Bill Gates: The Web Will Revolutionize TV In Five Years

[DudeAsInCool]

According to news reports, Bill Gates says the internet is superior delivery system than tv, and that he expects tv to implode. Curious to your thoughts about this new article:

DAVOS, Switzerland (Jan. 27) - The Internet is set to revolutionize television within five years, due to an explosion of online video content and the merging of PCs and TV sets, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said on Saturday.

Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, addresses a panel on Web 2.0 during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday.

"I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had," he told business leaders and politicians at the World Economic Forum.

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[method77]

YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley said the impact on advertising would be profound, with the future promising far more targeted ads tailored to each viewer's profile.

"In the coming months we're going to do experiments to see how people interact with these ads to build an effective model that works for advertisers and works for users," he said.

Experiment? Now Chad, you know how easy users abandon a site for a better one, don't you?

One more thing to all the Gates and Hurleys out there. TV is free (at least in most countries). The internet is not. Ads make TV survive. Ads don't make the Net survive.

[Malicious Intent]

For the mainstream maybe. TV was totally revolutionised for me in 2002 when I discovered P2P. These days I watch everything on my laptop, PC or phone. I sometimes download films or TV series that I run through the TV, so that me and my flatmates can all sit together and watch.

My brother has a sweet setup. His linux-based internet server is also hooked up to the TV. Anything that him or his flatmate downloads is saved to the server HDD, then they can watch it on the TV. Alternatively they can access it from their individual PCs. The server also acts as a DVD player and HDD recorder, taping anything they want off the TV.

It is a complete integration of TV and PC. When Bill Gates says this, he doesn't mean that the technology is 5 years away, just that M$ is five years away from agreeing how to ruin it with copyright restrictions.

[DudeAsInCool]

What we are witnessing is the merger of tv and the internet, and the simultaneous trend away from concentrated ownership of the media by a few to the creation of media by the users for free