Gizmodo had a story recently about an IBM patent for a 'dynamically updated, commercial laden DVD. This presumably comes off the back of the report they released earlier this year, in which IBM predicts the end of advertising as we know it.
The idea behind this is that unskippable ads would be served at various points during the DVD. The 'dynamic updating' part of all this would seem to indicate that different commercials would be downloaded from the net to avoid the spectre of having to watch the same ads over and over again on your copy of Spinal Tap....
Now, I have argued for a long time that ad-supported content is the way forward, and I think that fundamentally, this is a pretty good idea. I know NBC are looking at putting unskippable ads into their downloads, and I think, given people are used to the idea of advertising during programming, this means of generating cash will work.
However, this will only work because those downloads will be free. The Slashdot article that first drew my attention to this patent is suggesting that people will still have to pay for these DVDs. I'm not entirely sure if John and Jane Public will go for this. Already, we've seen a bit of a backlash against those awful anti-piracy ads you have to sit through on a DVD you've paid good money for. Will there be a similar outcry if people pay ten or fifteen or twenty euro for a DVD that will have built in ad breaks, regardless of how 'dynamic' they are?
