Lewin Group founder James Lewin’s recent article for IT World, 2006 Will Be a Tipping Point for Online Media, takes a look at the changing world of online media:

For the first ten years of mainstream Internet use, online media has been considered alternative - an alternative to television, radio, print and magazines. Online media had a limited audience, largely a result of bandwidth limitations, but also because web builders were still figuring out how to use Internet multimedia effectively.

10 years on, broadband penetration in the home is pushing 40% in the US, and is much higher in some areas of the world. Just as importantly, many sites are finding ways to use online media effectively. For these reasons and others, it looks like 2006 will be a tipping point for online media.

Tags: bandwidth, broadband, internet multimedia, online media, radio, television, the future of media, tipping point

The Lewin Group’s Elisabeth Lewin is featured in an excellent article by Rachel Sokol at TechWeb about trends in online content.

“If you can’t find a show you like, you can, fairly easily, create your own show,” said Elisabeth Lewin, publisher of PodcastingNews.com, which offers tutorials on how to use services like Blogger or Feedburner to create and host podcasts. Sites like iPodder.org and iTunes.com are podcast clients that allow users to subscribe to every version of a specific podcast. Via these clients, each production of a show is automatically downloaded to a users’ hard drive or media player.

Lewin believes podcasting will keep growing until broadcasters look at podcasting first and radio as an afterthought. “Podcasts can make money from Internet distribution in addition to radio distribution,” she said.

Tags: ebusiness, internet, planning, podcasting, the future of media, trends

Both James and Elisabeth Lewin participated in a discussion on the future of media (mp3) at the 2005 Gnomedex conference in Seattle.Rob Greenlee of WebTalk Radio led the discussion with Mitch Ratcliffe, Gnomedex organizer Chris Pirillo, Ratcliffe, Todd Cochrane of GeekNewsCentral, Andy McCaskey of SlahDotReview, John Wall of TheMShow and Rob Walch of podCast411.

Tags: conferences, gnomedex, mp3, the future of media, trends, web 2.0