Kendra Initiative: Building An Open Distributed Marketplace For Digital Media
The consumer's dream is coming - one way or another - to a device or desktop application near you. The vision is of convenient and ubiquitous access to the world's content catalogues via the gateway of your choice - where rights technologies, formats and payment systems are transparent to the pleasurable consumption experience. Where consumers can purchase whatever, whenever and wherever they want and listen to or view the content they have on the device or application of their choice.
Currently, the content industry seems uncomfortably stuck between pirates and the "centralised portal gang" (see iTunes, Google, etc). Could an open, level and distributed marketplace for digital media be the answer to all their prayers? Will owners and distributors of content (from corporate to bedroom) embrace the new world of the open marketplace and take back control of their content? Could the technology community and W3C help build this open marketplace? Could the media industry help roll out the semantic web? Could Kendra Initiative provide an independent vehicle to help drive both goals forward?
Daniel will discuss the current problems in the media industry; the solutions that need to be put in place; and the vision of an open marketplace for digital media. You'll also hear about the system's progress: prototype development and media industry involvement in current trials.