Futuretainment: Yesterday the World Changed, Now it's Your Turn

by Mike Walsh

Futuretainment offers a fresh approach to the role of the entertainment industry within the contemporary world of digital media. It looks at how the proliferation of concepts such as MySpace, YouTube, iTunes and Google, to name but a few, have come to dominate over previous channels of marketing and communication. Today, the consumers set the rules, assuming the role of business professionals themselves and thus transforming the entertainment industry. This book will be a business-minded examination of the evolving trends in media, how they will affect businesses and how to plan for a future that revolves increasingly around the demands of the consumer. It will also offer an ‘insight’ at the end of each chapter, which will act as a concise synopsis of the practicalities discussed in that chapter.

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Chris]

This book was written way back in 2009 and a lot of the companies it references for future business are either long gone or still around. They mention Facebook in there but a lot of the others are gone. The concepts thought are still fairly good to learn about. The book talks about the very future we are in right now.

You can compare what the author thinks is going to happen to what is already happening. A lot of the points he makes in the book are pretty much common sense now in terms of how people use the internet. Its important to know when this book was written that this was all very new stuff and many people didn't think a world like this could even come about or if it did, it would take longer. Now we have space missions planned for Mars and space tourist companies already offering tickets.

The concept of the whole book though is centered on how people use media and how companies have to change in order to keep people interested in their ideas. Movies and Music are hard to control once they are put out there because chances are its pirated and sold a million times before the end of its release weekend. The same goes for music, at the time no one in China or most of the world purchased music because it was all free to download.

Now you have new ways of getting media out there, for example; instead of creating a website for people to visit and read more about, the movie is what drives people to the website for MORE content to interact with instead of the other way around like it used to be.

Today apps drive attention for anyone interested in seeing what is happening so that means entertainment must follow where the eyes are and gain interest there instead of a static website. The book is a good refresher on where things are headed but if you just look around at how people consume content, you will understand its very different now in the future when everything you create and do must have some form of entertainment attached to it, otherwise no one will pay any attention.

[Simon Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone interested, and excited, about the way the Internet can keep changing the way we live and disrupt the established order of work, communications and fun this book is worth a perusal. Working closely with a Sydney-based design house this slick book bridges the divide between conventional publishing and web-based communication. Its strongly visual and almost advertorial presentation emphasizes the communicative potential of new online media. The author is a polymath who eschewed management consulting to delve into his true passion. Discover the origins of the Internet at the Swiss-based CERN institute now famous for its pursuit of dark matter or about insect survival strategies or the unusual Japanese inventor who has most of his brainwaves at the bottom of a purpose-built swimming pool while holding his breath. Somehow it’s all relevant. For me this imaginative book was a timely reminder that if you really want anything to be ‘state of the art’ it better contain some!! ‘Chapeau’ to Mike Walsh, a well-travelled guru in the realm of hi-tech voodoo. Fittingly, this book also has its own futuristic website. Check it out!! SIMON

www.futuretainment.com .

[Steffan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw Mike speak at ETech ages ago and bought this book a few months later when it was released. Mike Walsh is brilliant and the content of the book is amazingly insightful. The format of the book unfortunately doesnt do the content justice - it feels like an artsy coffee table book rather than an executive summary of important trends to watch. Still, I recommend this book to anyone doing important work on the web, especially designers. The fact of the matter is, Asia is way ahead of us in digital. Theyve been exposed to technology longer, theyve adapted far beyond us in important ways and Mike has done the research few have. If he were in Boston, I would have begged him for a job just to work with his team. They're on the forefront and Mike is smart as hell. Go buy the book.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a lot of style and a little substance, but the substance that is there is pretty amazing. By looking at the technology that is at play in other countries and comparing trends in America, Walsh is able to speculate where the information and entertainment industries will take us in the coming decades. Some of his guesses are rather far-reaching, but not so much that they don't seem plausible. As he postulates on the end of appointment television, he lays out the scenarios for what will fill the entertainment gap in our lives. The possibilities are intriguing and seem more and more possible with each generation of new technology.

[Ninakix · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think part of the only reason I got through this book was because the short chapters were a bit too easy to read (so it was easy to pick up in short periods of time), and they did seem to talk about things I was vaguely interested in... But the book was difficult to swallow because I don't think the author had a very good grasp on how change happens and what kinds of path dependencies can really effect what happens in the future. To just say, this is technologically possible is quite easy, but to say, this is also politically, culturally, or economically possible is difficult.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another of those books that Phaidon do so well. A somewhat pointless graphic design/photography coffee table book which, unusually for these types of books, I have actually read cover to cover! A lovely book whose brief seems to be that the audience is the network. Okay... but I just thought it was a nice book! (Unusually for me I got this from the library, which is a bit of a shame because I could skim through books like this for ages!)

[Lou · Rating 2 out of 5]

This would be one star, but the graphic design was so nice I had to give it a second, since it's the only reason I picked the book up. The author is way, way too excited about technology, and tends to make fun of people who missed the bus on some things, but, since it's published in 2009, you can tell he's already wrong about some others. I kind of imagine this guy jerking off to the idea of the aparatti in "Super Sad True Love Story," which is just weird.

[Franki Sibberson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great look at how entertainment has changed. Definitely implications for education and technology.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

so-so. visually pretty but light on insights.

[Gerdien Stevense · Rating 2 out of 5]

Content is very mediocre. Nothing new for me.

[Kanwal Prakash singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oko enough book, you will know most of the things if you have worked "Seriously" for an internet based start up for at least 6 months