We all know that technological advancements occur increasingly rapidly within the highly competitive digital media marketplace. Big rewards mean that there are big incentives to stay one step ahead of the competition, and this has certainly never been more true than where the domestic digital storage market is concerned.
Back in the 1990's PC Cards ruled the day. They were used widely by both domestic and commercial users. These days, owing to their size, they are not so popular amongst domestic users, but they have nevertheless carved out a niche within the commercial sector, where their superior capacity is the key to their longevity.
Although the domestic market has significantly reduced its consumption of PC Cards, the demand for other types of media storage have increased exponentially. There are a number of reasons why this market sector has witnessed such a boom in sales, but the two key precursors are product diversification and the affordability of new technologies. For example, the portable market has diversified dramatically since the 90's, which accounts for much of the increase in demand for Memory Cards in recent years. The introduction of devices like mobile phones that could handle digital media, and MP3's, which replaced gadgets that simply played music but had no means of storing it, such as Mini Disc Players, drove the demand for diminutive Memory Cards sky high. The same is true of digital cameras and digital video cameras where SD cards have replaced the more cumbersome storage media that preceded them. Mini DV cassettes were considered revolutionary when they were launched as they were considerably smaller than the Hi 8 cassette, and were a fraction of the size of VHS tapes. They represent the ultimate in evolution where taped data is concerned but they still seem huge when compared to the thumbnail size of SD cards.
These developments coupled with the introduction of
USB Memory Sticks have all been made possible owing to the fact that portable media and devices now retail at prices that the vast majority of potential users can afford. With MP3 players costing as little as 10.00, and many entry level digital stills cameras priced at less than 100 , the breadth of the market has grown to include pre-teens, increasing the potential market for digital media storage by a very significant margin. Add to this the portable gaming market, a segment largely targeted at the pre-teen and youth sectors, and the enormity of the present market becomes apparent.
There is no question that SD Memory Cards and USB Memory Sticks are eminently more desirable than their bulky predecessors, but somewhat ironically, it is their diminutive size that presents users with one of their biggest problems: The fact that they are so small means that they are much more likely to be lost. This is highly unlikely to diminish their appeal, and is certainly not something that manufacturers are going to shed too many tears about!
