Bob Iger and the Publishing Industry?

I read with interest the announcement earlier this week that Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. jointly announced an independent venture to develop open standards for a new digital storefront and related technology that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite media content on portable digital devices.  That story made me think almost immediately of the ideas of consumer consumption habits of media that Bob Iger has been talking about lately, the most recent being the discussion of the technology called ‘keychest’.

What made me think of Disney?  Probably the quote statement in the press release:

“For the consumer, this digital initiative will provide access to an extraordinary selection of engaging content products, all customized for easy download on the device of their choice, including smartphones, e-readers and laptops,” explained John Squires, the venture’s interim managing director. “Once purchased, this content will be ‘unlocked’ for consumers to enjoy anywhere, anytime, on any platform.”

And here is how The Financial Times described Keychest:

Next month Disney plans to unveil Keychest, a new technology that will allow digital copies of films to be stored remotely and then viewed and moved across platforms, such as smartphones, or games consoles such as Microsoft's Xbox.

I’m not suggesting that they are in collusion in any way of course, just that in many ways two very different forms of media (print and movie entertainment) are converging to a very similar set of realizations it seems.

In the print case people are increasingly turning to digital media vice that traditional printed versions and socking it too newspaper and print magazines left and right.  In the movie case people are ‘waiting for it on video’ and then in many cases are weary to forklift upgrade video collections from ‘good enough’ DVD to hi-rez formats like Blu-Ray (after all, how many portable devices can output Blu-Ray quality pics?  Certainly nothing that the fruit company makes, among many many others). 

It’s the whole CD to MP3 collection fatigue all over again.  I switched to AAC because it had better quality than MP3 for the same file size, but even after over half of a decade of Apple dominance, the number of portable playback devices that work with AAC despite very competitive licensing rates can be counted on your fingers.  I’m stuck, and it stinks.

And people, as Bob Iger has noted, think it stinks when they have to pay to watch a movie they bought on every device they own that’s different.  And so you know what they do?  Nothing.  They buy the DVD, and they do nothing frankly beyond that in general.  Us tech savy guys can buy software to rip it and remove the copy protection for a variety of devices (legally I might add), but my Dad nor my in-laws are interested in the least. 

So it will be interesting to see if anybody else in the movie industry signs on to a deal like the publishing guys just did.  It probably won’t be Keychest (I view that as more of a downpayment on Bob’s ideas that a technology they truly believe will be the standard at this point). but change is coming…