are dead in print and online because you can’t squeeze a printed newspaper into a website behind a paywall and call it the future.

Social media?

Peaked.

You know Twitter has hit the wall when Wall Street gets interested in an IPO.

Facebook is declining among teens in such a dramatic way, it probably doesn’t have 5 years before it implodes.  More importantly, all of us who depend on Facebook could go down with it like quicksand.

The Internet is the great disruptor of society and our economy.

And IT has peaked – its best years are behind it.  And everyone else who thinks it’s still the future is in for another disruption of its own making.

The smug media companies who think they can transform online into the new television, radio or print business are in for a rude awakening.

This is not to say that everything will go back to the way it was.

It won’t.

It will go on.

A glimpse of the future without the Internet as we know it driving commerce and communication is breathtaking:

1. Texting is the most essential tool of the future.  If the smartphone is not going away – and it is not – then texting is to a smartphone what calling used to be to a telephone.  
2. After texting, pictures and video will be what the next 10 years will be all about.  We must embrace it or be caught blogging, designing websites that are growing increasingly irrelevant or transferring traditional media to the Internet for no good reason at all.
3. Radio will be all but history in ten years – maybe sooner.  Don’t ask a radio person because most of them are on Kool-Aid.  Just look at the numbers.  Over, 60 – great for radio.  Under 50, bailing on radio.  Under 30, they never had a relationship with radio and will not be getting one which begs the question, what should radio stations do next?

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