Can websites ever provide a real sense of community? You go to the internet to visit those sites that have staked their future on entertainment information. Darkerthanblue.com, for example, tries to give people a compelling alternative to BBC TV's Songs of Praise. We stream a rap/hip-hop session from New York at around the same time. As for community, yes, we can register people's email address. We can also make the assumption that people who use our site are probably black or Afro-American, but that's not the issue. We want the affinity to be with the brand, not necessarily with the website.
How viable is e-commerce? If you listen to Talk Radio you'd think that e-commerce is where it's at. The truth is, not a lot of money's made through e-commerce. If you're selling CDs or books, the margins on them hardly justify you washing your face! You can only make serious money if you have total ownership of the brand. The early pioneers of our business, like Amazon.com, went to the city and said it's not about making a profit, it's about the promise of making jam tomorrow. But they laid 50 people off the other week!
How important are streaming and interactive technologies to you? Interactive TV will distribute our content to our target audience quicker than streaming. Digital TV gives small brands the chance to have a stakehold. But I'm probably more excited about the potential of WAP (wireless application protocol) than I am about interactive TV.
Does it surprise you that "MP3" has overtaken "sex" as the most used term in search engines? I'm more interested in what's going to overtake MP3! In many respects, it bucks the sentiments of the major corporates which are keen for MP3 not to explode. That's the beauty of the internet, in its archaic fashion we do things as we please.
Do you enjoy the anarchy of the net? The anarchy appealed to the first wave of content providers, but now we're going back to the old maxim of 80% of the world's revenues are owned by 20% of its companies. In years to come the net will be horribly uniform and controlled by the usual suspects. That's why one has to view the internet as a passing fad. Anyone with a wit about them will move off the internet and develop content around WAP or the next platform.
Any favourite websites? I often look at what's happening in the US - Atomic Pop is very good. I still go to CNN because they offer a great news service. I also dip in to the Tottenham Hotspur site most days.
Do all the new distribution technologies pose a threat to the PC? With better video-cards, DVD, and generally better bandwidth, PCs have the capacity to be much more interactive than they currently are. But I'd say that the future consumption of the internet will be through people's TVs doubling up as a net interface.
