15 Dramatic Changes In Online Content

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[<p>It took being smacked squarely on the head with a revolution or two for the world to stop arguing with the huge fact that is social media. Skeptics have figured out that even if the social bubble were to burst, something has changed forever. What they're slower to get however the transformation is happening to content online, even as we speak.<br><br>If you're in the business of writing, or if you produce other forms of content for your company, consider the implications of these 15 changes shaping digital media.<br><br><strong>1. Democratisation</strong><br>In this age of social networking, everyone has a voice. And everyone uses it. Right from the start of the web, the internet has been a great equaliser - anyone can produce content. And they do. This democratisation has meant content-related industries have seen a disruption inside out. The consumption of content has gone up exponentially - just not in the old predictable ways it used to be consumed.&nbsp; Book publishers, music companies, television, newspapers and writers have all had to reinvent themselves in a world where they're not the only content experts. The implications for anyone producing content are that they no longer have a handful of competitors. It's you against ROW.<br><br></p> <table style="width: 150px;" align="right" border="1" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="10"> <caption></caption> <tbody> <tr> <td> <p>&nbsp;<img src="/businessworld/sites/default/files/Facebook-Logo150x150.jpg" width="150" height="150"></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Facebook</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p><strong>2. Ownership In Question</strong><br>Companies find they no longer own their logos, businesses discover that ideas don't necessarily come from their swanky cerebral-stimulating air-conditioned innovation centres, and writers see their work sprouting up in places they didn't expect it to online. Can a news site link to your blog and make it look like they wrote it? Can you use a photo someone seems to have forgotten online without it being theft? Can you put up a friend's video on YouTube for all to see when he didn't say you could? The social web has challenged and re-challenged content ownership as we once knew it. Most contentious of all is user-generated content. Does an article put up on Facebook belong to the user or to Facebook? Does a comment on a company's page entitle the company to use it as they like?<br><br><strong>3. Crowdsourcing</strong><br>They call it "the wisdom of crowds". Starbucks calls for great ideas on a special website - and it gets them.&nbsp; Lego puts design software up for download and asks its customers-to-be to use it to create new products, Harley Davidson makes a bunch of marketing material based on the participation of fans and the ideas they submit. Business publications crowdsource polls and surveys, the Q&amp;A site, Quora, crowdsources answers from subject experts, and journalists crowdsource information for their writing. Never before was there such a wholehearted recognition of the fact that content doesn't just come from institutions and organisations but from extraordinary ordinary people.<br><br><strong>4. Aggregation And Curation</strong><br>There was a time, not so long ago, when you had a producer and a reader-visitor-viewer-listener. There was no middleman. Today, many have entered the mix. Stopping just short of violating copyrights, aggregators create collections of content, providing a different search and see experience. As long as they have their search engine optimisation in order, aggregators come up right on top in search results, sometimes far more than the sites that contain the original material. Now, curators who filter and select content are taking up where aggregators have left off.&nbsp; Take a look at the special way in which LinkedIn is aggregating-curating content on its LinkedIn Today.<br><br></p> <table style="width: 150px;" align="right" border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="10"> <caption></caption> <tbody> <tr> <td> <p><img src="/businessworld/sites/default/files/youtube_logo150x120.jpg" width="150" height="120"></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You Tube</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p><strong>5. Trending Topics</strong><br>Once it was publishers who controlled what ended up as news or was widely consumed. Today it's the crowd that decides what is trending and what isn't. And it isn't what you'd logically think should trend either.&nbsp; Recently, Rebecca Black, an American pop singer, put up a song called Friday on YouTube.<br><br>Getting 2.7 million dislikes, the song nevertheless has 137 million views as it went wildly viral, gaining Black global much notoriety - or fame, whichever way you look at it. Content producers can no longer take distribution online for granted but have to figure out the science of how to make something trend. If the content doesn't "fly" on its own, they will need to push it forcefully into the social media flow.<br><br><strong>6. Content Meets Apps</strong><br>In the past two years or so, apps have created magic with content. Quite apart from apps made and branded by content producers (most major newspapers and magazines have them) there are others like Flipboard, Feedly, Zite, and others that serve up content from multiple sources all dressed up in beautifully designed pages on tablets like the iPad. On smartphones too, there are apps for all sorts of content, from videos and podcasts to games and newspapers. Even apps for movies are beginning to be available. Content makers can't afford to ignore the reality of apps and will need to make sure they're right out there where more content than they realize will be consumed. In India, where smartphones are internet access for the first time for so many, it's all the more important to be part of the app world.<br><br><strong>7. Nothing Without Interactivity</strong><br>In the early days of the web, interactivity was limited to a being able to click around and maybe get a pop up or picture for your troubles. Games and Flash and subsequent technologies took interactivity to another level. Today, with tablets, interactivity enters another phase of creativity. At a TED talk, Mike Mattas demonstrated the first full-length book for the iPad and iPhone, Al Gore's Our Choice. In this book, you can only pinch and zoom into pictures, you can pinch to fold and unfold sections, blow on the pressure-sensitive screen to make a windmill turn, see live infographics and get deeper and deeper into the content by touching elements. The software that makes this happen is up for use by anyone else who wants to. It's interactivity like this that is making users expect an experience, not just a visit to a static website.<br><br><strong>8. Sharing</strong><br>How to make content share-worthy and get it to go viral has become part of the necessary strategizing of distributing content online. Plopping it online and leaving it to fend for itself isn't going to cut it anymore. People spend time and effort thinking of what their communities will want to share (as opposed to read or view without necessarily sharing) and they package content to maximize the chances of sharing, whether that's through Retweets on Twitter or posts on |Facebook, updates on LinkedIn, or anywhere else including plain old email. Much effort also goes into apps to make it easy, if not outright pleasurable, to share content with others.<br>break-page-break<br><strong>9. Social Objects</strong><br>As if it weren't enough, content producers also have to create social objects of or around their content. Anything put out there must generate engagement and interaction. This is quite apart from pressing the Like button or even sharing the content. Meaningful discussion must combine with that to bring it up a notch. This isn't easy to do and writers, film-makers and others are constantly seeking new ways of sparking off conversations around their content. The content has to become the reason people are coming together at that moment. In effect, content can't be thought of without community engagement opportunities today.<br><br></p> <table style="width: 200px;" align="right" border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="10"> <caption></caption> <tbody> <tr> <td> <p><img src="/businessworld/sites/default/files/Linkedin-logo-mdm.jpg" width="200" height="200"></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Linked in</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p><strong>10. Recommendations Matter</strong><br>The frantic race to get people to Like content has kept many social media marketing teams busy. The point of it all may not always be clear or fruitful, but the number of Likes and Recommendations has become a yardstick for content quality. Not to be left out in the cold, Google recently began rolling out their equivalent of the Like button, called Plus 1. On the professional front, LinkedIn upped its use of recommendations to move beyond personal testimonials for individuals to endorsements for companies and products. The whole business of liking and recommending has spread through the internet to become a part of the basic fabric of everything you do.<br><br><strong>11. Instantly Measurable</strong><br>Times were when you could remain blissfully unaware of what people really think of your writing, videos, photos or songs. And then maybe a couple of people would tell you and you'd hear what you want to hear. If you went about it more scientifically, you would have to wait for audience surveys, focus groups and ratings to yield their results. Today everything is instantly measurable. At least, if it's linked in some way to social networking and not sealed off in a time-warped silo somewhere online. There are numerous tools to measure how content is faring online and these are not in the hands of experts. A URL shortener like Bit.ly will give you enough statistics - in real time. This means it's tough to get away with putting out content that interests no one.<br><br><strong>12. Accountability</strong><br>It's no longer enough to claim expertise and years of experience. The landscape online is a transparent one and it makes it essential to prove your expertise in your chosen field. For those producing content it means not assuming no one else can do it; not being complacent with mere presence or giving away too little. If you have ideas, concepts to convey, you need to back them up with specifics and with background content.<br><br></p> <table style="width: 150px;" align="right" border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="10"> <caption></caption> <tbody> <tr> <td> <p><img src="/businessworld/sites/default/files/Twitter-icon-150x150.jpg" width="150" height="150"></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Twitter</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p><strong>13. Influence</strong><br>It's an age of influence online. That much we're sure of. Ever since Twitter began growing into an "information network" where writers and others point to their work, one could see that some develop huge communities who follow, interact and spread the message - while others remain low key. Analytical tools give you influence scores, and some companies are even beginning to reward people with high social influence.&nbsp; See Klout as an example. For those pushing their content online, the moral of the story is that you need to be an influence in your field and you need to know how to develop and tap into other influencers. In India, as we know, politicians have recognized the importance of online influence and you'll find the most unlikely individuals have jumped into social networking, gathering themselves quite a sizeable following.<br><br><strong>14. No Privacy</strong><br>One of the fallouts of consuming and sharing content online is that the entire privacy landscape has changed. Very soon, our definition of a concept that was once fairly straightforward, too will adjust to the changes. Suffice is to say that whatever content you consume is increasingly visible to your network of friends and contacts and this is a fact that has to be managed carefully. For content producers, the onus is to create content with which people want to be associated. Another challenge that touches on privacy is the fluid boundaries online between the personal and professional. Developing and maintaining a persona or brand calls for being several steps ahead of changes you have to stay alert to predict.<br><br><strong>15. Four Screens, No Waiting</strong><br>Smartphones and tablets add to computers and televisions to demand new, varied formats that go beyond optimisation and must provide a worthwhile experience. If an app just gets you to click to go to a website, users will soon move on from it. If an internet-enabled television makes it difficult for you to get to content easily, viewers will lose patience with it. The long and short of it is that users want their favourite content everywhere, on all their devices, in real time. On these four devices - smartphones, computers, tablets and television - consumption patterns have also changed in that users may want to either use a device in a focused way or multitask and consume on several devices at the same time.<br><br>Social media may have brought about sweeping changes to content and communication but it is still very much in flux. Changes are fast and furious as new technologies and devices come up. Already though, publishers' digital audiences are beginning to match their print and broadcast audiences and just recently, at Amazon, e-books outpaced paperback sales. According to Neilson, television-watching just went down 2 per cent because of the shift to digital media. Anyone in any content industry must not only be thinking digital but must get ahead of the curve in all of the aspects of the changing face of content.<br><br>Mala Bhargava is a personal technology writer and media professional. Contact her at mala@pobox.com and @malabhargava on Twitter</p>