TV and personal media

Personal media

Citizens’ media

‘Wedia’

Exploding TV

There are a lot of terms floating around the internet, blogs in particular, for defining the new new media (not a typo) landscape. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, BitTorrent – they all add a uniquely indie flavor to how people now create and use media. A fan site is now just as important as the official website if you’re a television of movie producer. Personal or fan-initiated conversations are the best way to create buzz, sustain popularity and monitor user/viewer involvement.

There are two large, interesting stories today about the intersection of the ‘new new media’ and television that I wanted to share. The first comes from BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis. The piece is a 107-slide PowerPoint on ‘Media 2.0’ or ‘Micromedia’ by Bubble Generations’ Umair Haque. Two new terms for ‘new new media’ and a very substantial, if long, read. The jist: microchunks of information – news, entertainment, whatever – flips the paradigm of mass media, blockbuster-driven marketing and distribution. Duh.

The second story comes from Ed Cone. The Terry Heaton article he references discusses Television specifically and urges local TV affiliates to embrace ‘personal media’. Using Movable Type as an example he shows how small broadcasters and larger affiliates can stop spending big bucks to let third parties rn their websites. A compelling argument simply made.

Both authors make excellent cases for everyone, from the boardroom to the mailroom, participating in ‘new new media’. The 21st century is going to be about all these individuals and their unique voices. The software and the infrastructure puts up little to no barrier to entry into this space, so sitting on the sidelines seems like a pretty stupid choice. Is your company (or more importantly, network) blogging, podcasting, figuring out what video content to release on BitTorrent? They should be.

UPDATE: TV Squad points to a Long Tail discussion of television. Chris Anderson makes a good argument for more and generally shorter show lengths to dominate in the future. Goodbye half-hour comedies? It’s already happened.

One thought on “TV and personal media

  1. Immedia

    Henry Copeland, the man behing Blogads, coins the term Immedia today thus sweeping away all the other inaccurate and unwieldy monikers for blogging, vlogging, podcasting et al.
    A few of my former favorites include:
    WEdia
    Consumer-Generated Media (wh…

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