I’ve let about 6 copies of Fast Company go by unread (six month old baby = no time for magazines). However, I was intrigued by this month’s cover story on who will win “the great tech war of 2012″, written by Farhad Manjoo, one of my favorite tech journalists. The magazine version has a great chart (I couldn’t find it online) covering all of the potential markets that the four tech giants – Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook – will disrupt. Among them: mobile, communications, ad/marketing, local, retail, payments, entertainment, music, gaming, publishing/media, and the cloud.
What company intrigues me the most? Well, I’m certainly excited about the rumor that Apple has a TV product on the horizon (I’ve been wondering for YEARS why they haven’t created the ultimate home theater PC). But it’s Amazon who has quietly laid the foundation to become the next big media giant.
But will Amazon be able to deal with the media companies? (i.e. the content creators). I wonder if their position as a hard-copy as well as digital retailer will make it easier for them to get favorable terms than, say, Netflix. Or will the media companies remain intractable?
