Posts tagged with 'progressive media sector'
Conclusion: The American Way
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“We’re watching hundred of billions of [bailout] dollars being spent unaccountably to support supposedly our ‘American way.’ I think at some point we have to ask whether or not the ‘American way’ includes journalism.” – John Battelle
Do Americans view journalism as a public good that is critical to our country’s intellectual infrastructure and American exceptionalism? Do they believe that the strength of our democracy depends on a diverse and free press? (more…)
Creating a greater distribution of value
Successful business models hinge their ability to measure value. “A well-measured medium is a more valuable medium” according to Nielsen Media Research’s website.
As more reliable and commonly accepted metrics emerge to measure content performance, the more that organizations can estimate the value they create. And, others can estimate how much they would be willing to pay for it. Money will flow to where there is value in the chain. Marketing analytics are based on this sort of reliable measurement, and deals are done based on it. As metrics become better, publishers may be able to use new incentives for writers and producers. Also, a publisher could potentially convince aggregators to pay based on content’s performance. Aggregators could sign up freely or cheaply and pay if content spreads past a targeted threshold. If the price is low enough, and the aggregator can accurately measure the performance, it would be in their interest to share earnings in exchange for reliable content. (more…)
New Value Chain of Journalism
While media organizations are trying many different revenue models, the models that succeed in the long run will find a place in a new value chain of journalism. A “value chain” is a chain of activities, in which each activity adds value to a product or service. The financial success of any business model depends on the ability of an organization to capture value they create. (See graphics below. The value chain is also featured in our Big Thaw slide show.)
Journalism’s old value chain was delineated with clear roles and exchanges of value. The new value chain reflects more roles. One organization often plays multiple roles. In the old model, advertising also had clearly defined roles. It mostly concentrated on publishing and broadcasting. In the new model, advertising is spread across more players. (more…)
Will there be a new demand for quality journalism?
The rise of free content will inevitably continue. However, some content could become more expensive as well. Stewart Brand, a futurist who created Whole Earth Catalog, WELL and Global Business Network, famously started a meme in 1984, “Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive.”
Brand explained, “Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine—too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, ‘intellectual property,’ the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better.” (more…)
Radical New Ways of Meaning-Making and Filtering
The next phase of filtering will center on the evolution of the “Semantic Web,” which Ashish Soni, who directs the Information Technology Program at the University of Southern California, describes as an interactivity evolution a step beyond aggregation that aims to makes information more meaningful and useful. According to an article co-authored by Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with founding the web, the semantic evolution “lets users engage in the sort of serendipitous reuse and discovery of related information that’s been a hallmark of viral web uptake.”
“Meta tagging” as we know it today is just the beginning. The Semantic Web builds upon any metadata (e.g. hyperlinks, location, time, movement or categories) to infer greater meaning from information. (more…)
Social Reading
“The problem of how media has evolved is that it has isolated people,” says Amy Gahran of the Poynter Institute. “Your role was passive and to take it in. That damaged society in some ways.” David Weinberger points to the early history of writing when reading became internalized. “Some people say that’s the origin of modern consciousness. The voice we heard externally, reading to us, we now hear internally.” (more…)
Mass Mobile-Media
John Battelle of Federated Media predicted that mobility would become a presumptive aspect of everything on the web by the end of 2009. Mobile phones and netbooks are just the beginning. Companies are building photography, video and audio recording into more than just phones and laptops. Apple’s iPod nano added video recording for the first time in September 2009. (more…)
Human-Centered Design
The next online frontier is how technology adapts to us. When companies are disrupted by new technologies or demographic shifts, their problems still have people at their heart wrote Tim Brown, president and CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO. “They require a human-centered, creative, iterative, and practical approach to finding the best ideas and ultimate solutions. … By [human-centered design], I mean that innovation is powered by a thorough understanding, through direct observation, of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular products are made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.”
“A human-factors approach assumes that the things we’ll carry in the future are not going to be invented so much as discovered—that the answer to the question of what devices we’ll carry will become obvious as we learn more about human behavior,” explained Claire Tristram in Technology Review. Therefore, as mobile and multisensory devices proliferate and alternative economies grow, media organizations will find the best path forward by following its users. (more…)
Location Aware Mobile
Mobile devices’ ability to detect a user’s exact location will revolutionize how we find, discover, create and interact with information.
The wave of location-based services has barely begun. Latitude on Google Maps and services from other companies such as Loopt already enable a user to broadcast their location and find friends. Location awareness will change how everyone interacts with their offline environment in even more dramatic ways.
People will not consume media primarily as a departure from their offline lives, but they will use it to enhance everything they do. Android and iPhone have augmented reality (AR) browsers that superimpose online information on its screen based on users’ physical surroundings. The devices even know if a user is sitting still or walking. Wikitude, for example, draws from Wikipedia entries when a user is near a landmark. Furthermore, shopping applications such as the iPhone’s LikeThis, G1’s Shop Savvy and some Amazon applications enable users to photograph bar codes or objects to compare prices, retrieve product information and aid mobile search based users’ location. The greatest leaps will come as satellite-positioning (GPS), tilt sensors and compasses become commonplace on most mobile devices.
Location awareness will help news become more relevant to users without any user input needed. Possibilities exist for journalism at many levels. Imagine:
- News alerts sent to people based on their location, for example, when an underground explosion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin caused a power outage for 8,600 residents in June 2009.
- Users scanning products for price comparison and getting news about a company, a health issue or consumer safety.
- An immediate call for volunteers that reach people who happen to be nearby.
- A network of users that enable media outlets to find a trusted source for a breaking news story in a specific area (e.g. Kansas tornado).
- The ability to send news about the Dali Lama to users who have travelled to Tibet.
- Users receiving news based on their friends’ locations? (e.g. New York on 9/11, New Orleans in August 2005).
This blog is an excerpt from The Big Thaw, a guide to the evolution of independent media, written by Tony Deifell of Q Media Labs and produced by The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets. Learn how your organization can use this report. For more information and recommendations from the study, click here.
Future Possibilities
Many people assume that the of media future is to be predicted rather than created. The future does not simply happen to us; we shape it. This next series of blogs poses important questions for independent media to consider as it shapes the future and nine possible trends that could further change the game.
People interviewed for this project highlighted future possibilities (see graphic below) that add weight and complexity to the new realities described in Vol. 2. Most of these trends are underway. While they have yet to reach game changing scale, many of them will.
In this next series of blogs, we’ll discuss future possibilities in the competitive landscape, including mass mobile-media and multisensory web; distinctive competencies and sources of value; and the new value chain in journalism.
This blog is an excerpt from The Big Thaw, a guide to the evolution of independent media, written by Tony Deifell of Q Media Labs and produced by The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets. Learn how your organization can use this report. For more information and recommendations from the study, click here.