Since the advent of online media, traditional media such as books, magazines and newspapers have had a hard time. Advertising revenues have fallen off, readership for established titles has declined or shown little growth, and some newly established outlets for text-centric media, such as e-books, have not really lived up to their promise.
Yet, paradoxically, we read more then at any time in history, and I am not only talking about e-mail. Blogs, Web sites, newsgroups, mailing lists: The amount of text-based information we consume is perfectly staggering.
Surprisingly, however, most of this information is consumed either on the screen of a computer or on paper; the multitude of devices predicted for accessing content has not really materialized in a major way so far. E-books have negligible market share. Pod-casting is an interesting phenomenon, but we have yet to see it materialize as a major way of accessing information.
Things may change, however, when third-generation mobile phones start gaining major traction. In Europe, 3G technology has been rolled out in France, Austria and other countries, and the marketing pitch for these devices is mostly centered on the video capabilities provided by the higher bandwidth.
