Something very dramatic is going on and so far I have seen no good detailed reporting about it.

Netflix is quietly becoming available on massive numbers of TV screens across the US and no one seems to be noticing.

The Netflix streaming service is now available on PS3, XBOX, and Wii, all gaming systems that are hooked up to the internet and to the TV.  How many of these boxes are in the US marketplace?  20 Million, 30 million?

Sony, LG, Samsung, Vizio, all the major manufacturers of connected TVs and blu ray players in the US are now shipping these devices preloaded with internet access and Netflix.  So by the end of the 2010, will this group of devices be in 15 to 20 million US homes?

Is it possible that by the end of 2010 Netflix will have a base of 50 million homes in the US able to get its streaming service on their TV?  If so, this is astounding. It is even astounding at half that number.

A subscription platform with movies and TV shows in SD and HD is available for less than $10 per month.  And, by the way, you can also get a DVD shipped to you in the mail, if the program is not available on the streaming service at no additional cost.

Forget HULU, forget Cable VOD–Netflix  is becoming ubiquitous and no one seems to be noticing.

Talk about the success of an over the top service that is priced right for the consumer.

Pretty soon, people will be saying, “Why should I use HULU when I can get Netflix on my TV? or Why should I have cable TV if I have Netflix on my TV?

Netflix is TV Everywhere right now!

And no one is talking about it.

consumer electronics, consumers, innovation, internet, media, technology, TV

Isn’t it curious in this age where more moving images get created and distributed digitally that there is this group of people who still call themselves “filmmakers”?  It seems a term that is so archaic, so analogue, so yesterday’s news. But is it any of these?

I think filmmakers look for three opportunities that truly define them as filmmakers.

They are:

1.  The ability to tell a visual story from beginning to end, without any interruption, as a complete, continuous experience.  This is what separates them from people who create stories for TV as most TV series are produced with commercial interruptions or different viewings (episodes) in mind.

2.  The chance to have an audience gather in a theater and watch this visual story together, as a shared experience in time and space.  In the course of a film’s distribution it may be seen in a lot of different settings, public or private, but the filmmaker is making the film with this key audience in mind.  This is the primary target of all his/her imaginings.

3.  The opportunity to see his/her film with an audience.  Filmmakers want to physically experience the film with an audience. The filmmaker wants to see if they laugh or cry when he/she intended, if the audience got the point–to see if their film really succeeded at reaching another human being.  As every filmmaker knows who has done this–a genuinely scary moment.

So each of these opportunities really goes to the heart of what is most essential about calling yourself a filmmaker.

Think of them as a set of principles about the relationship between the creator of a film and the audience for which it is intended.

And here is what is most surprising as we move from the analogue past to the digital future.

These opportunities are not disappearing into the analogue past.

In fact, they are just beginning to open up.

consumers, digital tools, experiences, filmmakers, internet, media

When a technology company launches a new product, be it a device, a piece of software or a web based service they always talk about the features enabled by this new product.  They generate a list where all kinds of goodies are displayed that are supposed to wow the consumer.

What they  believe is that the features sell themselves–that is why they built the product and that is why the product is so great.

In fact, consumers are not interested (nor have they ever been) in features.  They are interested in experiences.  This is what technology companies need to realize–they really are in the business of creating experiences.

For example, when I worked for Nokia, Apple released the iPhone.  Every friend of mine who bought one was eager to tell me about it.  I would always ask them–how do you get on the internet?  They always said, almost without exception, “I do not know, I just do.”.  And they loved that experience.

On a Nokia smart phone, getting on the internet was possible, but you had to know how to do it and it was not easy.  Of course, Nokia phones had a lot of great features–they would tell you all about them in their ads.

On the iPhone, there may be a lot of features– they power the experiences–but you do not have to know about them to get to where you want.

Nokia creates features.

Apple creates experiences.

Smart companies create experiences.

consumers, experiences, features, innovation, products, smart companies, technology