While thumbing through the March 22nd issue of Time Magazine, I was startled to see an article by Charles Kenny, telling us to forget Twitter, Facebook, Google and the Kindle.
What?
I thought the world had taken a noticeable shift and television’s future was no longer by any means rosy. Then, to my surprise, I was told that television is still the most influential medium around. In fact, notes Kenny, for many of the poorest regions of the world, it remains the next big thing.
He then adds that, for those of us who are not captivated by all of the reality programming garnering ratings today, the television revolution is changing lives for the better. Though many of us know that, across the developing world, around 45 percent of households had a TV in 1995; by 2005 the number had climbed above 60 percent. We also know that this is way behind the U.S., where there are more TVs than people.
The startling part is that television dwarfs worldwide Internet access. Five million more households in sub-Saharan Africa will get a TV over the next five years. After the fall of the Taliban, which had outlawed TV, one in five Afghans had one. The global total is another 150 million by 2013—pushing the numbers to well beyond two-thirds of households.
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If you ever rode on a subway in America before Apple’s iPod debuted in October 2001, then you remember that people were listening to Sony Walkmans or (gasp!) nothing at all. Go to any bus station or train station today, and a huge percentage of riders will have the little white Apple ear buds protruding from their ears. The iPod is a very popular gadget for the top socioeconomic classes. Studies show penetration still has a way to go with lower groups, but we haven’t heard anyone at Apple complaining.
Now, think about today. If you travel to any airport, ride public transportation or have spent the night at a hotel before, then you have seen printed newspapers in use. Today marks a major change for printed news as we know it.
Apple introduces their Tablet to the world today, aka the Kindle Killer (much to Amazon’s dismay), at an exclusive event in San Francisco. We’ll know more as reviews come in, but book publishers have been scrambling in recent weeks to make sure their electronic books are available, and I’m sure newspaper publishers will be next in line to sign up. Finally, journalism has a tool that could make paid content the new normal.
Whether you live in Tulsa, Oklahoma or Timbuktu, the Tablet is being billed as the electronic tool that will change how consumers receive their news, interact with social media channels and change how we all read books.
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