They all project how revenue will shift from other industries, such as retailing, into their own. They all can demonstrate how their central computers can keep track of every click viewers make. And they all pine for the day when people sell out their communities for the sake of a more convenient way to shop. Meanwhile, none of these companies are doing much about making their systems compatible with each other’s … And they’re not doing much about making them truly two-way … opening up their networks – la the Internet – so consumers can be producers, creating their own programming and distributing their own videos. By the time I return to my own living room, I am sure that I don’t want anything to do with this.
Predictor: Schwartz, Evan I.
Prediction, in context:For a 1995 article for Wired magazine, reporter Evan Schwartz traveled across the U.S., checking out the interactive television consumer testing being conducted by entertainment/technology corporations. Schwartz writes:”The net affect of all the alliances that have been written up in The Wall Street Journal for the past three years is this: everyone is in cahoots with everyone else. Bell Atlantic is collaborating with Microsoft. Microsoft is in bed with TCI. TCI works with US West. US West has an investment in Time Warner. Time Warner is aligned with AT&T. AT&T has done deals with GTE. And so on. They visit each other’s trial zones, attend the same conferences, buy the same market research … All these corporations have the same top-down view of how they can force a change in people’s entrenched viewing habits. They all project how revenue will shift from other industries, such as retailing, into their own. They all can demonstrate how their central computers can keep track of every click viewers make. And they all pine for the day when people sell out their communities for the sake of a more convenient way to shop. Meanwhile, none of these companies are doing much about making their systems compatible with each other’s … And they’re not doing much about making them truly two-way … opening up their networks – la the Internet – so consumers can be producers, creating their own programming and distributing their own videos. By the time I return to my own living room, I am sure that I don’t want anything to do with this. I do not want to shop for socks. I don’t want a smart set-top box. I do not want a 9-pound ham. I’ll just stay the spud I am. I just want to plop down on the sofa, turn on the entertainment, tune out my higher brain functions, and exercise my constitutional right to stare vacantly at the tube, resting assured that interactive television is still little more than an oxymoron.”
Biography:Evan Schwartz was a 1990s journalist with a computer science degree who covered information technology. He was a former editor at Business Week, where he covered software and digital media and was part of teams that won a National Magazine Award and a Computer Press Award. He also wrote for the New York Times, Wired, and MIT’s Technology Review. His books include “Webonomics” and “Digital Darwinism.” (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: TV/Films/Video
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: People Are Supposed to Pay for This Stuff? Crisscrossing the Country, Our Intrepid Correspondent Visits Corporate Labs, Model Living Rooms, and Actual Sofas, to Check Out the Megahyped Interactive Television Prototypes and See Just How Real the 500-Channel, All-Digital, High-Fiber Future Really Is
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.07/cable_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney