Future Trends For Media Delivery - Where will RunRev Be?

[Sivakatirswami]

Richard Gaskin wrote:
> Sivakatirswami wrote:
> 
>> A bit OT here, but I like to query the group on future trends from 
>> time to time just to sound the waters, ""blue sky" "what do you think 
>> about it" ...
> 
>> The general sense is (and it is already happening) that users want to 
>> download a digital "product" and read it off line.
> 
> In the short term offline modes for applications will remain important, 
> since the 'net is approaching ubiquity but still some years from 
> actually being so.
> 
> The role of the browser will continue to grow, but even Google 
> recognizes that it lives as part of the desktop and has announced that 
> they'll be delivering a new desktop OS to do all the things that just 
> don't make sense within the confines of that one application's windows.
> 
> For these reasons I see continued healthy growth for desktop 
> applications in addition to web apps; Google Earth, Widgets, Gadgets, 
> and millions of other apps benefit from providing environments 
> thoroughly dedicated to specific tasks, as I wrote a few days ago in a 
> post with tips on integrating Internet connectivity in standalones:
> <http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-revolution/2009-July/126152.html>
> 


Richard: your analysis is both insightful and well grounded in the 
market place evidence. Thank you. This confirms a lot of what I was 
thinking.

Our Hinduism Today Digital Edition (PDF downloader, manager) has been 
relatively successful, (desktop app that talks to the web server) 
hampered in part by our onerous registration model, (which I want to 
abandon, since it was all initiated over vaporous concerns having to do 
with photo rights, which never manifested -- the NY lawyers are still 
scratching their head over digital distribution models....) some 
connectivity issues (users behind proxies) and the unfixable world of 
getting huge PDF's to actually open on every machine with Acrobat.  I 
was not sure if direct download of free PDF's via our new web site might 
make it obsolete. I think not.

Instead, we should take it to the next level: make it easy to download 
and register, put the content in the stack or pull it from the server.

Going forward the challenge will be (same discussion going on I'm sure 
in 100 newsrooms across the nation) the conversion process taking the 
huge investment in man hours that goes into a vertical (8.125" X 10 ") 
magazine, formatted for print, and moving that content into a WSVGA-"it 
walks and talks like TV or a Movie" universe, a conundrum that we will 
eventually have to solve -- when all the whil the print 
edition/advertising $ are what keeps the product afloat.

I look forward to seeing how robust the player object is in the applet 
across all platforms: this is mission critical moving forward.

Thanks again for the time you spent in responding. Very helpful.

See our new site made with that other VIP that dominates the web world 
PHP - CMS systems (in our case -- XOOPS)

http://www.hinduismtoday.com

Sivakatirswami