The Future of Indies?

"The Future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet."

--William Gibson

I've always admired John Sloss for his uniquely successful business helping indies find financing (see Little Miss Sunshine for details...), and for the most part I believe he's always been on the cutting edge of taste, trends and technology. However, after reading this, I can't help but feel he and the NYTimes are living in a fantasy world.

While "delivery is changing rapidly", I wonder if the ADD-afflicted majority of computer users will have the attention span to purchase and watch unidirectional content over 8min long. So far, the internet content revolution has been mostly hype; few have seen any payoff, including the nominally successful web series like Eisner's Prom Queen or Edward Zwick's quarterlife. Even with interest in television waning, there's been no proof that they've defected in favor of high quality internet content. For the most part, people use the internet to communicate and build community, not to isolate themselves, which is essentially the effect of watching a television show or film. The most successful online ventures--facebook, secondlife, myspace, and nerve to name a few--all revolve around interaction and bidirectional avenues of information. The user is both the consumer and the distributor, evaluating and sharing content with the community through his or her own platform. At first glance, some may think the success of viral videos like "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" or the Evolution of Dance seem to point to a growing desire for content, but keep in mind that these videos are short, free to watch, and usually lose their appeal after a few weeks, thus possessing little potential for serialization, licensing or most importantly, advertising revenue.

In my opinion, the Lost creators have come closest to successfully merging content with community. The Lost Experience was an ARG(alternate reality game) designed by the creators to engage fans and expand the story line. The experience included new content, viral marketing websites such as oceanic-air.com, and puzzles whose solutions would reveal new information about the Lost world. These interactive applications built an alternate Lost community in which its members could share clues, videos, theories and more, which in turn created new lucrative advertising opportunities. Unlike with unidirectional content, the Lost world offers advertisers multiple opportunities for product tie-ins and high viewership through user word-of-mouth. A case study by WOMMA found that after Sprite teamed up with Lost on an ARG that cost less than $150,000 to produce, Sprite web traffic increased 400% and average visit time increased 275%. I'd like to hope that Sloss is right and advertising dollars will exist for high quality indie content on-line, but in reality, no one is going to watch a 90min mumblecore film on a distributor's pay-to-watch website when they can watch and share Will Ferrell's Pearl the Landlady with their friends on their own pages for free.