Acknowledging the inevitable, Toshiba has withdrawn from the next-generation DVD race. Avoiding a protracted fight is probably a good thing…no sense in waging a war that they are almost certain to loose. The parallels drawn between the DVD format war and the VHS Betamax war of the late 70s are striking. This time Sony is coming out on top and their Blu-ray format appears destined to be the defacto standard for high-definition DVD recordings. While the VHS Betamax battle was largely won/lost over recording time and cost, this battle appears to be more about film studio and retail buy-in. Blu-ray was able to secure commitments from many of the leading Hollywood studios. In addition, retail and distribution outlets like Walmart and Netflix jumped on board the Blu-ray train. If you’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop before buying a DVD recorder/player…it looks like you now have one more consumer electronic gadget on which to spend your “economic stimulus” check!
Yahoo! rebuffs Microsoft
News is that Yahoo! will announce tomorrow (Feb, 11) its intention to reject the $44.6 million offer by Microsoft. Yahoo may be playing tough and holding out for more dough, but it is not without risks. Microsoft could take the offer directly to shareholders who may choose to oust the Yahoo board of directors. While this setback may be seen as good news for rival Google, it is difficult to predict how this might turn out for the search leader. Certainly a merger of two former competitors into a super-competitor would spell trouble for Google…whose lead in the search advertising business is currently unquestioned. In the short term, Yahoo stock is up for now.
Okay, but what do we call it?
Pauline Millard at The Huffington Post has a point…the phrase new media has lost its…well, its newness. And while I’d love to be able to move on, there really are no reasonable replacements. We still need a term that allows us to differentiate between this and the “old media,” aka traditional media, aka MSM. Interactive media works, but is rather clunky. But perhaps the best argument for “new media” is that it can morph over time, keeping up with the latest and greatest changes and never getting locked into a particular technology or point in time. New media is always new, and it can be used to describe the vanguard of the media revolution. Until we can come up with something better, new media works for me.
