While look­ing at how piracy and online con­tent has changed ‘tra­di­tional media’ (and is con­tin­u­ing to do so), Bar­rett Garese suc­cinctly points out his vision for the direc­tion online con­tent needs to go to really dif­fer­en­ti­ate itself and, thus, suc­ceed (or any enter­tain­ment medium, in fact).

Each medium has unique advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages, and the cre­ator must craft an expe­ri­ence that accen­tu­ates the advan­tages and mit­i­gates the dis­ad­van­tages of the medium in which it lives.

The most impor­tant ques­tion for the future of all online con­tent is this: “What are those unique ele­ments which allow con­tent cre­ated pri­mar­ily for online con­sump­tion to stand apart from its more ‘tra­di­tional’ or ‘main­stream’ rivals?” Film can tell an epic story over a period of 1.5–3 hours on a scale that’s unmatched in other media. Tele­vi­sion can tell a story over a period of dozens or hun­dreds of hours with an intri­cacy and char­ac­ter devel­op­ment that’s as of yet untouched in other media. What is the “online expe­ri­ence” that makes telling a story in this medium so dif­fer­ent the expe­ri­ence in any other?

For online con­tent to fur­ther expand, we must exper­i­ment to find and exploit those unique ele­ments that enable the expe­ri­ence itself to stand as the draw. So long as we’re con­tent to mimic other media, it will never grow into a viable “main­stream” enter­tain­ment medium. If all you’re doing is cre­at­ing “TV-lite” or “Film-lite” in an attempt to mimic the expe­ri­ence, then there are already bet­ter com­peti­tors out there — they’re called “Film” and “TV,” and most peo­ple are already familiar.