Media Wonk

Internet founder sees no threat from video - August 27, 2007

Vint Cerf, who is credited with helping to develop the Internet’s basic protocols (TCP/IP) back in 1973, isn’t buying the line that the coming wave of video over the Web will swamp his baby.

"Scare tactics," the legendary engineer said Monday at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. People predicted the same thing 20 years ago, he noted, in the face of mass adoption of the Internet. “In the intervening 30 years [Internet traffic has] increased a million times over,” he said. "We're far from exhausting the capacity."

According to Cerf, who now serves as "chief Internet evangelist" for Google (who knew it needed any more evangelizing, especially from Google?) the television industry is rapidly approaching its "iPod moment," when large numbers of consumers start downloading the programs they want to watch rather than passively waiting to receive them from broadcasters.

"85% of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to download it all the time," he said according to a report by The Guardian.  "You're still going to need live television for certain things--like news, sporting events and emergencies--but increasingly it is going to be almost like the iPod, where you download content to look at later."

That, of course, would likely put a premium on search, which would be very good for Google. Whether it would be as good for broadcasters is less clear.

According to Cerf it could be broadcasters’ death knell, which would probably also be good for Google. But I wouldn’t expect broadcasters simply to concede the user interface to Google or anyone else without a fight.

Not if they’ve been paying attention at least.

Other write-ups of Cerf’s comments are available here, here and here.

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