Being a mild Apple fanboy, an unrepentant early adopter and the owner of over 150 GBs of music, it didn't take long (two hours, if you're counting) for me to run down to the Apple store on 5th avenue and purchase the new
Apple TV media bridge. For those of you that steer clear of technology blogs and don't sit within earshot of a mac evangelist, the Apple TV is a small box that connects to your HDTV and basically acts as an iPod for all the media on your computer, all completely wirelessly and with the simple interface that Apple has become known for.
Since there is no shortage of people
reviewing the Apple TV, I'm going to focus on one of the most common early criticisms of the device. What you hear most often in most of the early reviews is that the device is great and most people will find it very easy to use but that there just isn't that much content available for it. They usually point to the limited TV and movie database available through the iTunes store and point out that it's significantly smaller than the selection you'd find at a video store or through a service like NetFlix.
While it is true that there is a long way to go before Hollywood's entire archive is available in iTunes, I'm not finding any shortage of content. In fact, if it wasn't for my love of hockey and baseball, I would be seriously considering parting with my $100+/month cable bill (ok, I would need The Daily Show too). In addition to mainstream content like
NBC Nightly News, there are also video blogs for just about every hobby or interest. Of course, as with all new technology like this, the wired set is particularly well represented.
The most interesting trend here, which is emerging fairly rapidly, is how video bloggers are now changing formats to accommodate this new technology. While popular video blogs like
Rocketboom have already begun offering high quality video for larger screens, smaller podcasters, like Merlin Mann's
The Merlin Show (which is great, btw) are also embracing higher quality video.
So what does this mean for social media? Well, we've already seen how quickly and effectively bloggers can compete with print journalists online so this could very well be the first legitimate step in putting a tool in the hands of consumers that gives consumer generated media a chance to compete with the major broadcasting companies. Is the first consumer generated Seinfeld or Friends really that far off?
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