STORY:
New York Trends 2000

Where New York goes, often the rest of the country will follow

Technology is leading the way as we enter the new millennium and it’s effecting everything from music to movies to fashion and books. We can copy music over the Internet, we can even publish our own books thanks to the Internet and that means big changes ahead for all of us. Here’s a look at some technology advancements that will make a major impact this year.

Forget Y2K; it's MP3. The next step in music may have less to do with what the stuff sounds like than how you receive it.

Everyone's talking about the digital revolution in music, with more and more artists and major labels trying to get into the swing of delivering songs to fans over the Internet - before those fans find a way to poach the songs for themselves for free. Using the format known as MP3 (a generic term for the compression system that transports audio information digitally), technologically sophisticated fans have been able to access music over the Web without paying for it.

The industry isn't pleased about that. This year, major labels and artists will use the format for their own purposes - offering teasers and sound bytes as promotional devices, hoping to make fans salivate for the whole album, which they would then buy.

Monsters will haunt the new millennium. Not real ones, but digital monsters computer-generated into live-action films. The runaway success of "The Mummy" has Universal Studios reviving its classic monster pictures with digital wizardry. In fact, this year the studio is working on "The Mummy II" and "Frankenstein", both will use computer-generated imagery.

Universal plans to incorporate such synthetic movie-making techniques into a futuristic live-action "Bride of Frankenstein," a comic sci-fi version of "The Invisible Man," computer-generated renditions of "Dracula," "Creature From the Black Lagoon" and "The Phantom of the Opera."

Television
While many say television will take a second seat to the Internet. That hasn’t happened yet, and we won’t be seeing that for some time say writers with the New York Daily News.

What we are seeing a lot of this year- game shows! Thanks to the huge success of ABC’s "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" game shows are hot. Networks like to copy success, and they are. Just about every major network now has at least one new game show on the air, and many more yet to come. The game show trend of 2000 is just beginning.

Still to come is "Survivor!" on CBS, in which 16 contestants will be marooned on an island off the coast of Borneo and their exploits filmed for 13 hours of telecasts over the summer. The last one standing gets $1 million.

Theater
Broadway is booming with the baby boomers and that means a new type of Broadway show is on the horizon.

A younger, richer, better-educated, more suburban audience is heading to the theater, and they are bringing their children. Shows are becoming much more family-friendly because of this trend.

Theatergoers under age 18 already represent 10% of today's audience - up from 7% in 1991 and 4% in 1981, according to a league survey - and the teen population in the audience will skyrocket.

Books
In the Internet Age, everyone can be an author and publisher, and no matter how rotten and unreadable, their books never go out of print. It's publishing.com, and it's big, really big. Already, there are several cyberpublishers - companies that publish anything, for a price. In most cases, writers have an agreement to pay an upfront fee and then split royalties, if any, with the owner of the Web site. Online publishing is expected to be huge, right now, 10,000 books are downloaded every month.

Video
While DVD will continue its unstoppable march to replace VHS, a far more ominous video presence is on the horizon. After unleashing "Pokemon" on American children, Japanese videogame developers are busily readying an onslaught of new "monsters" to complete their takeover of the world.

One of the hottest properties is "Digital Monster," or "Digimon," from toy company Bandai - which unleashed "Tamagotchi" onto the world. In the game, players can capture and train over 200 different monsters and raise them in the same way they raised the virtual pet "Tamagotchi."

Museums
Museums aren't supposed to be trendy. But as 2000 begins, there is a clear trend among New York museums. The galleries, which always have had great drawing collections, are devoting much more attention - and exhibits - to them.

Charles Pierce, director of the Morgan, finds drawings more "immediate" because "a drawing is often a first draft. You see the artist more fully at work. In a painting, the artist has, so to speak, connected the dots."

One reason for the new emphasis on drawings may be that young collectors are better able to afford them. Another is that they cost less to mount. "You can insure 1,000 drawings for the same amount as 50 blockbuster paintings," says the Frick's Samuel Sachs.

Food
So long, veggies! Expect to see a lot more meat on the menu, and cooked in simpler fashion. Roasted or grilled steaks, veal chops and pork will be the meats of the millennium, both at home and out in restaurants.

And when you eat out, restaurant reviewers say you'll have more variety than ever as restaurants become increasingly fine-tuned. For example in an Italian restaurant you'll find Tuscan Italian, Venetian Italian and Roman Italian on the menu.

And look for Portuguese to become popular this year. Several Portuguese places have recently opened in the West Village and Tribeca, and more are expected will follow.


(Source: New York Daily News)

DATE: 2/2/2000

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