Saturday, November 8, 2014

Red Queens and Increasing Returns



The science fiction movie I watched for the Module 4 assignment was accessed through Netflix using my Roku. The current competition between DVDs and video-on-demand are examples of Red Queens. There was a time when Blockbuster Video locations could be found as easily as a McDonald’s restaurants. Then they had competition from mail order DVD companies, and cable on-demand. Now Netflix, Amazon instant video, and the many other instant streaming video channels now available through the Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, or Chromecast have almost made DVD’s extinct. I currently have one DVD player in my home, for my son, because I get videos for him from the library. No one else in my home finds it necessary to have a DVD player. Within the next five years DVD will be in the same category as VHS tapes. On McLuhan’s tetrad (Thornburg, D., 2013c) (1) the DVDs allows a view to watch a movie at anytime, it obsoletes the (2) VHS, and rekindles (3) family home movies, and flips into (4) on-demand instant videos.


 
 









References
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014g). David Thornburg: Red queens [Video file].
Baltimore, MD:
Thornburg, D. (2013c). Emerging technologies and McLuhan's laws of media. Lake Barrington,
IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.
https://www.netflix.com/?locale=en-US
https://www.roku.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Streaming-Internet-Media-Player/oc/Fire-TV
https://www.apple.com/appletv/
http://www.google.com/chrome/devices/chromecast/#cc-apps