(The long awaited) Disruptive technologies part 2

This post does go back to the 23/03/07 so i'm sure there were a few of you waiting ... surely?

Anyway, the original post is here, and i promised to tell you why i felt certain industries will be the next to feel the effects of disruptive technology.

So here again are those four industries and the reasons why i believe they will start to feel the effects of disruptive technology very soon:
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Advertising - I'm sure i'm not the first to predict their downfall. Advertising agencies are clinging to their cash cow (read: TV advertising) while all the data suggests that the mass market has moved on. Then they have disruptive technology converging on them from all fronts: User generated ads via Current.tv and Thought Equity; traditional television commercial ad booking service via Spotrunner. Video advertising on the internet via Narrowstep's Adserver and Tangozebra etc. Ad agencies need to innovate now and start to engage audiences. When was the last time you remembered the brand being advertised on a funny TV ad?

Video Production - Through economies of scale more than anything, the price of video camera technology has come down. Way down. It is now £500-£1000 to buy a good HD video camera (superior to Beta or mini DV). User generated content is the new fad and Internet video has unleashed the inner creative in everyone - expect a new breed of production companies to enter the fray with the barriers to entry (production equipment worth tens of thousands of pounds) now significantly reduced.

Website Design - Blogs, web 2.0, asp software, widgets, mashups. It is now easier than ever to create a credible web presence without the need to engage a web design agency. Complex website such as social networks can be created for free or at very little cost by web 2.0 application providers (my next post will list these), and widgets can manage lots of fun stuff like polls, calendars etc. Blogs get more influential by the day, i think when Hilary Clinton announces her run for the presidency via her blog it says something. The need for high-end websites will always be there but the low end of the market has effectively been cut out.

Fashion - Here is one you might not expect, but once again i allude to the creativity of the human race being unleashed by user generated content on the internet. Services such as Spreadshirt allow anyone to upload a design and sell their clothing on their myspace page, with production and delivery fulfilled by spreadshirt. This is an amazing business model and means that anyone can compete with the big fashion houses. With young consumers ever more distrusting of brands, and online retail growing all the time, expect more youngsters who grow up with this service to buy clothing from their peer group and fashion to feel the effects of disruptive technology.

Now, i have one more disruptive technology to blog about, but i think it deserves it's own little post. I'm going to call the death of an industry, by one little piece of disruptive technology, so stay tuned, i will post it for you later today.