The 6 Billion Channel Universe...
People often say something to the effect of "networks are dead, we're in a billion channel world now," when referring to Internet/YouTube, etc.
I'm going to postulate that the universe of channels is actually much, much larger than that.
Why?
Because the person is the channel.
The tools are at the point where each and everyone of us has the ability to be a channel.
Say you visit my personal Tumblr site (http://jer979.tumblr.com).
What you are doing is tuning into my channel where you will get
- my personal blog posts
- links I've bookmarked on del.icio.us
- Twitter updates
- videos I've uploaded to YouTube
- shared items from Google Reader
And, over time, as people fine tune the tone of their channels (for example, I need a more business focused channel for my professional life), you will either decide to tune into my channel...or not.
But, if you do, it is because you are interested in/trust my judgment. Like NBC or CBS, I (or you or anyone) will become the arbiter of programming.
Eventually, (and you probably already have) you will find the people who are your channels.
Just a different way to think about it.
