Michael Eisner’s New Network Creativity

The former Disney CEO, it seems, has joined the board of a San Diego-based company called Veoh, which helps deliver video over the Internet. The Times quotes him on why he’s so excited about the venture, founded in 2004:

“Anybody, now, can have their own network,” Mr. Eisner said. “There are no borders. No gatekeepers. No restrictions on creativity of any kind.”

Um, right. But isn’t Disney the gatekeeper of all gatekeepers. (Can you say “Disney vault,” anyone?) Our companion for lunch yesterday, Shelly Palmer, posited that if there are no barriers, and any piece media is available at the highest quality, freely distributed, how will people like current Disney CEO Bob Iger sell us all the different versions of everything?

There’s obviously a lot more nuance here and we could argue like schizophrenics with ourselves for hours. (Content is king. Distribution is king. Content is king and each new distributed iteration has to have some real value added to the previous version. It’s in the distribution that people add their intelligence, and value …)

But we couldn’t help but wonder if Michael has gone over to the other side.

Eisner Makes Hairpin Turn in His Career [NYT]

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