The same digital-indexing technology shifts from threat to opportunity as business models change

Evidence

In this situation, technology is hailed as an improvement for the business of television; when it was TiVo and DVR that allowed the circumvention of advertisements, a similar technology was considered a detriment. In our conversation, the executive cited DVR technology as one of the main anxieties that has driven business to DG Entertainment’s CMS product. Whereas they once faced networks resistant to give up too much control or access to their content, he said, the new technological paradigm has networks requesting his company’s assistance in indexing and leveraging their content through clips. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 390

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Jonathan Sterne’s work on MP3/format theory and Michael Curtin’s work on media distribution chains — the idea that the same technical capability gets reframed by whoever controls the revenue stream.
• SEED: This inversion — the identical technology hailed as threat then savior depending on who monetizes it — could anchor an article on how ‘disruption’ framing is always a function of incumbent revenue position rather than the technology itself.