New technology is changing the way we access media content. At the same time, it makes it easier to capture and distribute self-generated content. Some of the main challenges media companies are already facing, and that will continue to evolve while generating, editing, delivering and monetizing their content are:
- More information, different sources: User generated content, Social Networks, sensors and mobile contextual information add value to the edited content (for instance many movie and sport stars are constantly “tweeting”… the main actors of the story are now directly publishing their opinions!) This trend will increase as social networks become ever more widely used. Information from social networks will become richer, and will be automatically exploited. One example would be having immediate information on how much a particular moment of an event was relevant for users through analysis of social networks. The challenge will be processing all social media and user generated content in an orchestrated way!
- Multimedia content as a basic element for communication: The consumers of media prefer fast information over deep analysis. With shorter attention times, video provides a faster impression than reading, and is more complete than just listening. Linking video content to other sources of information such as structured metadata (for instance results information), user generated contents (e.g. social network sentiment analysis) and image & voice recognition will enrich the end user experience.
- Personalized and proactive view of the events: viewers have their own preferences, multimedia presentations are intelligent and have the means to “memorize” user preferences, and automatically present the most relevant information for the user. Complex and structured content (video and metadata from different sources) enable a unique personal edition of the infromation and recommendations. For instance the automatic recommendation to follow a live event in which a particular athlete that you are interested in is likely to perform well.
- Permanent and ubiquitous access to information: media consumers expect to have immediate, permanent and easy access to information at all times and from anywhere. Users will have access to their “personalized virtual desktops” across devices (smart phone, connected TV, holograms) and will access the contents through completely personalized views (for instance mashups and the concept of “3 screens and a cloud”).
- New Internet based business models: in line with personalization of access to content, consumers will become familiar with solutions based on a pay-per-view model (most likely using nanopayments) as an alternative to premium based services. With personalized views of information, transactions will become complex and processing will be key. Advertisements will be even more customized, taking advantage of enriched content – automatically activating specific ads based on actions in Social networks.
Information Technology will play a key role in enabling media to reach a wider audiences and enabling payments processing as covered in the above points. The integrator’s challenge on the other hand is conveying to the Media industry that we can accompany them in generating and managing new businesses.
When I came home from holiday, I connected my HD video-camera to my computer and was able to publish my recordings to YouTube in just 1 click (publishing on YouTube was actually even easier than putting it to a DVD).
Posted in Scientific Community, Strategy & Innovation, Technology