How the internet has changed things

You need to work in research teams to fully understand how the internet has changed production, distribution and consumption of media industries such as music, film, tv or videogames.

Videogames-
Videogames in the olden days were found in arcades  but now there is a vast selection of games with hundreds of offline and online options to purchase your videogames from. There are many different consoles that you can play your games on like the nintendo DS, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Now with the technological convergence on the PS3 of being able to connect to the internet from the game consoles opens up another dimension of gamer play as your can interact with other gamers around the world. Being able to go on the internet and watch blue ray DVDS and play your game all on one console is a massive change. An example of this is the new call of duty games which allows players to join in games on servers which allows players to play against each other in real time game play, with out delay or disruption.

Films-
In the olden days peoples options to watch films were only to go to the cinema and the selection of films where only the ones considered the 'best' from Hollywood.  Nowadays films are available to watch online and to be bought online to watch at home. Videos were introduced first and then DVDS more recently. This gave people the opportunity to buy films they enjoyed watching at the cinema or to skip the cinema and buy the film instead. Media convergence has been introduced where Videogames are scheduled to be released at the same time that the film comes out, to ensure that consumers will buy it all at once. This Media Convergence started around the time that E.T came out, however they did not get the game done in time which meant that it flopped. Films from other countries and cultures are no available. Low budget films and high budget films are on offer so the range of films now contrast with the amount that used to be on offer.


The Long Tail-
The Long Tail theory came around in 2004 when Chris Anderson used it in his article for 'Wired' magazine. It basically means that in the olden days there was a high demand for a small percentage of items, but in modern days there are smaller demands for a large range of items. An example of this would be watching films, in olden days there would be only a selection of films on and you had no choice of what they were. This contrasts with films in modern days as there are shops and online stores and online watching and rental stores, all these you can chose from to watch or purchase films. So in the olden days there was high demand for the small amount of films but now, as there is more on offer, there is less demand for more.