AT&T is Struggling to Keep Up
The media world is constantly evolving. The Telecommunications companies that have dominated the past half century are struggling to keep up. They all struggle find ways to stay relevant with an internet that provides endless amounts of content to users anywhere anytime. Comcast has acquired NBC Universal. Now AT&T has got Time Warner under their control. With Time Warner comes the rights to many big industries like “HBO, CNN, Warner Brothers, DC Comics, TBS, TNT, the Cartoon Network and broadcast rights to many live sporting events”. But will it be enough to keep up with the ever expanding Google? The future looks meek. Google has expanded from a search engine to a media provider, and now offers high speed internet access. As the article “AT&T Is Buying Time Warner Because The Future Is Google” explains, Google is certainly stepping on the toes of the telecommunications companies with its innovative ways of providing internet services. From Google Fiber, using ballons and drones to bring internet to remote places, to Google Fi, which “essentially resells T-Mobile and Sprint’s service” which allows “Android phones [to] discern which carrier offers the strongest signal in any given location, allowing you to move seamlessly between Wi-Fi and the two carriers depending on signal strength.” They are even developing Google Station which allows for one internet login for wifi around the world. We can’t blame AT&T to try to move to media companies to try and keep pace with the fast innovative companies like Google, but it’s likely they will only benefit short term. What is the future of the web? Maybe Web 3.0 is just Google.
In our studies of the World Wide Web, we learned about the phenomena of Web 2.0. This is how Google became so powerful so fast. Web 2.0 emphasizes the user. The user creates the content, the user consumes the content. It is all about the user. And users now a days want to be entertained anytime, anywhere. Why wait to watch this week’s episode of Big Brother on your TV at home when you can watch it on your train ride home from work. Accessibility is key, something Google, and its competitors like Amazon and Facebook have quickly adopted. The telecommunications companies that were once the countries source of content providers now have fallen behind. They are now trying to catch up, but it might be too late. What will the future web look like? I suppose only time will tell.