There is a convergence in media today that happening but has not quite taken a polished form. You might have heard about internet citizen journalism growing in popularity. The problem is that these streams can be easily lost in the endless world of RSS feeds within the internet. Consumers have to know where to look in order to find the media. Podcasts for example, which use RSS feeds are great but again, you need to subscribe to the feed in order to get updates. If I could imagine the greater use of the future internet is the ability to move within clouds of data with user voted page ranks and trusted source ranking. Have I lost you? Let’s imagine there is a breaking news story where a fire breaks out at a nearby factory. The media breaks the story with a reporter on the way to the scene. Meanwhile, a person near the scene begins a streaming video from their cell phone with a cloud tag of: breaking news, factory, fire, Chicago, north-side, Broadway & Addison, Date, Time. The media could immediately be alerted to the stream and start feeding the source. A bulletin would be broadcasted: is this a trusted source? - with a page rank alerting the status of user submissions. News media uses phone call-ins frequently for this but a connection needs to happen between the two parties. Another video stream opens covering the scene with a higher trusted rank and now you can have more coverage. While you’re listening to the broadcast, you click on the history of the factory with articles on prior news that extends to that area’s neighborhood history. The user has more control of how much or how little they want to learn.
Let’s takes that same concept and apply to a network where an aspiring journalist or even a concerned citizen records their own account, and after editing the media could submit it to multiple feeds within the internet and broadcast channels for them to review and publish in parallel. If the network decides not to broadcast it, you still have he option to float to the other media articles for more information. All of this comes from recent media management software that opens the accessibility of information. Although the big networks may at first shy away, the need to stay competitive in today’s market may lead to this adoption. The benefit for the larger networks is that they could also get a higher visibility from the smaller social media as well.
When I worked in broadcast news, we had thousands of archived news stories on tapes with a database to source that information. Now with new media management tools and a tapeless workflow, there is greater access to a larger network of media for better information. The next step is opening that access further into the internet pool of relevant, user submitted experiences for greater insight into our world. A tapeless world is just the first step. Capsulized media is on the brink of non-existence, as we once experience it. When we get there will be determined by both the consumer and the networks.
This is just one example of the de-regulation of media and can even apply to consumer generated advertising and social consumer shopping as well. It’s going to be an interesting future when you stand back and look at the larger picture. Will the larger players sit back and wait for it to happen without their support or will they embrace it with open standards? Let’s hope for everyone involved, it makes for a greater knowledge and user experiences.
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