Today there is a scramble for position on an ever-changing media and technology landscape. Last year, for example, Best Buy, an electronics dealer trying to survive the recession, began offering Clearwire’s broadband Wi-Max service to its customers. Google, on the other hand, is so concerned about Facebook that it is now building a social network of its own called Google+. The LA Times also reported that Atari, the pioneering gaming company, is trying to reinvent itself by offering social media games based on old favorites like Pac Man. Meanwhile, AT&T is trying to merge with T-Mobile, while Verizon may be buying Sprint, a scenario which could lead to AT&T and Verizon controlling 80% of the wireless market. So what’s going on?
Background
First, none of the changes would have been possible without a breakdown of 100 year old media practices, and by changes in the way people now interact with media. In fact, the progression from AT&T’s dominance of telephony from about 1903, to RCA’s control of radio up to the 1950’s, to NBC-CBS-ABC’s control of television through the 1980’s, to cable television’s dominance of media in the1990’s, and the rise of the internet in the 21st Century, were not accidental occurrences.
Distribution vs. Content vs. Content Aggregators
To understand this change, we should consider what old media was like. This history reveals one constant feature that lasted until the end of the 20th Century. The control of communications media was usually determined by companies that controlled the distribution of programming, not by those that owned programming content.
Companies like RCA, NBC, and CBS, then later, AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, and Comcast, held such strong positions that they could select which programmers, writers, and artists would produce what most Americans saw, heard, or read over media. Most of these companies hedged their bets by investing in both distribution networks (cable, microwave, cellular, and wireless) and content production companies (film, video, print, and the web). This followed a business practice called “vertical integration”.
Cable TV and the Internet ultimately proved to be the wild cards in the demise of vertical integration: new technologies that were difficult to control, and ultimately used to by-pass broadcast TV, Radio, and even Telephony, all of which had monopolized advertising and communications for more than a century. These first “new” technologies, and the companies that used them, literally broke the old business model created by early radio and television companies.
The new model also began to change after 2000, with the dot com bust and market reorganization (including corporate mergers, buyouts, and bankruptcies) continuing until about 2008. The next wave of media in the 21st Century’s second decade is now taking on a hybrid quality. That is, new media in 2011 and beyond has the advantage of both wide (global) distribution and multiplatform content creation. This new media type is called “aggregation”. Different aggregation companies focus on collecting and distributing visual, image and text content, as well as individual user data, over fast broadband connections, and market that content to finely targeted audiences.
Breaking the Mold for Users
The introduction of the newest media forms also changed how users interact with media. As new technologies like the Internet became more popular and easier to use, virtually anyone with a fast broadband connection could produce and distribute content at the same time.
We could say that this process began with early amateur radio producers, who launched their own small stations in the 1920’s. Then came public (PBS and College) radio and television in the 40’s and 50’s. Inexpensive video cameras followed in the 60’s, then digital cameras in the 90’s created an attraction to visual content. Cable channels piggybacked on these innovations to offer time to public, education, and government media producers beginning in the 1980, some surviving into the present. By 2010 wireless services made access on many different devices, including iPhones, tablets, and handhelds, possible. At the same time, these devices created a global market for software applications.
Over the years people also became more educated and sophisticated about technology, especially in their ability to create content for each new device that was introduced. As a result, by 2011 many services, like YouTube, Vimeo, and Google (blogs), operate on the assumption that everyone can produce something on new media. In the best case scenario, anyone who does create also has the means to determine how and where that content is distributed.
But not everybody has the time or the inclination to create content. That’s why content aggregators remain popular. Users of aggregation services offer content creation and global distribution, without the steep learning curves it takes to produce video or create graphics. Social media sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and even Netflix, include special algorithms that not only collect content (including video, images, text, links, and individual data), but distribute them to public or private audiences, and to companies that want to advertise to them.
Conclusion
Why is this important? Anyone who creates content for media, including video producers, DJs, film makers, graphics designers, photographers, painters, and writers, should know how different media services handle their content. They also should know how to distribute their goods to different audiences.
Will your content be aggregated, collected en masse with millions of other pieces, barely distinguishable from others, or will it be showcased and displayed as a unique offering?
Where are the best places to display and market your content?
The answers to these questions can only be determined if you understand the new media landscape, both what new media exist, and how it got that way. As creators, users, and new media become more sophisticated, it is critical for artists to understand both the advantages and the disadvantages of everything that new media has to offer.
