Ken's remarks are actually a bit strange. It seems like "multimedia" was a big buzzword at the time. His introductory message seems to be almost "unless we get movies/trailers on the Internet ASAP, the Internet is going to fail." Today we all know that to be untrue. There are movies and other multimedia content on the Internet of course, but the primary driver behind its growth has been availability of relevant information and interactive retrieval. Think of Craigslist's success a few years back. It was a very non-multimedia site (unless you classify crappy pocket-cam pictures of your sofa as multimedia) but it provided relevant information, and therefore it succeeded. Also, Google text ads showed to everyone that advertising does not have to be multimedia-intensive -- it will succeed as long as it is relevant.
Ken's remarks are actually a bit strange. It seems like "multimedia" was a big buzzword at the time. His introductory message seems to be almost "unless we get movies/trailers on the Internet ASAP, the Internet is going to fail." Today we all know that to be untrue. There are movies and other multimedia content on the Internet of course, but the primary driver behind its growth has been availability of relevant information and interactive retrieval. Think of Craigslist's success a few years back. It was a very non-multimedia site (unless you classify crappy pocket-cam pictures of your sofa as multimedia) but it provided relevant information, and therefore it succeeded. Also, Google text ads showed to everyone that advertising does not have to be multimedia-intensive -- it will succeed as long as it is relevant.