The River

The personal professional blog of Pamela Parker -- musings on marketing, advertising, media and technology.

Video

Has The World Really Changed? Yup

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When the dot-com bubble was mid-burst in 2001 or so, a friend of mine would ask me, “Do you still think the Internet is going to change the world?” As if some poor investments and a negative global economic climate were going to halt the transformation the Internet was bringing to our culture. “Of course,” I’d answer. It might be slowing down a little bit, but things are definitely going to change. Especially in my chosen fields of journalism, media and marketing. This graphic reflects that conversation quite well.


Still think Digital Advertising is a fad.

Infographic by the social media marketing team @ROI_Media

The Making of a Next Gen Video Consumer

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A few weeks ago, I got my husband to agree to cutting off our cable television service. See ya, Time Warner Cable. See ya, Time Warner Cable bill.

Reading about Fred Wilson’s thoughts on the subject (wow, that link is old and yet still valid), and hearing from @lieblink, it has long been obvious to me that the future of television-watching is digital and on-demand. Watching our household’s video viewing habits — a lot of Amazon On-Demand, some Netflix Instant Queue, a great deal of TiVo-ed kids’ programming, and some live TV here and there — I realized that, with just a few slight modifications, we could ditch the cable boxes and save $71/month.

The person for whom this poses the most difficulty (and he’s already asked me to call TWC a couple of times) is my husband. He’s fond of live sports and live sports news — some of which are actually available online, but he’s not accustomed to using these sources yet. For the kids and me, it hasn’t been a difficult adjustment, as there is still plenty of programming available with our new configuration.

Here’s our set up:


  • Analog TV set (vintage 2004 or so).
  • Digital to analog converter box
  • Amplified indoor antenna (“rabbit ears”)
  • Roku box for Netflix and Amazon On-Demand
  • TiVo for recording broadcast TV and a little on-demand (Series 2)

I’d love to have Apple TV or some other way to watch YouTube, Hulu, etc. on our TV, but we are getting along pretty well just now. The most challenging part, thus far, is when we hear about some kind of news event — a plane and helicopter colliding over the Hudson, for example — and want to turn on CNN or NY1 for the on-the-scene coverage. We’re trying to train ourselves to find something acceptable online. Wish us luck.