The prediction, in brief:

The technologies are obvious; the businesses in which to use them are not. The real innovation won’t come from multimedia mastery or circuit sorcery. The engineer and the artist are both equally handicapped. The trick is to figure out what a new medium would really look like. The problem is to anticipate a future that is just beyond the obvious but not disconnected from the present. The challenge is to invent a new industry.

Predictor: Stahlman, Mark

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 article for Red Herring, Mark Stahlman, the president of New Media Associates, shares his take on the Internet and the future of new media. Stahlman writes:”Hurray for Hype! Hurray for Hoopla! What fun! Keep them confused. Keep them guessing. The biggest, most headlined, most ballyhooed techno-gold-rush in all of human history – the converged interactive digital info-highway – has endlessly entertained us all … We all know the technologies are real … Yet there’s a nagging sense that the roadmap to the future has been too easily sketched, too hastily drawn … The technologies are obvious; the businesses in which to use them are not. The real innovation won’t come from multimedia mastery or circuit sorcery. The engineer and the artist are both equally handicapped. The trick is to figure out what a new medium would really look like. The problem is to anticipate a future that is just beyond the obvious but not disconnected from the present. The challenge is to invent a new industry. Who sells what to whom? What’s the new business model? What new social experiences are both possible and popularly desirable? What’s happening to our culture? What does it mean to live in a world at peace? What media make sense to a group that doesn’t any more believe in religion, ideology, or bigotry? Why do we need a new media? What’s different about the times ahead? What does it mean if on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog?”

Biography:

Mark Stahlman was the president of the New York-based research and financial services firm New Media Associates in the 1990s. (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)

Date of prediction: March 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Red Herring

Title, headline, chapter name: New Media – What’s Real & What’s Not

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue09/media.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Taylor, Kellen L.