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Guest post by Michael Feil, Director of Cloud Solutions

I would like to take a minute to talk about the growing trend in society regarding multimedia consumption. Today we have the largest selection of music, videos, movies and TV programs with optional ways to consume it. All of us remember growing up and buying records, cassettes, and CDs. VHS and DVD revolutionized video content in our homes. Today, we are watching multiple technologies come together to again change the way we consume media.

Streaming is not new, but why is it being adopted now? What changed? It’s not as simple as one would think. For one, it’s been more than 10 years since digital content became social news and more than eight years since it became widely available. iTunes is now the largest music distribution point and sales generator. The music sharing applications and expansion of high-speed Internet access in the early 2000s made this content easier to distribute and consume. Most homes and businesses have high-speed Internet access.

But what changed the most? What made streaming acceptable? The consumers! The generation that is consuming the most music, TV, videos and movies has grown up with a wide adoption of technology and having everything available via a computer and the Internet. For them, everything is digital! We have become a society of instant gratification with access to the content, media and information that we want. This adoption of technology has forced other generations to conform to these consumption methods as well. Technologies are forcing the movie, television and music industry to change rapidly to meet the consumer’s adoption of technology and avoid the pirating issues of the late 90s and early 2000s.

So, is this Ripe, and streaming is a way of life that is here to stay? Or is this a generational trend that is Hype?

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