There’s the new – and the dead
Photo: Flickr, Yutaka Tsutano.
Down Main Road in Wynberg, Cape Town, among the superettes and dealerships, there’s an antique shop full of dusty clutter. Among the items for sale is a curiously shaped plastic box.
There’s something familiar about this bulky object. It has a lens of some sort. There’s something that resembles a flash. There’s a slot.
“It’s a Polaroid camera,” the voice of the store owner booms from behind his counter.
Polaroid. The word jigs a flood of memories. Sisters with perms. Blue eye shadow and blushed cheeks. The Footloose soundtrack. Dangling earrings. Mirror balls.
Polaroids were state-of-the-art, must-have instant cameras that miraculously printed photographs on the spot. They were popular at nightclubs and parties in 1980s. You simply had to have one.
“Still works,” the owner says.
“It’s yours for two-fifty. I have film back here.”
Demand for the once-popular Polaroid cameras dwindled soon after the arrival of digital and cellphone cameras.
But recently, however, the Polaroid Company relaunched the product with a fresh look and new digital technology. It even employed pop star Lady Gaga, known for her ability to reinvent her image, to be the face of the new camera.
It’s an uncertain time, the era of the iPad 3, BlackBerrys, internet television and online books. Companies that held markets for decades are having to innovate and reinvent faster and more frequently than they’ve ever done. Not all are making it.
Earlier this year, film camera company Kodak, once a giant in the photo industry, filed for bankruptcy.
Revenue for the film camera industry declined 69.1% from 2000 to 2010, according to the US information company IBISWorld.
Newspapers have seen their sales dwindle as readers switch to the internet, cellphones and e-readers.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch said at the launch of his online graphic newspaper The Daily last year that “new times demand new journalism”.
“The iPad demands that we completely re-imagine our craft,” he said. “There’s a growing segment of the population that is educated and sophisticated that does not read national print or newspapers… and they expect content tailored to their specific interests…”
But The Daily, which is the first of its kind, lost about US$10 million in its opening quarter. Six months after its launch, it was still far from making money.
Bloomberg reported that its iPad app averages about 120 000 weekly readers, but that figure does not differentiate between those who pay and those who don’t, under the publication’s two-week free trial.
Only recently has the New York Times started to report an increase in online paid readers.
Exclusive Books says it is bracing for an e-book revolution in South Africa. The revolution, however, may not happen the way everyone thinks.
Ben Williams, the online general manager for Exclusive Books, says the e-book revolution is only just starting in South Africa. The company, which has the largest market share of the country’s R2 billion book retail market, therefore has time to find the right strategy for the future.
“We are at the beginning of our curve, unlike the United States and the United Kingdom, where e-books have eaten into the physical book,” he says.
“That doesn’t mean we are not looking at solutions. We just have more time to figure out what to do next.”
Exclusive Books, which sells around 250 000 books online a year, is toying with the idea of coming up with its own e-reader, similar to the Kindle from Amazon or Apple’s iPad. “We will definitely see more e-readers and tablets in South Africa in the next couple of years,” he says.
The real change, says Williams, is expected to take place on cellphones. South Africa, like the rest of Africa, he says, is likely to see the rapid adoption of cellphones for reading. “Mobile phones will increasingly become tools for reading for the masses.
“In many houses, people would rather have a cellphone than electricity. Cellphones have become absolutely essential for most people.”
The large, elastic demand for cellphones means the conditions are ripe for the growth of e-books. Williams says publishers need to take advantage of the opportunity. He says writers who can figure out the new forms of writing for the future will be the ones who thrive.
Companies such as Blockbuster Video are due to be faced a surge in competitors. Executives at DVD rental companies refused to take questions on the issue, but with satellite channels already rolling out movies on demand, their edginess is easily understood.
The situation for music stores is much the same, with Musica and CD Warehouse uncertain over whether their fate will be the same as Virgin, MTS and HMV in the US and Europe.
In the US, revenue for music retail stores declined 76.3% from 2000 to 2010, with around 338 establishments projected to close between 2010 and 2016 as online music sales surge.
Saahir Parker, a technology and innovation specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council, says many of South Africa’s industries will become cellphone-dependent in the future.
“Traditional cellphones are a lifeline for most people,” Parker says. “You can walk into a shop with R130 and come out with cell and airtime and be connected to world.
“Cellphones are becoming increasingly advanced and the coverage across Africa is excellent. People are able to access important government documents and other information through their cellphones,” he says.
Banks are jumping on the bandwagon with a new service where money can be sent from one cellphone to another.
Cellphones will become cheaper, Parker says, as companies change their funding models from voice to data-driven revenues. “People will use the voice aspect less and more data, such as BlackBerry Messenger and chatting application MXit.”
They will also use cellphones for their news. “Print media is outdated and needs need to evolve,” he says. “As the world changes, so does the way we do business. If they are in a high-tech industry and they don’t adapt, they are going to turn out like Kodak.”
Parker says Apple is so good at what it does because it does not develop dramatic technologies. It simply takes what is there and makes it better.
South African companies in struggling tech industries need to learn from Apple. “Very few companies have an understanding of innovation,” Parker says. “But that will be a driver of success.”
Back in the Wynberg antique shop, the owner is anxious to know whether he’s sold the Polaroid. “You taking it or not?” he asks.
Just then a tune sings out of my jacket pocket.
It’s the signal that someone has tagged a photograph of me on Facebook.
I place the Polaroid camera gently back on the shelf and take out my shiny new iPhone with its twinkling screen.
No thanks, sir, I have what I need right here.
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