While touring the 2000 Consumer
Electronics Show with a colleague I was struck by how much consumer
electronics was a part of our lives. I realized how the
fledging digital consumer electronic devices then starting to take
hold (such as PVR/DVRs) would soon dominate consumer electronics. At
the same time, the creation and distribution of entertainment was undergoing
its own digital transformation as digital technology increased the
speed and lowered the total costs of content creation and distribution. Digital
storage creates a huge positive feedback loop that enables the creation,
distribution and reception of entertainment content. As the cost
of entertainment production and distribution decreases and the demand
for higher and higher resolution digital content increases storage
demand skyrockets. Likewise, as higher resolution digital content
becomes available it is more attractive for an ever increasing variety
of mobile and fixed consumer electronic devices to use this content. As
a result storage demand in consumer devices soars.
By the end
of this decade I believe that the entertainment content value chain
will consume the majority of every sort of digital storage media and
device on the planet! Digital storage is our storage. It
is the means for passing our culture to the future. The face
that future generations will see when they look back at our times will
be observed through the medium of our digital storage archives.
This
positive feedback loop for ever increasing digital storage in all aspects
of the entertainment content value chain led me to start the annual
Storage Visions Conferences. I want to create a forum where people
from all parts of the digital content value chain and the suppliers
of storage components and systems could meet and create a community
that facilitates this growing storage application market and identify
new technologies, applications and business opportunities to the mutual
benefit of all attendees. At the same time I want to create a
place where networking and meeting future business partners is encouraged. The
Storage Visions Conference allowed me to realize part of this dream
but we need a networking and communications presence that is available
all year long, not just once a year.
At the 2005 Storage Visions
Conference in January 2005 we announced the formation of the Entertainment
Storage AllianceTM. This is an entity that allows on-going communication
and promotion of digital storage and all aspects of its use in making,
editing, distributing and using entertainment content. The first
chapter in this alliance is the creation of this web site. Steven
Beedle of ZNA and I are pleased to create the www.entertainmentstorage.org web
site which is sponsored by on-site advertisements and offers free to
the interested public articles, news, and events focusing on entertainment
and digital storage for the entertainment value chain. As time
goes on and our resources increase we will add more features to the
site.
As our web logo indicates, entertainment storage
creates a unified driving force behind the creation, distribution,
and reception of digital content. To indicate the unifying presence
of digital storage in liberating the overall creativity and enjoyment
of mankind we refer to this logo as “The Cosmic Wheel
of Storage Karma”. We hope that
you will give our wheel a spin! Please sign up and join our storage
and entertainment community and if you are a corporation or organization
that could benefit from association and exposure on our site please
contact us regarding site sponsorship at tom@tomcoughlin.com or steven@zna.com.
