What's In A Name?

Actually, I should be asking 'what's in an acronym ?'.

The current answer for those of us trying to develop the next generation of software for the media industry is 'confusion'.

Let's take a dive:

PAM - Production Asset Management - these are systems linked to edit suites enable raw content to be stored and retrieved. They deal with interfaces to hardware and rushes.

DAM - Digital Asset Management - these are systems that store video and related assets for specific uses, eg scheduling. They tend to be archives with related attached storage.

MAM - Media Asset Management - these are systems that enable the management of completed assets and track their usage and distribution. These are largely cloud based systems that can deal with multiple media types.

ARM - Assets & Rights Management - is a system that enables rights and assets to be managed side by side, usually for sales or distribution purposes.

Then you have the cloud storage industry - Google Drive, SkyDrive, Dropbox, Box and the rest. Thankfully, they are TLA free.

The reality in the ground is that the media industry is moving into the cloud and vendors are obfuscating their capabilities by using monikers.

It may well be that larger media organisations need all of the above. But, as ever, tautology is fast becoming a barrier to the introduction of new and better technology in the media industry.