John Naughton posts an â??articleâ?? on the rise of ‘endism’ – what computer scientist John Seely Brown regards as the perspective that sees new technologies as replacing older ones – and notes our constant inclination towards seeing the emergence of new trends, technologies, social phenomena as the end of others. This blog is as guilty as any of going for the easy kill, and declaring every new advance in networked or permission based media and advertising as the death of mainstream selling – what we need to concede is the possibility for all these things to co-exist in the same ‘eco-system’ – sure, downloading changes the music buying landscape, but as a result we’re going to see a shift’s in power and the dynamic of the marketplace, not the wholesale extinction of previous methods of buying and sharing. (for example, I am still making Mixtapes, not that anyone has the equiptment to play them, which may, on reflection, not be a bad thing…)
We need to allow for the possibility of multiple situations co-existing, some better, some worse, if we are going to get to grips with the rapidly diverging media landscape. We know from previous experience that declaring the death of anything, (print, vinyl, shops…) very rarely comes to fruition in reality.