What’s New Media

The ever increasing computing power and the explosion of the information age have significantly changed the way information is produced, distributed and consumed. New media is an expression of such technological progress in a free society. In essence new media is the democratization of content. Ideas are no longer tied to the status quo, since everyone can create content and easily communicate their opinions.

The internet has undergone a paradigm shift. Just a few years ago content was created by a relatively small number of publishers and directed to a huge number of readers. In the web 1.0 era, the standard practice was to deliver content to a passive audience. The new web – what many call the web 2.0 – has become a participative platform where content is generated by the users. The focus is now in creating social experiences with the incorporation of blogs, wikis, social networks and many other tools.

Like every revolution, clashes are due to occur. Such is the case of the Associated Press (AP) versus bloggers. In the summer of 2008 the AP wanted to charge fees on quoted text and the result was a PR fiasco after the blogosphere found AP claim to be ridiculous (more here).

Old media, in order to survive, has to embrace change and converge with new media. A good example of this is how many old media networks are leveraging the power of the web to promote their content as noted in Laura Holson’s article in the NYT. Many of their TV shows are posted online few hours after they have been broadcasted on TV. Another successful example is Hulu.com, which is a joint venture between NBC and FOX, and has a great collection of TV shows available to watch at any time.

Also fueling new media is the proliferation of handheld devices and improvements in the wireless networking infrastructure, both of which are making the consumption of media ubiquitous. An example of this is the iPhone, which has available applications that stream live video.