Kyle Kondas recently retweeted an article about some of the trends that social media experts think will shape media over the coming years. Some of their points I couldn’t agree more with, but some I have a hard time agreeing with, or at least think they overinflated some. Here’s some of the trends they listed:
“Mobile will become the primary point of access and on-ramp”: Absolutely. I know I for one only bring my laptop to campus if I need it, because I don’t like carrying that much weight on me. As technology grows ever-present, and it becomes cheaper and more efficient to have people able to work on-the-go as opposed to chained at a desk, mobility will become even more important.
“Social Search”: Not really my thing. I can see it being useful in the future if it would be able to tell that I was searching for movies, etc, but search algorithms need to be focused on first, not just adding Twitter and Facebook to them. Also, as per my post last week, as Twitter and Facebook become used more and more for things other than friends, people won’t necessarily want a generic script telling them that some of their Facebook contacts like a movie or band.
“Depth of Usage becomes more important than volume for Digital Media Publishers”: Slightly. Let’s take eReaders as an example. I, and several others like me, chose the Kindle because it has the best volume of books available as opposed to others. Also, the eInk screen is nice, easy to read, and doesn’t hurt like hell over time. Now look at Apple’s iPad. When it was released, it was marketed heavily as an eReader, and they made a new basic app for it, iBooks. No one I know with an iPad uses iBooks. Why? Because it hurts like hell to read and the library is slim at this point. These people also own a Nook or a Kindle or some other such device. Brand loyalty is not enough to sell a product…your product still has to be useful first. Also, one way to create depth of usage is to have a large volume of products. If you don’t have a lot of products, your micropayment system doesn’t go very far, does it?
“News makers get professional: they have the tools, reason, and money to set the agenda on their own”: Ok, I’m actually kinda confused on this one. I think with that part, he would mean the casual news bloggers, not major outlets. But then he says they can “communicate directly to the masses”, and I don’t know which group he’s talking about anymore. In general, all publishers of the news are going to have to get more mobile with their news if they want to survive. The pace of our society is picking up to to the point where we can’t afford or even want to sit and watch an hour long news program every night. People want what’s important to them, and they want it at their fingertips when they want to read it, not when a network has decided is a good time for people (which is apparently 6, 8, and 10).
“Mobile Web and Mobile Apps”: Just see above under “mobile”. Also, news organizations should look into both of these things.
“It’s the experience….stupid. Fantastic design with emotional connection will be the differentiator”: ABSO-FREAKIN-LUTELY. As a designer myself, I know the power a good design can have. Think about it: how many Twitter apps are there for the iPhone? What makes people choose one over the other? Hint, it’s not whether or not Twitter themselves created the app. It’s the one people feel has the better UI. This goes for lots of those apps that all have a similar purpose: people will choose the one with a better design and easier use over all the others. If people don’t like the experience of using your product, it will take a LOT for them to use it. And as more and more developers are able to design those products that most consider essential…big name companies better step up their design game if they wanna remain big name companies.
4 Comments
Nice breakdown!
I agree with you on all your points, especially design. For me, seamless, aesthetic design is key to any technology I spend my money on in personal and professional spheres. It’s funny how the aesthetic component is especially important to me. I’m sensitive to the look, the texture, the size and weight of things and flaws in aesthetic design glare at me (call me a perfectionist).
Smart companies know there are people out there like me and will continue to provide beautiful design that also, yanno, works beautifully too.
I literally did a *hand clap* when I saw the sleek new Macbook Air, even though my Macbook pro is barely six months old.
you are weight. Mobile phones will be the key on how we consume information in the future. We may not just need to wait until 10pm to watch the newscast. We may just need to turn on the phone and watch the newscast anytime in the future.
Samuel
Interesting article. I like your approach to the article but wonder if you could pull all of your observations together into a summary statement about the future of social media?
I think the depth vs volume is interesting in the context of Katherine Hayles’s “Hyper and Deep Attention” essay. I would argue volume is more important. The M generation probably isn’t going to be reading War and Peace, but they’ll probably annihilate a series of short books about zombie uprisings, robots, or JBiebs.