Next!
The Next Big T hing
Presentation to PR Professionals at Northern Ireland Innovation Centre
(May 2007)
I'm often asked - "What's the Next big Thing, then?" Most of the time I wish I knew - it would be a great way to make money. Most of the time the Next Big Thing has already been thought of or developed - but just hasn't made its way into the public domain.
There are two sorts of Next Big Thing - one for the Industry - the other for the audience. For the audience there are often great advantages - the Internet makes life easier sometimes - but more often than not it can make life more complex. Increasingly the Internet Next Big Thing leads to something else for us as Professional Communicators. The Next Big Thing - often carries The Next Big Threat. Because even the biggest and most powerful communications organisations have real difficulty in managing the message on the Internet. And the Next Big Threat that we face is losing control of "The Message" and our "Content".
ALWAYS START WITH THE AUDIENCE
I want to start from the audience's perspective - that's all about taking control of the Message and personalisation of Content. Then I'll outline the difficulties the content owners have in keeping control. As control of media shifts away from the producer and to the consumer, the role of the Communications Professional is challenged and if you don't understand the mechanisms of New Media, you have less power over how to control The Message.
So called "New Media" has freed us - that's us the audience - to watch TV or movies or listen to the radio whenever we want and often where ever we want. It allows us to read the New York Times in the morning rather than the London Times - or the Times of India, for that matter. That's about competition across borders - and the time I spend reading the New York Times is time not spent reading any other UK newspaper.
We can chose to read - copy and redistribute that content as we want to. So my first Next Big Thing in Personalisation.
CHOOSE AND PERSONALISE
It's not all that long ago when you had only one choice about personalising broadcast media. You could either watch a TV programme when the broadcast Scheduler decided you should watch it, or you could record in on VHS and play it back when you wanted. But that was a cumbersome task. More often than not you would already be at home in front of the TV pressing the record button while you watched something on the "Other Channel".
And things would go wrong. If you set up your VCR on a timer to record, programmes might over run and your timing would be thrown out - you might record the wrong channel.
There were only a few channels. Both choice and personalisation were very limited.
Not much changed for 10 or 15 years. With the growth in sales of Video recorders, video libraries sprung up - that did bring some choice even if the range of films available was small. Change in choice, availability and personalisation was slow for a very long time.
THE SPEED OF CHANGE
In recent two or three years there have been incredible changes.
New Media, New Platforms, Cheaper Technology and better informed consumers have come along and the power of the scheduler leached away toward the consumer/viewer. There are some big changes beginning to happen
The first is time shifting - watching a programme whenever you want using something like Sky +
The second is viewers and users coming together in the virtual world to help decide what to watch and find programmes
Another - and a more fundamental change - is using the Internet to distribute programmes - both legally and illegally.
As more and more real choice emerges, we need to develop more sophisticated ways for finding the stuff we want to watch.
Personalisation, recommendation, social navigation
There is nothing much new about getting media content when ever you want. Missed the movie? Then get the video; but you'll need to wait for up to 12 months after the theatre release. And even though there are shops and libraries, you couldn't get just anything you want:-
that TV programme broadcast last night -
that classic 1950's movie
a new CD of that really old vinyl LP you've had for years but has been played thin
There were and still are - a bunch of reasons for that restricted choice.
International Exploitation Rights,
Creative Rights - particularly for older programmes,
UK broadcast rights.
The profit - will enough people buy the DVD to make a release commercially viable?
One of the main reasons why Videos and later DVDs of programmes were not made available was the cost of Storage:
It was the cost of buying an item which might not be sold for weeks, or months even years. The cost of storage in the shop, in the distributor’s warehouse, in the factory. So not every movie or TV programme was available in a shop just when you want it.