Video of the Kevin Spacey speech everyone in the tech industry is talking about

At last week’s Edinburgh Festival, Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey delivered an impassioned speech on the state of modern-day technology and its effect on the more traditional methods of delivering entertainment. 

Spacey’s Netflix-based show “House of Cards” has been a commercial hit. It also made Emmy history recently when it became the first web-based TV series to receive a nomination for top drama series.

In his address, the Festival’s keynote James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, Spacey spoke of the new, almost open source-esque model for delivering content that modern-day technology has afforded entertainment providers: “Clearly the success of the Netflix model — releasing the entire season of “House of Cards” at once — has proved one thing: the audience wants control. They want freedom. If they want to binge — as they've been doing on ‘House of Cards’ — then we should let them binge.”

He added, though, that there was a danger in “thinking that something which is working now will necessarily work a year from now,” and pointed to the music industry as an example. He said that that the Netflix model, “demonstrated that we have learned the lesson that the music industry didn't learn — give people what they want, when they want it, in the form they want it in, at a reasonable price, and they'll more likely pay for it rather than steal it”.

Spacey also pointed out that it was pointless to giving audiences labels: “If you watch a TV show on your iPad is it no longer a TV show? The device and length are irrelevant … For kids growing up now there's no difference watching 'Avatar' on an iPad or watching YouTube on a TV and watching 'Game of Thrones' on their computer. It's all content. It's all story.”

Check out Spacey’s speech below and let us know in the comments section if you agree with his points. Are labels meaningless now? Does Netflix have the right formula for delivering entertainment to the mobile, tech-savvy, modern-day audience? Is there still room for improvement?

Story via: telegraph.co.uk