This week, I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at New Media Europe (#nmeu2016), a conference for podcasters, bloggers, and social media experts representing attendees from 15 countries. My presentation was a 20-minute overview of content creation and new media: a brief history, what’s going on now, and what trends are coming? I was asked to share my slide deck, and decided to expand upon my presentation in this blog as 20 minutes flies by quite quickly and I was a little rushed near the end.
While I was mortified at the title I suggested at first, I soon realized it wasn’t so silly. There is a LOT that’s new about new media, and it keeps getting newer all the time. New Media Europe was really about promoting and supporting a new type of creative professional – one for whom the creation is not necessarily the product. In the not-so-distant past, there were clear delineations between talent and tooling: video editors edited video, audio editors mixed audio, designers created icons and branding. Anyone who stepped outside their box were considered anomalies, punks, or nerds. But the world changed, man, and nerds stepped up.
Here’s a brief history of content creation throughout the ages. Starting over 40,000 years ago when some jovial artists in a cave put their hands on a wall, smeared some smushed berries around them, and essentially gave a high-five to eternity. 4,500 years ago, we started writing our thoughts down, though the clay tablet medium was a bit unwieldy. A few centuries later, we traveled to see stories presented to us on a stage. A few centuries more, and we got rid of the tablets for the lighter medium of paper – though we would soon put them into textbook form weighing about as much as that original clay tablet. Over a century ago, we started recording our stories visually on film – we’d still travel to see it, but the same presentation could now be performed once and distributed all over the world. Almost 100 years ago, we started to share our stories audibly directly to our homes using an invisible medium that was very near magical. Only a few years later, we attached images to that magic stream. And just 25 years ago, the first website came online and spawned everything else we’ll be discussing.
We’ve been sharing ideas using the height of technology for the time, for a very long time. Relatively recently, it got really easy. It became easy to create and distribute content to millions of others at almost zero cost. The trick is providing good content, and in the best manner possible.
New Media is essentially any method of mass communication enabled by digital technology. And because that technology is constantly changing, the ways we create and consume content changes.
So let’s take a look at what’s new…
In the next few years, well over half the world’s citizens will have a connected smart phone, and for many of these people, it will be their only connection to the internet. This means that the majority of experiences will be mobile experiences, and that a Mobile First! philosophy should really be considered for any content or website. I’m sure many of you will have the experience of having built a website, say WordPress with a theme that just looks stunning on a 28″ 4K display. But when you proudly pull up your new site on your phone for a friend at the local pub, it’s a horrible mess of overlapping text, oversized or off-display images, and missing fonts. Developing for the mobile experience first, and then expanding upon that for the desktop experience will help prevent these embarrassing situations.
I’ve tried to be a bit conservative as I’ve consolidated various research reports, but between 69-80% of all consumer internet traffic is expected to be be streaming video by the end of 2016. And it’s not just sitcom re-runs on Netflix that are taking up so much bandwidth. Facebook alone accounts for more than 8 billion video views per day, and studies show the impact of video on brand awareness is absolutely staggering. While we hear about viral videos, standard content makes up the bulk of the views, with how-to videos being exceptionally popular and having a long tail.
The resurrection and renaissance of the modern day radio show continues as podcast creation and consumption grows year over year. Increased investment from Apple and Google into their mobile and automobile platforms indicate podcasts will be a crucial part of our commutes in the coming years, and podcasts require the least amount of sensory investment on the audiences part, allowing them to listen and enjoy while performing any number of other tasks.
Are you a blogger? Really? Still? That’s great because research finds active blogging – whether a site like this, or alternative/microblogging platforms like Twitter, Pinterest, or SnapChat – generate 2/3 more audience and potential customers than a product or website alone. Written word blogs are easier for search engine robots to parse and understand, which means it’s easier for people to find your content when searching for the topics you share.
That shouldn’t be taken to imply that Twitter is the optimal refinement of the written word, however as long-form content provides the best return on the investment. A more informative product gives audiences an opportunity to grow familiar with you as an authority, and gain a deeper trust in your expertise.
And richer content means the potential for higher quality content. Audiences on the internet are smarter than ever, and are wary of the tricks used to increase page views at the expense of our experience and time. Sites or landing pages that are textbook examples of Search Engine Optimization 101 courses, that provide no real value, are abandoned quickly. Content that provides real value for real people wins the day, and increased sales can bring in greater revenue than the litany of ads many sites are littered with.
Of course, the best content in the world won’t be read if it’s not legible and inviting. (The limitations of this WordPress theme notwithstanding.) Design is a concept that applies to every form of media, not just still visuals such as print or the web. The same ideas work in video and podcasting, with clarity, white space, and thematic cues that leads audiences from topic to topic being crucial to growing familiarity in your audience, and helping your listeners or viewers spend more time with what you have to say, and less time trying to figure out how you’re saying it.
If we look at what’s fresh and coming down the road, we see content moving from websites into apps, and apps moving onto the desktop! Google’s Chromebook line has just surpassed Apple in laptop sales, and their recent support for running Android apps natively seems to have beat the rumors of Apple’s iOS apps merging onto the macOS system to the punch. Automation and AI tools like Twitter’s Project Lightning (aka Moments) or If This Then That can enable content to be shared and streamed automatically, allowing curators the ability to pick and choose among the best, or for items which gain traction with their followers. And if you haven’t had a chance to try the new, scarce VR or AR headsets yet, do yourself a favor and find an early adopter with a Vive or Oculus. The opportunity to create new, even viral, experiences in immersive video, audio, and interactive gaming is absolutely huge.
Collaboration services continue to storm the world. Online services like Slack or Sococo shrink the world and help remote works stay connected and feel closer than ever possible. Products like Adobe Anywhere enable video creators and animators to collaborate on projects without synchronizing the enormous amounts of footage and files generated by todays high-resolution cameras and equipment. And while a healthy distrust of Big Brother is always a good thing, ethical data collection and analysis can be used to customize and curate what we create and share with our audiences and customers, providing the right products, features, and content presented in the best way. Guessing less and knowing more allows creators to make fewer mistakes and respond more quickly to trends or errors. Anonymized data collection can be a useful tool to optimizing our time and investments and increasing happiness and satisfaction in our audience.
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I’ve had a wonderful time in London, although rarely getting outside the hotel. If you attended NMEU 2016, or missed out but want to know more, visit the link at the top of the page or look online for their hashtag to see videos, photos, programs, and amazing creations shared by the attendees.
durin