touch and go…
Every once in a while a piece of technology comes along that changes everything.
Today’s release of the new iPhone 4G is such a game changer.
By making access to iMovie editing software available for $5, and then being able to move the edited video onto the web or email it as an MMS, the ‘democratization’ of video is now complete.
With initial first day sales at 600,000 units, Steve Jobs has already unleashed 600,000 cameras and editing suites onto the world, and it’s only the first day.
Some technologies enhance what we do already. Others, from time to time, shift the basic landscape of the world in which we live, creating far greater changes.
The elevator is a classic example. Throughout human history, buildings were limited to 5 or 6 stories simply because no one could tolerate walking up an higher. It was not until the invention of the elevator in 1857 that buildings could begin to rise.
Now, the iPhone 4 is such a game-changer.
Shooting video used to be the purview of employees of televisions stations and networks. No one else could afford the expensive and complex gear. That barrier collapsed in the 1980s with the arrival of very good quality home video gear. Now, almost every home video camera is HDV, but still, the camera is a self-contained device that you have to purchase and then consciously take along wth you. Making video was still an ‘act’ that you had to think about and plan for.
Editing was once very expensive and complex as well. The CMX edit suites that I started working in cost $500,000 and were very complex to operate. Editing move to laptops with the arrival of FCP in the 1990s, but, like the cameras, remained restrict to those who consciously planned to ‘make a film’. It was easier and cheaper, but it was still an action that required thought, planning and motivation.
Uploading videos to Youtube proved remarkably simple. So simple that today people upload a staggering 23 hours of video every minute. Yet that too, requires some degree of thought and planning.
The beauty of the iPhone is that all of these actions have now been incorporated into one small device that everyone carries with them all the time. There is no more ‘planning on taking the video camera’ because it is always there. This is no more going home to edit the video because you always have the edit system with you. And there is no more uploading to Youtube because you can send the video with the touch of a finger instantly.
What does this mean?
It means that within the next few weeks, there will be, by conservative standards, more than 1 million video production companies unleashed on the web, with millions more to follow.
It means that you have the capacity now to create and communicate in video in your hands all the time, everywhere you go.
It will take people a while, but not long, to become used to creating and editing and uploading video – but it will come, as surely as people adapted to text messaging – video messaging will soon become the lingua franca of our time.
And what of journalism?
CNN announced that is was no longer carrying the AP.
And why should it?
AP has 250 or so bureaus around the world.
In a world of 4.5 billion cell phones with video cameras, that is a pathetic joke.
A revolution in content creation is coming, and, like the elevator, is going to change the skyline of the Internet forever.
