AR&D Reinventing Local Media

Terry will often write about the importance of being a platform rather than a site. This is brought home once again by the rollout of “The Beatles: Rock Band,” the video game that is part of the Rock Band platform. For the uninitiated, Rock Band and Guitar Hero present a videogame interface that lets you play along with songs. The controllers are shaped like guitars and drums, and you “play” notes by striking the right color bars as they scroll down the screen. It doesn’t teach much about playing guitar, but it’s a ton of fun.

While the record industry cries foul over music downloading and the like, what we’re seeing is a resurgence of music as it’s presented in new and interactive ways. What’s more fun than pretending to be a Beatle? The band was smart to reissue all its albums, now remastered (and sounding great) on the same day the Rock Band game came out.

This isn’t a game review. What’s interesting is how Rock Band is becoming a platform. The game is $60. If you own the original Rock Band and Guitar Hero games, plus their sequels, you’ve spent more than $600. That’s not including ancillary products. Be a real nut for these games, and you’ll be shelling out $1,000 before you know it.

You can download new songs for each of the games. And here’s the really big part – Rock Band is becoming a platform for new artists. The Rock Band Network (RBN) is coming soon. It will allow you to “Rock Band-enable” your band’s song, upload it, and share in the money as people download and play along. Oh – by the way – MTV (owners of Rock Band) charges bands $99 for a “premium account.” Smart.

So why should you care? Local news isn’t going to rock out any time soon. This concept is important to note, because it once again shows us that technology doesn’t kill content; it enables it in new ways. Apple is making money by legitimizing downloadable music on iTunes; now MTV is in the same business, going a step further by selling downloadableinteractive content. Rock Band doesn’t spell the end of music. It’s another way to appeal to audiences and get them to buy content. We have to change our approach to our content, just as they do.

I am more than my brain now. That is – my operating system requires more than my grey matter will provide. I need help. I need my operating system. I’ve occasionally come across this idea from various bloggers, most recently Sam Harrelson(via Steve Rubel). And I think it’s a great exercise to see just how much I’ve come to depend on computing.

I don’t think this is scary, mind you. Steve 2.0 can do a lot more than the previous iteration. The biggest upgrades are to my memory (now backed up in more than one place) and to my communications abilities. Still there are flaws in the system. This past week, we saw outages at Facebook and Twitter. Both of these are tied to my OS. The outages didn’t crash my system, but they sure slowed it down.

Here’s the exercise: imagine yourself as a computer. At the source is your brain – it’s the processor and (hopefully) the memory. Others do this as a “My OS” outline, but I think the computer analogy is more apt. Your brain has part of your OS. Leaving it out is like saying “my OS doesn’t need a kernel.”

Now, draw. Here is Steve 2.0:

At the center is my brain. It’s the processor and the traffic cop for the rest of the information. There was a time when the map would end there. (OK, maybe there would be a straight line to my TV.) Now, I’ve outsourced much of the brain’s responsibility.

I have my head in the clouds; MobileMe, Google, Facebook and Twitter are all part of “cloud computing.” (I argue that Facebook and Twitter are 1/2 cloud, hence the circle and cloud in the schematic.) They are my memory, my search and recall and my communications cores. They also have the nice benefit of backing up my grey matter memory. If I forget a phone number, MobileMe has it and feeds it to me. Mac Mail and GMail (A cloud) contribute to the communications schematic, but they are less important in this iteration than they were before.

Part of my visual memory, pictures, is also in the clouds as well as stored locally. For visual recall, iPhoto keeps track of the images – not just the pictures themselves, but also data about the pictures, including who is in them and where and when they were taken.

My eyes are critical to see the world and take in data. Online, browsers provide windows for the eyes. (Although not always – Tweetdeck, for example, is its own program and requires no browser.) As for presenting information to others, talking won’t always do. That’s why I have MS Office.

I’m pretty Open Source (MS Office aside). People can change me with their input and, hopefully, do so for the better. I can’t get a full rewrite (nor, sadly, upgrade the hardware) but I can learn better now.

I rely on lots of other programs, but none are at my core. Photoshop is great, but its primary task is to manipulate images. That’s a secondary function. I can run plenty of fun, secondary programs and routines; they’re just not mission-critical.

Try this out for yourself. No rules. I’m sure I’ve left out stuff you could argue should be there. Embrace your inner android.