Product Description

"This book forcefully instructs media and tech companies to accept the shotgun wedding imposed by digitization, and profit from the long honeymoon of convergence. Using both historical and strategic analysis deftly, Philip Meza shows how Hollywood and Silicon Valley can reason together. His examples are Oscar-worthy and his rules as logical as a microprocessor's architecture: companies and their shareholders ignore these lessons at their peril."
--Reed E. Hundt, author of In China's Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship (2006), member of the board of Intel Corporation, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission

Hollywood and Silicon Valley have long been uncomfortable bedfellows. Out of fear of pirating and lost profits, entertainment companies have historically resisted technological changes. Conversely, high-tech companies, more concerned with technological progress, have largely ignored the needs of the entertainment industry. Nevertheless, those products that we now take for granted, such as DVDs, MP3 players, and the Internet, are all due to the synergy of technology and entertainment.

The switch to digital and web formats for entertainment represents huge potential market opportunities for both Hollywood and Silicon Valley. It has opened up new possibilities for entertainment and expanded the way content is created, distributed and consumed. Consider the phenomenon of YouTube and its wildly popular user-created content, or the ability to download movies and TV shows from sites such as iTunes and watch them on your iPod or computer, anytime and anywhere.

The dual forces of consumer demand and rapidly changing content distribution are combining in new ways to create changes that will strike at the very foundations of the entertainment and technology industries. Depending upon how entertainment and technology companies respond, these changes can help them prosper or put them out of business. Media companies will have to become more like technology companies; and technology companies will need to change too. Because content creation, distribution and consumption are ever more tightly linked, Hollywood will need to understand what's happening in Silicon Valley and vice versa; changes in one industry will reverberate through the other. Some companies such as AOL and Time Warner have tried and failed (at least so far) to harness these forces, while a few companies such as Disney, Intel, and Google have recently taken the initial steps. But many more companies wait, afraid to change but knowing they cannot conduct business as usual.

With an insider's knowledge, researcher and consultant, Philip Meza insightfully clarifies what managers and investors in media and technology companies will need to do in order to successfully navigate today's tricky environment. Coming Attractions? Hollywood, High Tech, and the Future of Entertainment discusses the history of the key forces driving the relationship between entertainment and technology today and into the future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #921110 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-20
• Released on: 2007-03-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 184 pages

Review

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Customer Reviews

An Entertaining Book!
I got this book because I wanted to learn more about the changes I see taking place in entertainment, things like YouTube and watching new TV shows on iPods. The book covered this and a lot more. It provided an eye opening look at similiar intersections btw tech and entertainment in the recent past as well as a look into what the future holds. I don't work in either industry, but I found the book to be well written and easy to read (very entertaining, really!).

Insightful business case studies based on Hollywood
Business consultant Philip E. Meza has done his research on the history of entertainment technology and the growing pains that have followed each innovation. Unfortunately, his slightly muddy larger concepts sometimes fail to justify the detailed histories that support them, sometimes making the book feel sort of padded. getAbstract says you need to read it anyway, if you are a content creator or decision maker in the media, entertainment or information industries. Meza provides real value by identifying a pattern in content companies' resistance to the very changes that eventually help them. In two particularly utilitarian appendices, he surveys the technologies that are pressuring media companies and reviews the current state of U.S. copyright law. His analysis of the content industries' lame responses to technological change and his prescriptions for the future are useful and insightful.

An outstanding, specific survey key to understanding
COMING ATTRACTIONS? HOLLYWOOD, HIGH TECH AND THE FUTURE OF ENTERTAINMENT instructs media and tech companies to understand convergence, showing how Hollywood and technology can benefit from each other's focus to bolster both the entertainment industry as a whole and high tech interests. Chapters discuss the switch to digital and web formats and how this represents huge potential market opportunities for both entities, exploring the history and development of different systems of entertainment delivery and their competitive options. California libraries both business and public will find COMING ATTRACTIONS an outstanding, specific survey key to understanding long-standing issues, conflicts, and relationships between entertainment, high tech and media industries alike.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch