From Gutenberg to Sarnoff and on to today, developers have wondered how we would ever fill the pipe, yet content volumes have always outstripped channel capacity … The same will be true for digital networks. There will be no “dead air” on our new conduits. This doesn’t mean that content is king though, for if history is any guide, most of it will be fungible commodity properties such as game shows or old movies today, or utter trash … Now the “vast wasteland” … will be supplanted by a vaster wasteland brimming with utterly new forms of interactive cyberdreck.
Predictor: Saffo, Paul
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article he wrote for Wired magazine, futurist Paul Saffo addresses the future of digital networks. He writes: ”From Gutenberg to Sarnoff and on to today, developers have wondered how we would ever fill the pipe, yet content volumes have always outstripped channel capacity … In the 1950s, broadcasters wondered how they would ever program three channels on a 24-hour basis; today we routinely load up over 10 times that number day after day after day. The same will be true for digital networks. There will be no ‘dead air’ on our new conduits. This doesn’t mean that content is king though, for if history is any guide, most of it will be fungible commodity properties such as game shows or old movies today, or utter trash. Most of what was published in 1500 was utterly forgettable, and today’s radio ‘schlock jocks’ merely differ from their predecessors in degree rather than kind. Now the ‘vast wasteland’ first described in the 1961 by the then FCC commissioner, Newton Minow, will be supplanted by a vaster wasteland brimming with utterly new forms of interactive cyberdreck. There will be more really great content too, but snagging it in an ocean of banal junk will be harder than ever.”
Biography:Paul Saffo was the director of a decades-old research and forecasting foundation called the Institute for the Future, located in Menlo Park, Calif., in the 1990s. This Institute was a non-profit think tank that consulted for a large number of businesses and government entities, including telecommunications and consumer companies. (Futurist/Consultant.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Information Overload
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: It’s the Context, Stupid
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.leadership-innovations.com/Articles/context%20stupid.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stotler, Larry