Steve Gillmor calls it an RSS Bubble. I agree in principle, but have reservations.
IP TV startup Brightcove (also check out it's blog) is the latest example of the Internet empowering entrepreneurs to bootstrap existing content formats for our Greater Good. Preceeding Brightcove by a matter of days/weeks, Odeo is attempting to turn radio on it's head (see Odeo take on it's critics). Ourmedia is also emerging over the horizon with it's open source philosophy.
What's struck me is that these companies, and the many more that will follow in the RSS syndication bubble, have no choice but resort to mainstream media metaphors. People get it when you say: "TV or radio on your PC or mobile device." People don't typically get it when you say: "Use RSS to subscribe and time-shift any type of media content." And that's a big worry, because the former statement's simplicity betrays the significance of the shift towards personal media.
Once people understand that the Internet is actually capable of delivering massive streams of content, they then have to get their heads around the fact that their consumption habits can change to an on demand model.
And so the great challenge facing these startups is that the TV/radio metaphor they must use in Marketing Campaign Round One must be followed by Marketing Campaign Round Two, the expensive task of changing consumer behaviour.
I've got no doubt the "media democratisation" snowball will become an avalanche on the Internet. But I do worry how many rounds of funding these RSS startups can attract to keep them afloat while consumers take their sweet time to get over their collective aversion to another avalanche/bubble.
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