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It’s a growing battle: Discs vs. Downloads.

According to NPD entertainment research, discs are still ahead of the game when it comes to home media viewing — but it won’t stay that way forever. The days of physical media are limited. Stephen McGill from Microsoft even went so far as to say that “Blu-Ray is going to be passed by as a format. People have moved through from DVDs to digital downloads and digital streaming…. So, who needs Blu-ray?”

Kaz Hirai from Sony says, “To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even ten years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme.” There are two sides to this argument.

1. Physical media will be around as long as the generation that used it is still alive (case in point: my great grandmother prefers VHS).
2. The mainstream style of home media viewing could lean in the favor of digital downloads quicker than people think. Just look at how much computers have developed. In 1977 Ken Olson of Digital Equipment Corp. said “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” At the exact same time, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were working on a project that would impact the future immensely with Apple, Inc.

No one can deny that digital media downloads are becoming more and more popular. But there are still some reasons for sticking with disc. Some people argue that quality is better, you can bring it anywhere and borrow them from friends, and what about the special features? These are all concepts that digital downloads will have to address sooner or later.

Click after the break for the top sources of digital media download and streaming.

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Constant predictions of direct mail’s demise always seem to be a hot topic these days.  Standard USPS mail volume continues to shrink while e-mail spends increases: and consumers environmental concerns continue to influence marketers to evaluate their media choices. 

Competition in the email inbox has skyrocketed.  More than 210 billion e-mails are sent daily worldwide making it more difficult to get your readers attention. 

Well, I’m not sure about you, but from my perspective here’s how it works for me. I get up each morning, check my blackberry and see 18-25 new emails, wow, all sent while I was sleeping, can’t be to important.  Ok then, hit “delete, delete, delete…”, don’t recognize the sender or the topic, need my morning coffee.  Ah…. the day is done, come home, grab the mail from the mailbox, and once again, too many single sheet print pieces advertising, who cares, not interested, walk to nearest garbage can and toss.  Get the picture? 

What if today something different happened, something new and exciting, just what if?  Today I wake up, same old emails, hit “delete”.  Come home get the mail and what’s this, a nicely packaged DVD, wonder what’s it’s about.  Read the information on the sleeve, looks interesting, I think I’ll pop it into my computer and see what’s on it, wow a really interesting video, I think I want to learn more, I think I’ll look up their website.  Guess what just peaked my interest, you got it.

From here the possibilities are endless, follow up with an email a week later, I’ll open it because I recognize the topic, I liked the DVD.    Once I have opened the email, my contact information can be tracked to see where I went on the website, now this is valuable stuff. 

The rest is history, this could be your company, your product or service, and Great Lakes Media is here to help you through the process.  Let us help you develop the content, design and suggest the best packaging for your disc, and we’ll even handle mailing them out.  

Is CD-Rom and DVD still a viable format?  You bet they are!

Some will go ahead and say “Optical Disc is Dead.” Some will point to the music industry and the shrinking number of brick and mortar music retailers as proof of this doomsday assertion. iTunes has made revolutionary advances in its product offerings as the “AppStore” is celebrating its one year anniversary this July.

Proof in the alternative can easily be found in the video game industry. Here we have the most technically savvy consumer and yet the most effective distribution of content is via optical media. However, a totally optimistic view of optical disc product expansion is likely misguided.

There are certain situations where digital delivery makes perfect sense. Sub-1 gig applications like music, casual games, and ring tones are perfect examples of this. In the consumer market, as we recover from this economic crisis, our insatiable hunger for rich entertainment applications will intensify. Boundaries will be pushed instead of retracted as has happened in the past 5 years. The need for larger tangible storage and delivery solutions will continue to outpace the necessary bandwidth needed for digital delivery of these rich applications.

Corporate promo videos and applications likely aren’t perfect for digital delivery. Email marketing is becoming less and less effective, so how do you steer people to your download space with high rates of success? Packaged media provides savvy marketers two avenues for promotional real estate- the media and the packaging. Proof can be found in the “As Seen on TV” market. How many free DVD offers do you see now?

There will be effective uses for both methods over the next 10 years. Great Lakes Media Technology will be positioning itself to help with both methods. Currently we offer solutions for your developed or undeveloped content to be delivered on disc or web. No matter how you need it done, we’ll help deliver it.