In the past few weeks, I've been doing a lot of thinking about content. I've got a subscription to Netflix, Hulu Plus and a decent selection of cable channels -- including access to Comcast's On Demand service. But, much like my news, I find that I would like someone to distill it for me.
As a page designer, much of what I do involves prioritizing and creating importance for information. The most important story lands at the top right-hand side of the page. The most interesting story (of a feature-y bent) lands in the center of the page as a package. Headlines are "graded" down the page (meaning stories have progressively smaller headlines as you advance down the page. This indicates both their importance and their priority). Headlines with italic or serif headlines are not serious, if-it-bleeds-it-leads news -- called "soft" news. Serious, or "hard," news always has a sans-serif headline. At a large daily newspaper, a fleet of staff work together to assign appropriate to every story on every page. Even if you took away the words, the design would still tell a story on it's own.
How can a designer make a career as a newspaper designer? Why is it a highly-skilled job? Because it takes professional news judgement, attention to detail, understanding of the impact of images and more to effectively design a newspaper page -- even an inside page!
Much like a newspaper designer, a DJ ingests a large amount of information in the form of music and, based on their experience and taste, selects music that she thinks her audience will like. This DJ listens to every song they can get their hands on and makes a judgement call on whether or not it's good enough to pass on to the listener.
DJs have song judgement. Newspaper editors have news judgment.
Because of the Internet, there is unprecedented access to all sorts of content. Critics have argued that we've hit information overload -- better yet, we've hit search overload. Any and everything we could ever want is merely a Google search away. I am arguing that early content distribution models -- like radio and broadcast TV -- are actually on their way back into the picture. In a world of information overload, we prefer 140 characters, Facebook-distilled newsfeed and hand-selected content.
No choice, content chosen for you
The physical capabilities of AM radio, FM radio and broadcast television limited the quantity of information that could be transmitted. And, at the end of that transmission, there was no inexpensive way that it could be stored for review later. This is the no choice model. As a member of the audience, you listened or watched exactly what was sent out over the air waves. You may have been able to choose from a handful of stations, but there was no buffet for you to pick from.
Sound waves travel at the speed of sound. It's not an efficient form of transmission. However, it was the first of a long line of technology breakthroughs. In the end, money drove the choice of content for the stations.
More choices and tape recorders
As radio and broadcast television became a commercial enterprise, the width of the spectrum was used to its full capacity. Viewers and listeners had the ability to turn the dial and choose the content that they wanted -- to a certain extent. If you had five television stations to choose from, you still only had five different programs to pick from. Recording devices became more prevalent in homes, which suddenly gave the listener the ability to record something to listen to later.
Cable TV becomes the norm
So, television stations are still picking the content. Money is still driving the pictures you are seeing. Advertising is bought and paid for. Network executives will only choose programming that advertisers will buy space against. However, suddenly the view holds power in their remote control. Nielson and other ratings companies are tracking the popularity of each television show. Finally customers hold some control over their content.
They can't quite get access to anything yet, but they have hundreds of channels that are running simultaneously. That means they've got access to hundreds of different program choices all at once. The transition from over-the-air broadcast to cable makes these choices possible.
On Demand and the Internet
Over time, each new technological innovation has led us to a world with more content that can be accessed when we want it. The argument here is that all customers what exactly what they want, exactly when they want it. To this day, I believe this is the prevalent business model. Fiber optic cable from the content provider to the neighborhood allowed even more data to stream to the customer. Fiber optic was the innovation that led to prevalence of high-speed Internet access.
Over time, as more fiber optic was laid, users had the capability to not only stream individualized content (rather than 100 stations pushing the same thing to each user, 100,000 users could pull their own content), but to record, download and send content back simultaneously.
The business model had exploded. Each and every customer could have exactly what they wanted, when they wanted it and how they wanted it (handheld device, laptop or plasma).
The following is why I think the "whatever, whenever" model is the wrong model to move forward with. Internet-based media falls under a couple of different categories that to a certain extent follow models that we've seen before in history. Each model is essentially a point on the slider of human judgement. We have to ask ourselves how much a thinking, working, informed brain effects our content.
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| On the extremes, you'll find the successful media models. |
If you take a look at the graphic, I believe that media strategies in the middle leave the user wanting. Netflix has too much content for me to effectively pick from. I haven't stayed far from the few things that I know I like. It's not an all-access system, because not all of the TV shows and movies in existence are there (the same can be said of Hulu, but it more closely follows the All Access model). Pandora, while I do enjoy it because it provides me continuous media without my interaction, is definitely missing the human touch. I can suggest a song that I like and immediately hear other songs like it -- albeit one at a time. However, I have a preference for new, recently released, music. That's not a Pandora option and I find myself disappointed when the song that I like was produced in 1980 by a musician that won't be producing anything else. Also, I can't specify popular songs, when all I want to do is listen to songs that everyone knows and that I can sing along to.
Given busy schedules, and shorter attention spans than ever, I argue that the "No Choice" model can actually be the most successful. Once you chose what to "follow" -- selecting friends, a newspaper or a channel -- you don't have an option on what you get. You get the best of that particular category, sorted and prioritized by whomever you've chosen to be your editor.
It's all or nothing. Allow your customer access to absolutely anything they are looking for. Or let them customize a category and then have a professional do the work.
I want my DJ.
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