Digital Design Blog

Superdistribution & The Digital Ecosystem

In 1987 Ryoichi Mori, head of the Japan Electronics Industry Development Association, came to a realization: it is much more difficult and costly to monitor copying than to track the actual use of digital assets/goods. Presciently centered on the idea that ease-of-replication needs to be looked at as a business opportunity and not only as a copyright headache Mori thought that the owners of electronic goods needed to “actively encourage free distribution of information-age good via any distribution mechanism imaginable*.” He called this framework superdistribution and it is basically an approach to distributing software in which software is made available freely and without copy protection but is still protected from modifications and modes of usage not authorized by its vendor.

In the last five years, the number of distribution mechanisms has grown exponentially online and offline as personal computer, cell phone and game console platforms have become more diversified and mature. We have also seen the coming of age of tools that support users ability to generate and distribute content, such as blogs, wikis, RSS and widgets. Such tools have increased user’s expectations towards control of content (broadly defined as text, images, audio and video) and experiences.

Functionality and content superdistribution online has also progressively blurred the distinction between online authors/creators/publishers and readers/consumers/users. We have moved from a one-to-many distribution model to a many-to-many superdistribution framework from a Web site-dependent model to a multi-site, multi-platform and multi-channel model of functionality deployment, content delivery, and communication. Today users act as relay stations that narrowcast within their own networks of friends/family and beyond. The cumulative effect of all these individual narrowcasts is viral broadcast and superdistribution.

In this environment we have to grapple with a wide array of new design challenges. For example, how do we create multiplatform user experience frameworks that are navigable and scalable from the user’s standpoint and, at the same time, sustainable from a business perspective? Which functionality should we support beyond the serving of portable content chunks via embedded RSS? In which platforms should the selected functionality be available? How can we support the convergence occurring (or not) in users minds as they move from device to device, from Web page to desktop widget?

Widgets: Widgets are playing a big role in how users access content today and will become more relevant for deeper experiences as more interesting functionality starts to become available on the desktop. Users can download OS-specific desktop widgets that are from either Apple or Microsoft Vista, as well as OS-agnostic widgets from Google, Yahoo! and other sites. There are widgets that can search for content, widgets that allow users to view and edit complete Wikipedia articles in any language, play Sudoku, or get news headlines in real-time�all without leaving the desktop.

Content: Whether you are redesigning a corporate site, a content-rich destination site or building a desktop widget, the fact that users will access content in a distributed manner needs to inform the user experience strategy. For example, publishers and marketers will need to define standards for good lead paragraphs that are meaningful once users scan them on desktop, Web page-based or mobile widgets. Success metrics will also have to be re-thought in this new superdistributed digital ecosystem that is all about content, functionality, and portability across platforms. Simply tallying page views will no longer cut it.

Rich Internet Applications (RIA): If you to want to provide richer functionality, you may also want to consider which development tools support hybrid superdistribution online, Ajax has enabled the display of multiple states in a single page and has supported the development of rich internet applications that increase content distribution and functionality power at the page level. Next generation RIA development tools such as Adobe�s AIR and Microsoft�s Silverlight have upped the ante and enhanced standards. In addition, AJAX-based applications serve to support video, richer graphics and media, as well as further enhance the potential for richer interactivity beyond the Web through widgets that can be accessed both online and offline, and soon via mobile phones.

Apple, iPhone and Portability: Although mobile adoption of widgets has been slow, we believe that a massive uptick is on the way as smartphones proliferate. The Apple iPhone�s Safari and Zenzui development kits provide the ability to radically simplify Web applications. The iPhone does a great job of bridging the gap between personal computer and mobile-based experiences and has set a new standard for which we’ll have to design as we move across platforms. And Apple, not surprisingly, has made the greatest strides in enabling superdistribution. The company has started to use iTunes as the conduit that allows users to track, manage and consume content across devices and platforms. The next challenge is to facilitate the convergence across platforms and devices, as users can watch two thirds of a movie on a laptop in-flight, then complete the viewing experience on their HDTVs at home.

This is all new ground for us� never has content distribution been as simple and pervasive. Never have we had such an array of devices and platforms, so close to being interconnected. We are just at the beginning of understanding what is possible in a world where everyone is both consumer and distributor.

by Marcelo Marer