Online Journalism

The future of journalism is moving toward a web-based, web-first system and the sooner we all embrace this shift the more prepared we can be for the future. Journalism educators can help students understand this change and embracing the new media culture and staying current with the changing communication trends.  Journalism professionals also need to keep up with current trends in new media because they way people get their information is changing. In the article Where Young Adults Intend to Get News in Five Years the author suggests that traditional media will overcome new media as the main source of news for young adults. This article was written in 2008, two years later this information is already outdated. Young people are getting their news from online sources and social media more often than from traditional media.  In the article The Journalist as a Programmer (Royal, 2010) discusses how data and journalism are being used to compliment each other, rather than two separate departments, at the New York Times.  People have an inherent need to communicate, and with the rise of new media we are finding that there are other people out there who want to know what we have to say. People will always seek information and news, it is the way we are receiving it that is changing.  The data has always been the driving force of journalism. Journalists take the data and put it in a form that we can consume and use. New media is making it possible for the consumer and the journalist to post data and we have the privilege of having more than one source to refer to.

New Media Research

RQ 1: Where do college students (ages 18-23) get their music?

RQ2: Are they concerned with the legal issues?

RQ3: Do they rely on social media and music sites to suggest new music?

Sample: Convenience sample of 100 college students from nearby Universities

Method: quantitative Survey

I would conduct a survey of college students (ages 18-23) that asks them questions about their online music buying habits, legal issues, and suggestions. At least three survey questions per research question. I am mostly curious about the third research question, and this ties into Chris Anderson’s concept of the long tail “help me find it”. Personally I love the “genius” on iTunes because it suggests new music that I LOVE that I would have never thought to listen to. I wonder if other student feel the same and if they rely on tools like these to find new music “misses”. Also do people rely on suggestion from friends on Facebook through the “I Like” app or other apps? (Really I’m curious about how advertisers take advantage of these ads-social ads- but that is an entirely different and harder to measure research topic).

I think a basic study like this one could give us a lot of information to branch off from and conduct more in-depth studies about these topics and apply them to other areas of new media.

Free and the Long Tail

Chris Anderson does a good job of describing the long tail and how business are able to profit off “misses” not just “hits.” Before itunes and rhapsody people- who obeyed the law, that is- had to purchase an entire CD to get the one, maybe two songs they were interested in. If a company, like Wal-Mart, could not afford to keep this CD on the self because of low profits that CD was inaccessible to consumers who were still interested in the album. This material is what makes up the long tail. The long tail has all music, not just the hits, and consumers who want this music can still have access.

This changes the business model because not we look to selling music as singles, rather than the whole CD; we realize now that we can profit on other things than just hits. It also changes the way we market new products and scale of our marketing efforts. If you are a band you now encourage your fans to follow you on Facebook, and go to itunes to buy a new song or album. Business is conducted online and reaches consumers on a much larger scale. Especially with Anderson’s third rule of the long tail business model, help me find it, consumers are finding new things they may have never been introduced to and are consuming things that once could have been considered as a “miss”.

Anderson’s concept of “Free” as the future of business is the model that we have seen in so many recent companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon. His idea is to give away the product for free and make revenues in another way; By charging for an upgrade, another related product, with adverting, etc. This also changes they way we approch business models in this changing media culture. In the past revenue has been the most important aspect of a business. Now, Anderson suggest, the product come first then devise a plan to create revenue once you have enough followers.

How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube

How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube:

This is a very effective way to deliver instructional material, especially when it involves a tangible object. Imagine trying to read these instructions; it would be almost impossible to solve. This particular video breaks down all the steps into a series of videos so you can replay certain sections until you master the technique, and provides links to the next video at the end of each section. This makes it very easy to navigate through videos, pause the content and practice, and to replay certain sections.

What’s the Next Big Thing in Social Media?

If we follow the path of the Web, Google, Facebook, and Twitter it seems the way to create the “next big thing” is to first solve an immediate problem relevant to your life-if it can help you, chances are that it can help a lot of others- and then run with it! Making a profit needs to be low on the radar as well. If you can find a product that works on the web, investors will find a way to make it earn revenue- most likely from Ad dollars.

The key to Twitter’s success has been ”how we’ve jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of.” The creators of Twitter never dreamed of the hashtag- to follow conversations, the RT- to respond to other users, or the @ symbol- to refer to another user in your post. These were all generated by users who found a way to make the system work for them. This is a great model to follow because the platform for new media is interactivity between the product and the users it only makes sense for the users to be able to create ways to make the product relevant to their lives.

The next big thing in social media will need to integrate everything we already know- instant access to information, the ability to interact and make the system our own, and personalization. New apps like Gowalla and Foursquare also have a tremendous opportunity to earn a lot of money in advertising dollars if they can take over the social media market like Twitter and Facebook have. A new way to integrate the instant access to information is have the relevant information come to you when you need it. Just like the Semantic web, it will predict your needs before you have said you need them. This sounds a bit scary; but think about how great it would be-if it was relevant and not annoying.

To be honest, I don’t know what the next big thing in new media will be. I wish I did. I’m just glad I am aware of this ever-changing, ever-innovating new medium that is here to stay.

The Google Business Model- Can others pull it off?

Clearly Google is doing something right if they made $21 billion dollars last year in Ad revenue because of AdWords. The idea to sell bids in an auction was genius, and to only charge if the Ad was actually clicked on, even better. Google had originally intended to sell its products to gain revenue and for advertising to be only a small portion, but the invention of AdWords changed everything. But how do other business follow this model?

The idea to give great products for free and then only make money from advertising sales was revolutionary at the time, but is now becoming more common for online businesses-ie Facebook. Sites like Google and Facebook proved that there is a lot of money to be made by Ad revenue, but it is a risky business.

Most importantly you have to gain the loyalty of consumers and this is not an easy task. You have to be willing and able to create the best product out there for little to no immediate benefits. Once consumers trust the site and they began to rely on its information then the advertising dollars will begin to come. I am sure there are many sites out there who have tried this method and failed miserably.

User Friendly-The ability to navigate through all of Google’s products with ease also adds to its credibility. Most consumers are not concerned with the algorithms or math equations used to find the information, they just want results. Many sites go wrong in this area as well. If a user cannot navigate through the site with ease, they are less likely to return, and Advertisers are less likely to invest money.

If other organizations are going to adopt the Google business model the must be willing to take a risk because it is not a fail-safe system.  Sites like Facebook have shown us that it is possible to give everything for free and make money solely off Ad dollars. But Facebook was around for a long time, and gained the trust of many users, before the money started coming in.

Interactivity- an uncertain definition

The definition of interactivity seems clear on the surface, but when new mediums are introduced the lines become blurred. When speaking of person-to-person communication, interactivity is clearly the process through which two or more people send and receive information. It is interactive as long as there is more than one person communicating a message. 

The article “Defining Interactivity: A Qualitative identification of Key Dimensions” shows that when referring to interactivity and new media most professionals cannot give a clear description and are uncertain of the impact on society.  Interactivity is described as ” a traditional communication model with a robust feedback loop,” a new relationship being created between people who create messages and those who receive, and interchangeable communication roles.  In the article “Interactivity: a concept explication” it is found that most communication theories share the same idea that feedback is necessary for interactivity to occur.  

The evolution of New Media allows consumers to give feedback on received messages and communicate in a new way. Interactivity cannot be clearly defined because different people interact in different ways. If you are the sender of the message you do not have the same views as the receiver and vice versa. As long as the receiver has some type of control over the message, and can provide feedback, the message can be defined as interactive.

Technology as an Extension of Mankind

The work of Bush, Englebert, and McLuhan all share the common idea that technology and communication can supplement human intelligence.

Post WWII Vannevar Bush suggested that scientist now focus their efforts on creating more access to the store of knowledge and develop instruments where man can have access and command to inherited knowledge. He believed that we the current method of viewing and transmitting knowledge were inadequate and suggested a storage, retrieval, and manipulation of information for and by intellectuals that could supplement the human memory. He was not the only one with this type of idea.

Douglas Englebart had the idea of high powered electronic aids that could augment human intellect and help man solve his problems by accessing information that was previously unavailable. Isn’t this what we do every day when we “Google” something? We use knowledge that someone else created to help us solve a problem that we could otherwise not solve on our own.

Marshall McLuhan is best known for his idea of a “global village” where print culture would be brought to an end by “electronic interdependence.” While we have not reached this point yet, we are very clearly headed in this direction. He also believed that the media are extensions of our human senses, bodies and minds; “where the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole human society. ” His ideas were on the same path as Bush and Vannevar. They all wanted to have mankind share knowledge to create a system that would expedite the flow of information in a way that would be useful to mankind.

While reading these ideas they all still seemed far-fetched in a way. It is hard to believe that computers and technology indeed have become an extension of our every day lives. Bush, Englebert, McLuhan and others created this idea of sharing information to create a better life for everyone and we now all have equal access to intelligent information to help us solve problems and live our lives in a way that we all take for granted.

What is New Media?

Hi! I’m Monique and I am currently a graduate student at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.  I hope to receive my MFA in Strategic Communication or New Media in the Summer of 2011. I am also working in the Marketing Department at Schlitterbahn Waterparks as a Corporate Communications Coordinator/Marketing Assistant. My ultimate goal is to work for an Advertising or Public Relations agency after receiving my MFA.

The time I have spent at Schlitterbahn has changed my ideas of the world of new media. For the first time I am seeing how new media plays a role in a business model and can be used for a variety of different reasons. While I was an undergrad new media was just coming into the picture, and many of us were just using it to keep in touch with friends from High School and post pictures of our weekends. We were beginning to learn about it in our classes but I had never been on the “inside” to see how it was being used by professionals. Now, as a marketing professional, I can see the practical applications of new media and how it is changing the way can use social media in our business models.

In “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology” author Dennis Barron tells about the time he realized he could no longer “draft anything coherent directly on a piece of paper.” Realizations like this are at the root of new media technology. Where once normal tasks seem foreign and new interactive ideas have become the way of life.

The rise of new media has changed the way we interact with each other and the world around us. New media is anything that changes the way we interact with traditional media and has an impact on society. Because of the imapct of new media we no longer just read a newspaper article. We can now interact with the information we recive. We can go online to find more information about the story, we tweet about it with our friends, maybe write a blog post about the issue, post a link to the article on our Facebook page and then engage in comments from people we may have never seen in person. The process through which we receive our information is not only faster, but completely different and interactive. however, the premise remains the same. New Media follows the structure of traditional media in that it is still a means to get information to the public, but the social interaction has changed the we function in our everyday lives.

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