Monday, April 21, 2008

Has media forgotten what it does?

It goes without saying (but I'm going to say it anyway) that paper has had a huge influence on the way print media developed. But I wonder if we take for granted the huge influence the medium we have grown up with has had on how we are viewing our digital future?

Paper is finite.

That simple fact leads to a number of outcomes. For example; there is a cost involved in adding extra pages to a publication. Paper constrains how much we can publish and therefore what we choose to publish. Paper demands that we are selective - that we edit. We filter the world's information and publish only that which we see fit. And then we make it fit, the way we see fit.

We filter on the way in.

We place ourselves in a self-selecting position of authority. It's a seat we find hard to give up.

We do this, of course, from a perspective of 'serving the needs of the consumer'. We aim to give them what they want. It is in our financial interests so to do.

But the needs of the consumer have to fight for resources with the demands imposed by the medium. And the medium tends to win.

Paper has mass.

This creates distribution challenges. We have to move this mass from one place to another (driven by an initial transcation). We do our best to distribute it to distribution hubs (we call them shops) where we hope the supply chain can be completed with another transaction (which puts them in the hands of the consumer.

These facts (paper is finite and has mass) mean we are forced to serve consumers as large, lowest-common-denominator-driven groups. Paper's physical nature imposes a structural limitation on what print media does and how it must treat its users.

It is conceivably possible that each consumer could have a magazine crafted precisely for themselves, to meet their precise needs. All it would take is a dedicated team of content producers (and in the print world this means employing a team of writers, photographers, designers and sub-editors), a one-off print run and a delivery direct to the lucky receipient's door.

There is nothing standing in the way of that. Nothing but cost.

If you're prepared to pay multiple thousands for each issue of your magazine you can have what the digital space can give you right now (where you'd get it for free). It'll just take a while to deliver.

Print never felt there was much of a market for that. So it created content aimed toward the lowest common denominator (granted, niche by niche on occasion).

It distributed to reach as many as possible with as little waste as possible - but still found 20-25% of its output pulped. The need to drive down unit cost make us err towards a mass production approach. It forces us to think locally, too. (Distributing a newspaper globally is something of a challenge precisely because of that mass and cost thing.)

Consider then how digital is different.

Digital space is infinite. There is zero cost attached in adding an extra page. There is therefore no need to filter on the way in. There is therefore no reason for us to be selective, no cause for us to take up our seat upon our self-appointed editorial throne. The user gets to filter on the way out.

Digital has no mass. There are zero costs to distribution. We don't need supply chains or distribution hubs in the physical sense. Distribution can be pulled to those who want it, distributed by those who advocate it. And it can happen everywhere right now.

Now you can have your ultra personalised content at zero cost - and you can have it this very instant, updated the moment relevant change occurs. It's unlikey you'll do this alone, because you are a human being and hard-wired to be social.

When we think of the role of media in the digital world, are we considering what is equivalent to newspapers and magazines (that is media properties) in digital form - or do we want to become the paper (the medium)?

Is the platform approach (and it's one I advocate myself) about trying to be the digital equivalent of paper? Bearing in mind digital 'paper' has no mass and is limitless, would we be better off delivering brilliantly creative media properties closer in form to user accounts than to social networks?

My initial thoughts are that we may may have multiple roles - as nuancers of the culture (helping with collaborative filtering) in a platform/aggregational style AND as brilliant media properties (of the user account kind) where we become part of the conversation, pulled into someone else's aggregator or platform.

Who says it has to be either/or? The digital world offers more dimensions than we've had to consider before.

Please contribute your thoughts by commenting below.

11 comments:

  1. David,

    Albeit those you mentioned are facts, I couldn't say that they forgotten their roles in delivering news content to consumers. They are learning... even for some revolutionaries, they are dinosaurs which about to extinct.
    It is not just media whom identified as dinosaurs, you can see how the music industry vs social network and web 2.0 distribution model, or britannica vs wikipedia, and more...

    Most of industry are late adopters, even IT persons (of many industry) now can not have such adequate time to declare its annual budget... all due to new tech with all new alternative business model emerges everyday.

    We are shifting.. but people tend to believe how they earn everyday is the real thing.. follow regulation, play by the book, etc. That's the reason why user experience got the top agenda on every applications, so people does not afraid to risk their time trying.

    On the other thing.. some area still lack of digital infrastructure. eg. my country.

    The people "trust" on traditional media challenged by growing social web which distributed the term "trust" to friends and relatives... which somehow challenged by spam, hoax, privacy problems and.. how people actually "trust" each other on a SN sites. And we discuss the latest everyday on twitter and blogs... :)

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  2. The medium certainly colours our thinking. I forget exactly when we stopped thinking of the website as an online version of the book, and started thinking of the book as "edited highlights" of the website for times when you can't get online. I'm still waiting for us to stop thinking of mobile as the website squeezed into a small screen.

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  3. wise comments both. Pico you may find other posts on this blog agree with much of what you say.
    Steve - particularly re mobile - abso-bloody-lutely.
    I should share the presentation I gave in Berlin with you.

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  4. David have you been reading Umair Haque?

    If not I think you'd really like him

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  5. I haven't kelvin, but it's a name I hear from time to time. Thanks for the steer and prompt!

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  6. What about mobile in this picture? Is mobile digital in the same way the internet is digital?

    Sometimes I think that a key role of paper newspapers is to filter the news that come in from the news agencies - to select a limited chunk that you could possibly digest together with your other breakfast.

    When we transfered that idea to the mobile screen, we had long discussions about how the mobile screen would work for the reader: would the person come back every hour, expecting some new news every hour? Or should we rather have a "the day on the mobile" view on that, having the key events and news of the day available the whole day, allowing to dive in for five minutes whenever spare time is available?

    Today I would say that was an attempt to bring the internet to the mobile phone, pretty much the same way how people were trying to bring the print media to the internet in the early days, and ignoring the specifics of the media itself.

    When I watch how people are actually using the mobile internet, I see lots of similarities with the mobile phone itself, but also with other mobile devices like MP3 players, but not so much with internet as we know it from the PC. There are some similarities, but not so much as some people seem to expect. That both share the technology like TCP/IP and HTML is not really the whole story. People chat on the mobile internet similar to the way they use SMS, watch mobile TV similar to the way they listen to MP3 files, use google maps the way they would use their portable car navigation, and most of the publishing is really done in the style of images (like MMS) rather than text. The latter is just natural when the mobile phone brings a decent camera, but poor keyboard.

    The name "mobile internet" might already be misleading, similar to the name "online newspaper".

    Regards,
    Alex

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  7. Alex: "The name "mobile internet" might already be misleading, similar to the name "online newspaper".

    Brilliant! A really neat summary of the issue in mobile. Operators and portal 'owners' seek to give us a keyhole view of the world.

    I'm going to speaking about this at a keynote I'm doing at Digital Portal Strategies in London (see my 'speaking at' list, left.

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  8. I'm reminded of the PPA's award for best website, which they choose to call "Interactive/online consumer magazine of the year". It seems to miss the point somewhat.

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  9. Sorry it's Mobile Internet Portal Strategies I'm presenting that keyhole stuff at, Not Digital Portal Strategies as I misnamed it in previous comment.

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  10. Steve, I would say "online newspaper" is a real antinomy, as "newspaper" refers to paper, but "paper" and "online" are mutally exclusive (at least as long as we do not talk e-paper here).

    At the same time, "online magazine" does not seem that bad to me: As far as I know, "magazine" is derived from italian "magazzino", meaning "storehouse" - and as David lined out, a online version of a magazine has a potential to be a storehouse even more than a paper version ever possibly could.

    Still, I agree - the implication that the online magazines might be benchmarked against the best printed magazine is a bit weird. This is like benchmarking cars against the best boat, and giving an award to that car that sinks slowest when put into a lake.

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  11. Internet made easy to circulate the print publication globally with low cost production. Online circulation mediums are in boom and thrived the readership rate rapidly. Companies like Pressmart Media helping the print publishers to distribute over the new technology mediums. I think these kinds of services will really increase the revenues.

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