business art technology
inspiring contents reflecting electronic media
The key points below illustrates some of the trends and factors that currently influence people working with content.
Accelerated change towards an unknown future
Nicholas Negroponte, head of MIT's media lab, argues that the speed of change, related to Information Technology in a business, is proportional to how fast their products can be transformed from atoms to bits. If you sell cashmere suits, take it easy. If you rent videos, watch out! Robert Stein, founder of Voyager Inc, made a comment on all the hyped alliances and company mergers: "Those are the most convenient solutions for unsecure managers". Currently, after several decades, things are changing very fast. Some people have not even realised that, others find it hard to accept. Especially the fact that they do not know what to do. We all have to learn. No one knows all the answers. Even less - the questions.
Content is a special kind of product
Marketers categorize products as either goods or services. Where does a comic book, a magazine or a film fit? The question becomes more intriguing when one digitizes the very content of the book/magazine/film. And that content can be sold. Maybe it is time for a new product class: content.
Digital is universal
Content, in a digital form, is universal. It can be distributed over a broad spectrum of channels. It can also easily be transformed, searched, acted upon and consumed in many different ways. Repeated consumption does not wear or extinct the content. It can be copied indefinitely at negligble cost.
"They are all smelling Cyberpork"
A quote from Dave Hughes Sr, a BBS pioneer in Colorado. Everyone wants to be in the digital world. A lot of companies are now facing new, unanticipated, competition. Publishers ask their customers for time and money. Resources that consumers might devote to someone going digital from a non-publisher field. E.g. read Microsoft, or the TV network that enters the educational arena. Generic competition redefined.
Vanishing obstacles
Many people now have PC's in their homes, and even more are getting one. They have found enough digital content. So, the egg has laid a chicken. Internet and other networks are readily available for global competition. We do not have a "VHS-platform" for multimedia, but content providers have learned that digital content can be ported to multiple platforms.
From Direct Marketing towards Market Conversation
Consider the difference between communicating a message and having a conversation. The former implies sending information out. The latter opens up for a creative dialogue that supports change and development. Customers can immediately be engaged in electronically automated order processing. Electronic media (e.g. Interactive Voice Response, Fax-On-Demand, On-Line-Services or World-Wide-Web) can function as fast response way to traditional media (mailings, telemarketing). And as supplement (e.g. TV Infomercials, CD-ROM/diskette mailings, Voice/Fax Broadcast or Videotext). Likewise, traditional media can function as response channels to electronic media (My statement here is influenced by Gene Yongblood.)
Extraordinary management skills required
Electronic media means story, metaphor, layout, text, graphics, pictures, music, sound, speech, film, interactivity, computer programming/networking, packaging, marketing, and much more. All which require human resources. The management of this calls for skills different from print as well as film production. This might actually be one of the few barriers of entry into the digital market.
Electronic versus print publishers
Some content providers, that have become autodidact digital pioneers, see no need for a publisher. Digital pioneers even regard publishers as obstacles, since they often do not know the lingua digital.
Electronic publishing is already a large industry. Publishers have turned from pre-print, to pre-publishing. They store content digitally, so it can be transformed into formats such as Acrobat, Replica, Director, Envoy, CD-i, AoL, CIS, eWorld, HTML, or even paper.
Content distribution in digital markets
Digital content can be physically distributed on cartridges, diskettes, CD-ROMs, PCMCIAs and many other forms. They can be handled by both old (bookstores) and new (gas stations) middlemen. More promising is the non-physical, or online, form such as BBSes, OnLine or proprietary services. Here we have only begun to see a totally new market structure and economy.
New promotion strategies are born
Old marketing problems and the new digital world have already created new strategies. Such as digital infomercials, tie-ins, sponsoring and product placement.
Assets morphs into liabilitys
What is useful and appropriate today, might be without value or even turn out to be a major problem on the road towards the future. Example of such assets are machines (printing presses), employees (skill) and the organization itself (large, difficult to change).
The one who keeps chasing the future, is ignoring reality
When buying a TV-set, you can always wait for the next generation. But when new generations come every third month you have to buy now if you want to watch TV. Before the old set breaks.
Know yourself, do not forget your heart. Are you entering the digital world because everyone else is, or because you want to please your customers? Enough to make them sacrifice time and money!
Created by Richard Gatarski, 1995-11-29
Updated by Richard Gatarski, 1996-03-04