This enigmatic portrayal of the future of the world's media output had obviously been thought about in great depth and therefore seemed really believable. Incorporating real newspapers and companies such as 'The New York Times', Amazon and Google added a touch of realism to an otherwise far-out prediction. The line between truth and fantasy began to blur with the effective use of existing dates in history (e.g. the date the Internet was invented, and the purchase of Friendster by Microsoft), juxtaposed to the fabricated - or not? - predicted dates for the fall of 'The New York Times' etc.
According to the film, Google and Amazon join forces in the near future to form 'Googlezon', and by 2010 there are no genuine news organisations - there exists only online 'virtual' companies, for example 'The New York Times' requests a paid membership for those who sign up online. The film also predicts the suing of Googlezon by 'The New York Times', a case which is taken all the way to the Supreme Court. In 2011 the jury is found in favour of Googlezon. After this, a filtering system named 'EPIC' is made, creating jobs for some but who offer a tiny cut of the huge revenue the system collects.
With the recent controversy surrounding big past transactions, e.g. the purchase of MySpace, the creation of GoogleEarth, GMail and GoogleNews, it is not hard to imagine these events coming to pass in the next few years, particularly considering how far Google has grown, and how quickly (remember the days when Lycos and Ask ruled the net?)
With our continued reliance on technology and computers to make our decisions and govern our lives, it is also feasible that the news organisations should take the step into being totally virtual. Because the newspaper industry is so much attached to our country's heritage, it is perhaps difficult for us to envisage this, however much of the industry is already based online, and who knows what the future holds? As readers we are beginning to contribute more and more to our daily news, and one could argue that, as the technology we use to do this advances, so will the output to which we contribute.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Excellent response to the video. While it does seem perhaps a stretch of the imagination, Google is already collecting significant data about us and using search engine technology to construct its newsfeeds. You make an interesting point that newspapers are entrenched in our cultural landscape, however at one point so was the telegraph...
Post a Comment