Netflix and Redbox have almost destroyed the concept of owning DVD disks. Pandora has lowered the need to buy music. Zipcar has made not owning a car possible for a lot of urbanites. The real estate crisis has made owning your own place seem less cool.
All and all, it seems the trend is moving, to a large extent, away from physical ownership of goods and towards either sharing models or outright rentals. We will see this trend continue to grow over the coming year. Some of the things to watch out for are the rise of the cord-cutters, where people replace their cable TV offering with an online only offering because of the a-la-carte pricing nature of online efforts. Another trend to look at is e-book lending with the initial efforts or the Nook and Kindle readers offering sharing capabilities on select titles.
The mobile revolution continues
The introduction of the iPhone 3 years ago shifted the whole online landscape to mobile devices. Yet, for all the discussion of mobile, it still has been a phenomenon sitting on the edge, as smart-phones were on the more expensive side of the price spectrum. Except all this to change this year, with many Android-based phones being available for free or almost free, putting any feature phone at a substantial disadvantage.
At the same time, get ready for the shoot-and-learn revolution as QR-codes, tagged objects, and smart tools like Google Goggles gain more mainstream acceptance. People will increasingly scan or shoot to learn more about or compare a physical good to information available online.
Internet Backlash
The internet industry has benefited from a great amount of support over the last 2–3 years. Companies like Facebook, GroupOn, Zynga, and Google have been able to move along with high levels of consumer acceptance. I suspect that this year, we may start seeing more people rethinking some of their web 2.0 choices, disclosing a little less information on Facebook, or becoming more wary of the power of Google. We will also see the rise of digital-free zones, where people agree that the use of mobile devices or computers is not allowed.
As we have gotten more and more free time over the past century, courtesy of the 40 hour work-week, we created a surplus of human potential and creativity. This surplus remained more or less invisible because we spent most of that free time watching TV, religiously. And somehow, we thought that was the way it was supposed to be. We forgot about the stuff we did before TV: social interactions in clubs, sports, hobbies, etc.
Frozen accidents do not stay frozen forever
Internet and Social Media changed all that. We now know that we do not have to live in a world where a small group of professionals decide what we will watch, thereby ignoring most of our individual needs and interests. The TV construct apparently was a frozen accident, something that we came to consider inevitable
Instead, Social Media brought us ways te connect, share and create in a truly interactive way, liberating us from the inbalance of the traditional Media world. We can now once again create, interact and find uses for our cognitive surplus.
Because they can only enjoy your music in the proprietary BEAM player. A fact that supposedly is countered by offering a rich multimedia experience. In that same proprietary browser.
It is a Full Quality album, Downloadable and Playable only inside Beam platform.
Can be downloaded only if user knows the Beam Album Unlock Code(s) and upon download he may not share or copy it.
A Beam album is connected with an online Beam Browser enabling bands to present any information (announce gigs, sell advertising space, sell Cd’s or tickets, present their digital booklet, link with other networks.)
Every track is connected to the Online MP3 shop of your choise so that fans buy the MP3 in order to play them outside application.
