Six technology trends for news publishers are among 55 insights from US-based Webbmedia Group.
In its 2015 Trends report, the Baltimore-headquartered digital strategy consulting firm tips near-future trends in digital media and technology. They include:
using algorithms to curate content based on users' interests and behaviours; the report says Facebook Newsfeed is already using algorithms to curate posts and serve content it thinks engaging: "Rather than delivering a full breaking news story to our mobile phones, algorithms will deliver the 'waiting in line at Starbucks' version of that story, a more in-depth longread to our tablets, and a video version of that story once we're in front of our connected TVs," the report says.
technology to help journalists keep their sources and information confidential and secure; it already exists with the Guardian's SecureDrop system which allows whistleblowers to share files without being tracked: "We applaud this idea... (but) have not seen other media organisations developing systems to securely transfer information or to encrypt their own data," the report says.
Webb identifies a growing trend that smaller audiences want to be captivated by newsletters, podcasts and niche networks, and urges publishers to "tell a news story by creating a conversation; the report quotes Chris Hardwick, whose Nerdist podcast is now a multiplatform show, "Our culture is so niche-oriented now, you don't need three million people to listen to your podcast - if 10,000 people listen, which isn't a hard number to achieve, then 10,000 people listen to your podcast." The report suggests that brands can have one-to-one conversations at scale and news organisations can publish content as conversations.
demand for seamless content sharing and distribution between devices calls for the cloud, "an easy storage system that is now available to anyone". The report anticipates new content upstarts promising to be 'the Spotify of news' and the use of multiple devices and synched content... "starting to read a magazine story on your office computer, then picking back up where you left off on the eliptical machine at your gym". Users want to find and save content to their own dedicated lists and see recommendations, the report suggests.
virtual reality technology to tell a different type of news story: Gannett is starting to experiment with VR for long-form, nonlinear journalism and has created an early news storytelling prototype using VR technology, it says. "When tethered, VR... can stimulate sensations of being physically present in the scenes a user is viewing."
aggressive versioning is likely to be a 2015 priority, with content creators "working alongside algorithms to repackage and syndicate different versions to different devices depending on a user's individual needs, given that those needs will change throughout her day". The report says media organisations' need to adapt their existing content to fit the screens of constantly evolving devices leaves users' needs behind: "Storytelling is now multidimensional and media organisations need to think about all the possible story dimensions within the context of what the user is doing rather than what device they are holding. Organisations need to think about the digital version of the news story and ask questions like, 'where is the consumer right now and what is she doing? Is she at home, at work or in a new location? What types of content will be relevant for her, given a particular moment in time and her interests, activities and location at that moment?'."
Content providers must ask, 'What's the waiting in line at the coffee shop version of this story? What's the running on a treadmill at the gym version of this story? What's the sitting at work, ready to concentrate version of this story?'
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