I got this comment from @Daryn on yesterday's SoundCloud post:
I still have commitment issues with audio. I find myself saying "Cool, Fred did a podcast. I should listen to that later…" Is there a save for later app like instapaper or the boxee bookmarklet?
To which I replied:
what's the device you want to consume it on eventually? a sonos home audio system? an iPhone or Android? a tablet?
Once you use a service like Instapaper or Boxee Watch Later, this kind of thing becomes muscle memory. You want to be able to content shift everywhere and onto every device.
I found this amazing artist yesterday on SoundCloud named James Vincent McMorrow (also courtesy of yesterday's comment thread – thanks Mark). Here's his new record called Early In The Morning. I'm listening right now on my laptop, but I really want to listen on our Sonos system.
I saw that the Black Keys played SNL last night. I found the video on YouTube and sent it to Boxee so I can watch on the big screen.
I heard some great music on Sirius XMU in the car yesterday afternoon. I want an easy way to get it from there onto fredwilson.fm.
I saw the DOJ court order to Twitter regarding Wikileaks yesterday on TechCrunch/Scribd. I want to get the document on my iPad so I can read it on the couch in the family room.
You get the idea. With the proliferation of devices and content types, all connected to each other via the Internet, content shifting is becoming a huge deal and a real pain point.
Some content shifting is pretty easy right now. Getting a web page onto a phone or tablet, like Instapaper does so well, does not require any magic tricks.
Some content shifting is pretty hard. Getting a song from Sirius XMU to fredwilson.fm is not straightforward. Getting Soundcloud playing on Sonos is not straighforward either, as Matt Galligan points out in this post pleading for a open Sonos platform.
I see this as an opportunity for entrepreneurs. In some cases, the content shifting will be a killer feature of a bigger platform, like watch later is for Boxee. In some cases, the content shifting will be a service in its own right, like Instapaper.
But I am certain people want to shift content from discovery oriented devices (laptop, satellite radio, etc) to consumption oriented devices (tablet, sonos, etc) and I am certain that we will see this get easier and easier in the coming years.
