There has been some concern about Communications and Media being slow to grow and a mature market to work within. This is certainly true if you consider the overall growth of traditional Service Providers and Media businesses. However, if you take a closer look, you get a different picture. Every client I have spoken to over the last few months is network capacity challenged. In other words, they are finding it difficult to keep-up with the customer demand to share and consume richer media over their network, whatever the network, public or private.
Take for example these three YouTube videos. Star wars according to a 3 year old girl. Almost 9 million people downloaded this file. Another video, Chocolate Rain had 28 million downloads. And then there's Evolution of dance, which clocked up almost 98 million downloads. Surely you saw that one. This video alone sent the equivalent of 300,000 DVDs' worth of data across the Internet.
Now take a look at what the established Media are providing. NBC have had huge success with their Beijing Olympics coverage and BBC have made their content available over the web. Interestingly, both corporations use Sun Technologies that you wo
uld not have seen 18 months ago.
Rich media over the networks is how we will evolve to sharing information and data and we are just at the beginning of this curve. As businesses and consumers access this infrastructure, they will in fact become Service Providers in their own right. New partnerships will evolve and grow, together with new ways to reach, develop and learn.
Combine this with what we are witnessing in emerging markets, with millions of people joining the networks every day. Look at the huge growth in Mobile and Internet subscribers and how Sun will continue to see growth there. In fact, we could and perhaps should start referring to these markets as 'growth markets' rather than 'emerging markets'.
As more people join the networks, these growth markets reach large numbers of people at lower costs, thanks to economies of scale. This fuels innovation and drives opportunity for incumbent Service Providers to renew infrastructure and maintain competitive advantage while servicing their clients’ growing demands.
So is the market slowing? NO! It’s still growing. We just have to target our growth within multi billion USD sub segments whilst continuing to support our clients as this industry evolves.
Thanks for the positive & very cutting edge message!
It certainly stands out among all of the market naysayers.
What about this crazy phenomenon of "lonelygirl15" that got her own Youtube Channel? And, after she was outed for being a 20 something actress her viewer numbers just went up??? Craziness.
Crazy times grow markets!
Posted by Kristen Dearing on September 23, 2008 at 08:26 PM EDT #
Let's find the multi billion USD Crouching Tigers and Hidden Dragons !
Posted by Didier Heck on September 24, 2008 at 03:39 AM EDT #
There has never been a time in human history when people didn't want more information. The only people who see markets shrinking are those with myopic views of what the market is. The Networked Digital Industry is expanding and will continue to do so. Your blog makes that point very well.
Morley Winograd
Posted by Morley Winograd on September 24, 2008 at 05:04 PM EDT #
I absolutely agree! Most particularly, the whole concept of user-generated content has changed, and will continue to change, the world. It will give voice to people who have never had it, and create the potential for colaboration on just about everything. And, the best part is that communications/media is at the center of that storm.
BTW, I like the hot links too!
Posted by Phil Cashia on September 25, 2008 at 05:06 PM EDT #
Avril Lavigne's video for Girlfriend has just become the most popular video on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ25-glGRzI It is the first video to have more than 100,000,000 views
Posted by Stefan Rust on September 29, 2008 at 07:54 AM EDT #
Thanks, Darrell, for pointing this out. No secret, any of it -- but we never seem to think of these markets' implications for the infrastructural network. All the more of a surprise because this underlying fabric is where the monetizing happens.
One aspect of this market is mobile advertising, slated to more than double over the next few years (Frost & Sullivan). But this available inventory is rising far faster than the industry's ability to monetize it -- "commercially inert," they call it. Poignant term!
Posted by Donald Frazier on October 16, 2008 at 12:50 PM EDT #