Nick Engel Gilder Response

In Life After Television by George Gilder we see predictions for the future world with the new technology of the computer and a greater networked world. Life After Television follows the theme talked about in our class of new media and how it affects our life. For my response paper I would like to evaluate some of the predictions and claims made by George Gilder and talk about my feelings about the accuracy of those predictions.

One of the first predictions made by George Gilder is that the telephone networks will die. According to Gilder, “All the assumptions of telephony will have to give way to radically different assumptions. Telephony will die.” This assumption by Gilder in my view is becoming true in some ways and in others is not. In my view the internet has decreased the need for the telephone and the invention of the cellular phone has greatly decreased the need for a home phone. But, in business there is still a great need for telephone technology in order to conduct business. I can see a future where all business is done through online technology but can never see the telephone completely dying. The telephone offers a more personal touch for communication then the internet and may be replaced by voice over internet or web conferencing but see the telephone as a vital tool in our workforce today.

The next prediction made by Gilder is in relation to television technology. Gilder predicts that “television networks are optimized for transmission of expensive centralized programming in real time to millions of dumb terminals. But the dominant traffic of the future will be store-and-forward transmission of digital data among millions of super smart telecomputers, or “teleputers” These machines will be capable of summoning or sending films or files, news stories and clips, courses and catalogs anywhere in the world” I found this prediction to be one of the most interesting because I feel like internet video is one of the most important inventions of recent history. While sites like YouTube have not eliminated television as Gilder knew it, it has created a strong alternative. The greatest ability of sending films and clips over networks is that the viewer is not limited to watching a program and only one time they can watch it anytime and anywhere. This increases personalization and the spread of information greatly and gives views more interaction then television that Gilder envisioned ending.

Another prediction made by Gilder is that the film business will move to be more specialized much like books and magazines have become. Gilder states that, “Just as digital desktop publishing equipment unleashed thousands of new text publishing companies, so the new digital desktop video publishing will unleash thousands of new filmmakers. The video business will increasingly resemble not the current film business, in which output is a hundred or so movies a year, but the book business, in which some 55,000 new hardcover titles are published annually in the U.S. alone.” This is another prediction that I can envision being fulfilled in the future but see little progress today. We can argue that more independent type films are being published today thanks to new computer technology making the process easier, but the film business is still dominated by the major companies and a few hundred or so movies a year being popular. Some success has been made by independent film makers breaking into the mainstream thanks to cheaper technology. For example, the show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was made by unknown producers that created a pilot that was shot for about $200. I believe we will see more of these types of shows and films becoming popular.

Finally, one of the main predictions by Gilder is that the newspaper business will survive even as these new technologies have created complementary substitutes. According to Gilder, “the secret of the success of the newspaper, grasped by Roger Fidler, is that it is in practice a personal medium, used very differently by each customer. Newspapers rely on the intelligence of the reader.” He also goes on to discuss how the newspaper can evolve with the new technology like tablets and cellular and wireless updates. I feel like this is a pretty accurate description of the newspaper business. Currently, I feel that the newspaper business is in a transition period between paper and online technology. For example, in Cincinnati we have seen the staff of the Cincinnati Enquirer decrease while the other main paper The Cincinnati Post has ceased publication. With the promise of new tablet type newspaper being updated wirelessly the newspaper as we currently know it could be saved. If this technology cannot be perfected I envision more newspapers falling and more people relying on internet technology as their sole information source for news.

In conclusion, I was impressed with George Gilder’s book Life after Television” and enjoyed the concept of the book. I was also impressed with how many of his predictions have become true and how many of his predictions are becoming true. I feel that this book fits into our overall message from this class and was a good read on new media.