digital media questions

digital media questions

Digital Media Drivers Of The User Revolution

Digital Media: Drivers Of The User Revolution
(Abhishek Uppal)

The Drivers Of The User Revolution. There are six major trends in the media world and the Internet that define the User Revolution. These are as follows:
The Emergence of Communitainment – the combination of communication with entertainment and community
The Increasing Popularity of Usites – Websites with predominantly user generated content will flourish
Mainstreaming of the Internet – the Web is now a routine media channel for most demographic groups
Evolution of User-Generated Brands – users are taking control of both the promotion and definition of brands
Declining Usage of Traditional Media – consumers are spending less time on TV and newspapers in particular; simultaneous media usage makes traditional media less effective for the advertiser
Fragmentation of Content Consumption – consumers are using an increasing number of channels both offline and online in order to get content from their “best-of-the breed” source; larger networks are losing out

Communitainment and Usites are the most serious threat to the traditional method of content consumption (online or offline) and are the hallmark of this User Revolution. For example, how does a site like Yelp merge merchant reviews and social networking to become an online phenomenon, growing from 200,000 unique visitors in February 2006 to more than 800,000 in December 2006? Similarly, where are young people getting the time to spend one to three hours a day on Facebook? On what other activities and media sources are they cutting back? Finally, why is this type of activity-combining entertainment with communication with a group of like-minded friends-so popular and does it indicate the next stage in media usage, which is going from the shared experience of the early days of network TV to the more individualized preferences of cable TV and Tivo, and finally to the shared experience of fully connected virtual networks. The new regime has people “Googling,” YouTubing,” “Yelping,” “Facebooking,” and, of course IMing/chatting, while at the same time they are sharing their favorite songs, movies, stores, and destinations with each other.
Communitainment is the major achievement of the User Revolution, and will replace other activities unless media companies acknowledge this trend and opportunistically embrace it.

Traditional Media. The growth and popularity of communitainment is in direct contrast to the declining value of traditional media, as reflected in the decreasing use of TV, newspapers, and other sources. In a Online Media Survey, 40% of the respondents said they watch less TV than they did two years ago, while less than 18% said they watched more.

Search and Google are the Internet. While consumers are spending far less time and attention on TV and newspapers, they are busy searching, or more accurately, Googling, as Google’s share of search continues to rise, and expect his trend to continue for some time. Google can eventually achieve 70%-80% market share both in the United States and worldwide. Search itself has become the new portal model, as many users now rely on search to navigate the Web and find answers to their questions. Searching is no longer just used to find information or to buy a product; search is the way people navigate around the Internet.

Do Media Companies still have a shot? The upshot of the above trends, is that both advertisers and publishers need to change their strategies, and in some cases, their business models.

Publishers need to realize that their competition is no longer the other publishers, but a range of content and services destinations. Many of these, such as Flicker, Yelp, or YouTube, are not considered publishers in the traditional sense yet they pull consumer attention away from the traditional publishers. Thus, both traditional media channels and Internet sites have to adapt to user control and content, as well as to a consumer’s desire to go to smaller, more specialized content sources. This requires new thinking for many companies, and it gives an advantage to the so called
Web 2.0 firms that are inherently much more user-focused.
The Web’s Darwinism. Successful online destinations (destinations rather than the word “publisher” as the latter does not accurately describe the networks on the Web today) will need to embrace users and transition their business models away from providing content and services in return for advertising to a business model that is focused on creating cohesive communities of users that generate ideas, content, and, most importantly, brands. The next task of these destinations is to match the best advertisers with the user groups, allowing the content to get richer and more relevant for the users, and enabling the advertisers to engage their target group in their brand. Providing news or entertainment is now a commodity, and successful destinations need to go well beyond this, looking into the needs of the modern Internet users. The “portal” is effectively dead. Users now do not need a single destination that provides every type of service or content with effective search tools; they can navigate to best-of-breed destinations and tools. The successful destinations of the next ten years will be agile and aggressive networks of smaller sites with specific applications that are highly tailored to user needs. With users becoming much more sophisticated, only the fittest will survive and
Web Darwinism will play out over the next five years as the User Revolution fully unfolds.

The Advertisers need to adapt to the new consumer demands and match their services closely with consumer needs. The old advertising adage that advertising is about “convincing consumers to buy what they don’t know they need” has to change. Consumers largely know what they need, and they want messages that are targeted at those specific needs. They also want to associate the brand with their lifestyle, and in doing so, they will become evangelizers for that brand. Thus advertisers need to forge closer relationships with consumers – close enough to be part of the content they are consuming, not just a commercial interruption of the content. In the new regime, advertisers must not only follow customer cues, they must also join their networks as active participants with a genuine interest in promoting the consumers’ interest. This is probably one of the most radical changes that the User Revolution will cause in the advertising world, but the most successful businesses in the next 20 years will be those who are fully aligned with the consumers’ social ideals.

Companies To Watch. The User Revolution will drastically change the Internet and the media landscape over the next 10 years. Some companies are likely to become extinct; others will prosper enormously. The most successful ones, however, will not necessarily be the biggest Internet or traditional media giants of today. Some of these companies may not have viable business models currently, and many may be overtaken by competition, but these companies represent important new trends that are worth monitoring:

Walt Disney Co. (DIS). The company’s enormous assets and brands are helpful starting blocks. More importantly, the resources that the company devotes to the new media will likely give them a competitive advantage.
News Corporation (NWS). A tradition of being close to customers and producing what they want has helped News Corp. become an early participant in the User Revolution. If the company continues on this path, it is likely to be a major winner in the new media world.
Time Warner Inc. (TWX). It remains to be seen what Time Warner can do with its multitude of valuable but declining assets. The company, however, remains a major player in the media world and is bound to impact the emerging landscape.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). Another company on the crossroads of potentially major long-term restructuring of its strategy; it is not clear yet where new media will fit in the new Microsoft and how the company can remain a major player in the Internet. While Microsoft has strong technological capabilities, it lacks strong positioning with consumers, especially as it relates to media assets.
IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI). One of the more promising conglomerates to watch, especially as the company has invested in search and content.
Craigslist. The simplicity of finding what you need, without the benefits or complexity of ratings has caused this company to capture a large share of the classified business. It will be important to watch how the new dynamics of community-based referrals impact Craigslist. Craigslist has become the general purpose bulletin board of large metropolitan cities-a major achievement that would have been unthinkable, especially with no marketing spending, just a few years ago.
Brightcove, Inc. The concept of enabling and syndicating video distribution online will become increasingly more important as we are likely to get many more content creators in the “Long Tail.”
SINA Corporation (SINA). China is poised to become the largest Internet market, overtaking the United States in a few years. The trends we see in the United States are already happening in China as well, with the Chinese market sometimes skipping a stage or two in its evolution. As the largest portal in China, SINA will continue to have major weight in the development of the new media market.
Baidu.com, Inc. (BIDU). The company has become the Google of China, a market which will overtake the United States as the largest Internet population over the coming years.
aQuantive, Inc. (AQNT), ValueClick Inc. (VCLK), 24/7 Real Media Inc. (TFSM). Advertising services companies and ad networks will continue to benefit from the increased spending, especially as the User Revolution fragments and expands the available inventory.
Wikipedia Foundation. This enormously valuable, free site defied the common wisdom that a totally open encyclopaedia could be accurate and useful. The site’s comprehensiveness has catapulted it to the top of search results for an increasing number of queries, and the community has proven to be extremely efficient in policing the quality of the information. This model of knowledge aggregation and distribution could profoundly impact a number of existing business models and companies.
MobiTV, Inc. Watching video on a cell phone will become routine, but the key is that such video consumption will be different from the traditional video watching. Companies will need to tailor not just their content, but also their delivery mechanisms and targeting to support mobile content consumption.
digg Inc. There is increasing demand for an infrastructure that can allow broader social networking by loosely connecting users through shared interests, creating more efficient content targeting through collective ranking by like-minded people. The concept of “digging” is very interesting and is likely to evolve into broader applications.
hakia, Inc. The concept of understanding the meaning of a page of content rather than matching keywords is the roadmap for the future of search technology. The concept may well be adopted by the existing players, or it could be harnessed by new emergent companies. Over the next 20 years, we will see major improvements in both gathering and indexing knowledge beyond what is on the Web, and search engines will be capable of finding solutions to users questions, by not only better understanding the query but also understanding the content and knowledge that is available.

About the Author

Abhishek Uppal college graduate from Cornell University.

Questions about views on Digital Media?

How has digital media affected how we share information?
How has it affected the Unites States economy?
Cultures of the world? cultures of United States?
How has it affected us as students?
Positive and Negative affects?

yes, it has affected our way of sharing information.

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