Personal Data Storage – Last Chance Saloon
We saw a similar model appear and as quickly disappear a few years ago with record labels offering albums on USB drives. It was not a success. Now, personal storage companies are trying to use content to subsidise their hardware. Seagate announced yesterday that they are going to offer hard discs with pre-loaded video content. That they are kicking this off with geek content (Star Trek – sorry geeks) is a worry to me that this is a model that they themselves do not expect to last.
I was having a weirdly similar conversation just two days ago with a colleague at Wunderman who has an interest, and history in film distribution. Our conversation was about how none of the major film studios seem to have embraced digital film delivery issues. Record companies took too long to realise that digital formats are here to stay and that they should embrace not only the new format, but the new generation.
Don’t treat your audience as consumers, treat them as subscribers.
Last.fm and Spotify are fine examples of how this should work (and their newly announced partnership supports their respect of each other’s technical specialities).
The model that Seagate are selling here sounds to me like a company trying to shift hardware whilst they have the chance. Once we (the digital generation) solve the ‘constant connection’ that the world needs and unlimited storage is available to all, will any of us really need large amounts of personal storage space? Sure, we will always feel the need to keep our personal documents safe, but i would be more likely to trust companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google with my data. They will offer better security, better availability and document versioning the likes of which most consumers are not even aware of. Companies like Seagate will surely disappear or have to re-model themselves pretty quickly.
– Open ownership is the future.
– Content subscriptions are surely the way forward.
– Storage of that content cannot be personal.
Please, data storage companies, stop encouraging people to hoard their personal storage in cupboards and on desktops. Lets invest our collective effort in increasing bandwidth, stabilising our connections to cloud data, making our formats more secure for ourselves. Yes, we need to know that our personal content is protected, but we should not be spending our time managing it.
I for one, am already well and truly bored of backing up, de-duping, re-organising and cautiously deleting digital content.
Copy and paste this for your own records.
Or just carry on.