The second article is split into three main sections:
The first section deals with the traditional media companies competing against Netflix and how they will need to build "scale" to do it. That word was used frequently.
The second section deals with social networks and how they'll become increasingly important. You won't just go to Facebook to share your favourite photos with friends, but watch your favourite shows on their too according to the article.
And the third main section dealt with what the article called identity feeds aka niche players. Like Netflix, but smaller players where you go to watch your favourite niche shows and interact with others depending on your interests, ie sci-fi, DIY, etc.
I think the article over-eggs the importance of social networks like Facebook and what is popular one day, ie MySpace, is forgotten the next. So, I'll concentrate on the other two sections.
The gist of the first section was that while the number of channels has grown, generally most people stick to just a handful. The article believes this is how it will be in the future tv landscape too and a streaming at that. There may be two or three streaming services that dominate and that's it.
The article went on to say that the media companies have already experimented with apps but are now reducing them to scale up against netflix. So, rather than there being several different Discovery channel aps, there is now just one. Rather than several different Fox apps, there is now just one. The article believes, and I agree, that the media companies need to offer a broad selection of shows if they launching their own streaming servies just like Netflix is now doing.
The article was saying that the big media companies/networks have to decide whether they keep doing business with the likes of netflix or create their own streaming services. But the article believes that mass consolidation is on the way in the media world and it be increasingly unlikely that smaller players can survive, although they believe that the US networks stand a good chance of surviving into the future based on their current programming, but only if they adapt to the streaming world.
There is far too much in the article to comment on, but I do think they are making too many assumptions, ie about Netflix. If someone comes up with better tech than Netflix, a better user interface, they'll be no Netflix. And of course if the big media companies withhold content from Netflix, that will finish them off too. That wasn't really covered in the article as they think Netflix, plus a few other will reign supreme. Perhaps, or perhaps not.
On the other section about niche players, I've already talked about this in the thread, I called them portals, so I'll say no more about that. Main post here and the rest of my comments on portals are on page 2 of this thread after this post:
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/35753988-post21.html
In conclusion, I agree with what some of that second article says, particularly about media consolidation, but its not clear who will be the "winners" yet. The article thinks, "winner takes all," but I would not like to be in a world of just a few tv choices or worse, one.
Now I'm off to watch something on Netflix.... as, as always, evening tv on our main channels is dominated by reality crap.