There’s a great article about the culture clash between Silicon Valley and Hollywood in the New York Times yesterday. The whole thing is interesting, but I’d like to highlight part of it. It’s a quote from a Sony exec:
“I don’t know if they feel they don’t need us or are going directly to the talent,” he said. “There are always going to be huge cultural differences between us because the interests are different. On their side they are fundamentally interested in technology and, on our side, we are interested in the content.”
The strange thing is that right now a huge percentage of the new media audience is fundamentally interested in technology also — and not content (the entertainment sense of content translates to “Brad Pitt”). Companies like Revision3 are banking on this. In fact, the internet is creating its own celebrities based around geek-dom, like Gary Vaynerchuk, Veronica Bellmont and Kevin Rose.
But my inkling is that if web entertainment is going to stay completely afloat, some people better start flying their private jets north.