The band's gig at the O2 this week provided insight on the future of convergence. Really it did.
I was one of 18,000 metal heads at the O2 venue in London this week for Metallica's album launch gig.I even joined the fan club to get my sweaty paws on the specially-priced £5 tickets. How sad is that?
But this is not the place to start waxing lyrical about a resounding return to form by the greatest band on the planet. It's the place to talk about stuff going on in the mobile content biz. And believe it or not, the Metallica gig actually provided some insight.
I left the O2 not only with the call and response refrains of 'Searching... Seek and Destroy!' ringing in my ears, but also a realisation that the cameraphone may not have yet have killed the camera.
Yes Metallifans, even in the mosh pit I can't stop thinking about mobile content. Picture this: the lights go down, smoke fills the stage, the first few bars of the first song start and... everyone starts taking pictures!
Article continues belowAdvertisement
Seriously, I was ten people back from the stage and all i could see were arms in the air. Not that unusual at a concert, you might think. But these people weren't holding onto cameraphones - instead it was a sea of very expensive looking Cyber-shots and Ixus's.
And it didn't stop. After a couple of songs frontman James Hetfield felt moved enough to ask people to put their cameras away, forget about two minutes of YouTube fame and encouraged them to "just enjoy the show".
Too right n'all. But back to that camera thing. Could it be that the 'one device is better than many' convergent vision of a few years back isn't going to come true? Good cameras are now affordable and easily outperform even the best cameraphones, iPods are still flying off the shelves and so are Nintendo DSs.
In these 'no smoking in a public place' times, the one thing the mobile has cannibalised at gigs is the cigarette lighter. Metallica didn't play Nothing Else Matters on Monday, so we'll have to wait a bit longer to see if the blue backlight of a Lumix can match the one on an N95 during those ballads.
