Friends, it’s New Word Wednesday. Copywriters make up new words to explain things for which there are no existing words. Here we go.
Formaticide is the utter eradication of a media format by a “”a new and improved” media. I.e. one that’s impossible to share.
Cassettes. CD-ROMs. DVDs?
You could make a cassette mix tape and share it. You could give a friend your audiobook on CD-ROM or rip it to MP3s and share it. That’s why the industry wanted to make those formats extinct.
DVDs are on the list of endangered media formats, but like LPs, they’re hanging on. Why?
1) I own (can hold it in my hand) hundreds of DVDs, and couldn’t just throw them away. Now I don’t have to “buy” them again online.
2) You won’t be able to watch streaming videos in the apocalypse.
3) And I can watch classic movies that haven’t been digitized, i.e. Casablanca or The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera.
On Sunday I watched “The Fifth Element”, to celebrate its 20th anniversary. I watched it on DVD.
Don’t worry DVDs.
As long as I’m here, you’ll still have a place in the world.
