I am rarely on my sofa without my laptop on my, well, lap. I watch TV, eat dinner, talk on the phone and listen to the radio on my sofa. Usually I'm doing one of these things while on my laptop. I know this is not uncommon. There are many people who do this. We're multi-tasking. Trying to converge our media consumption in a world that isn't quite ready to let us seamlessly converge.
Sure, there are ways to do it. And if you're a "techie", it's super easy to figure out. (I've partially figured it out.) But, I'm looking for a mass-consumer way and haven't found it yet. I can use Toast to move a recording from my TiVo to my laptop and then on to my iPhone for viewing during my commute. But what happens if i want to delete it from TiVo, permanently move it to a large external hard drive and access at a later time on ANY device? Can I access it from my laptop, TiVo or iPhone easily? To my knowledge, the answer is no.
So, while the Berliner Philharmoniker (Berlin Philharmonic) has a pretty snazzy "Digital Concert Hall", I don't see how it can go mainstream for a while. To be sure, they are laying infrastructure for when the mainstream technology is ready for them. But, for now they are on the bleeding edge and I predict not many people (outside of arts administrators) will be able to find a regular use for what they are doing. Perhaps I'm wrong here and there are tons of Americans watching them every night. It's curious and fun to be at a concert while at the exact same time people half-way across the world are settling in to their seats. I've tried it. You should too!
Others are doing it as well. Medici.tv is BRILLIANTLY showing us a future idea of what internet television could be. (Click on the link and then move your mouse away from the window and wait for the pop-ups to go away! Try it in full-screen too.) The quality is good. The content is good. And it's pretty easy to figure out. (Leave it to the French!) There's also a site called Monteverdi.tv doing something similar that I haven't fully explored yet. And let's not forget to mention the Met Opera's Met Player with "unlimited and on-demand access to an ever-growing catalog of the best Met performances."
Arts organizations need to "get with it" and get on the road to tacling the barriers to delivering their content digitally. From increasing the availability of broadband to a home entertainment system that converges traditional television with laptops and the internet, there's plenty we can do to lead where we want to be. Put board members on it. Hire staff that specializes in it. Get artists (and their unionized representatives) to understand the importance of our digital future.
The music industry didn't take control when Napster was knocking at their door. Newspapers didn't take control when Craigslist was stealing all of their classifieds revenue. And on and on... The world is changing. You need to figure all of this out before someone takes your business/patrons away from you!
**UPDATE** (6-28-09) The Royal National Theatre has now jumped in to the live broadcast arena with their NT Live initiative.
