The document discusses the shifting context of digital media and its evolution. It notes that media refers to tools used to store and deliver information and now usually refers to both form and function. It describes digital natives as fluid learners who expect transparency and equality. The history of media is tied to the history of technology. It argues that the biggest transformation is the ability to separate content from distribution. The new contexts for media are location, interest, behavior, device, and intent. The future of media is predicted to be networked, portable, fluid, and increasingly collaborative and community-focused.

1. SHIFTING CONTEXT:
EVOLUTION IN DIGITAL MEDIA
Sarah Kotlova

2. Hi.
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@sarahkotlova

3. What’s media? What’s digital?
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(For that matter, what’s advertising?)

4. Media: Tools used to store and
deliver information.
Nowdays, we usually mean it to refer to both forms and
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function (and, profession).

5. Fish don’t have a word for
water.
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6. Hello, digital natives.
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7. • Fluid multi-channel communication styles
• Intuitive learners, rather than linear
• Non-sequential in acquisition and use of information
• Learn via - and expect - participation
• May not always understand rhetorical questions
• Expect great transparency and equality
• Very value-driven
• Believe - and expect - there is more than one way to achieve a goal
• Have defined ‘private’ and ‘public’ zones
• Expect to collaborate
• Innovative
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a few generalizations

8. So let’s talk about this here
future.
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9. The history of media is the history of technology.
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Phonograph
1890ish
Photograhy
1820ish
Cinema
1900ish
Television
1950ish
Mobile
1990ish
Internet
1990ish
Technology
Media
Social Media
2000ish
Guttenberg Press
1450ish
Iconography
Um, 1000BCE plus?
Open Source
1998ish
Arguably
the first
‘mass
media’
1780ish
Industrial revolution
1820ish
Arguably
the first
mass
advertising
1860ish
OED:
Crowdsourced
1884
email
1993ish

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So yes, it is a bit like what you’ve suspected.

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Image credit: here

12. But ... that’s not really where most things come from.
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13. BIG THINGS
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AND
LARGE MONEY
Strange little useful or
funny things. In short:
pet projects and
random stuff. <
Not all the time of course. But pretty darn often.

14. Highly commercial ventures from someone’s wierd Tumblr hobby.

15. Making People
Like Things
Making Things
People Like <
The first new (?) rule of advertising.

16. Maybe why that’s why this is all
still so much fun*
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*Never, ever, undervalue the power of fun.

17. And now,
for something
completely
overwhelming.
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18. Americans spend approx
15 1/2 hours a day with media*
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*Believe it or not, that does not include work. (“Work”?)

19. Americans are awake approx
16 hours a day.
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Our world is increasingly defined by the
screens we watch or interact with.

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23. You may grow nostalgic for the day when it was only Siri who talked to you.
Image credit: HERE

24. Your digital choices are
transforming the media market.
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25. What’s changed (or really, evolved):
• Almost every media channel.
• Information delivery and exchange: Where, when and with what protocol.
• Authority: who gets to say what, and if it gets reach.
• The expectation of media in consumer’s lives: On-demand culture.
• Convergence of ... well, everything.
• Trend towards the humanization of companies.
• Expectations of authenticity & transparency.
• What, exactly, we are willing to pay for.
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26. Inflection Point: Monetization of
Traditional Media(s).
Nearly everything about media publishing, form, delivery and
expectation has seen significant levels of change in the last 20 years...
of course expect changes in it’s methods of monetization.
Monetization* drives art, journalism, popular culture and innovation.
Increasingly, these things go together, and new technologies drive new forms
drive new creations, new creations mash up to invent new forms.
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*Well, that and fun.

27. So let’s follow the money.
(And yes some fun too)
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28. The very model of the entertainment and
publishing industries have been built on the
ine!ciency of creation & distribution.
* In other words: historically, you were paying for the scarce, di!cult to
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produce or replicate, form.

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The biggest transformation in media is the ability to
separate content from it’s means of distribution.

30. DISINTERMEDIATION*
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* loose the middle man

31. Publishing is moving from a product
to a process.
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32. The new context(s) for media:
Where are you?
Who are you?
What are you doing?
What device to you have?
What are you looking for?
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33. The new context(s) for media:
Where are you?
Who are you?
What are you doing?
What device to you have?
What are you looking for?
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Location
Interest
Behavior
Device
Intent ... data you are choosing to
provide, constantly

34. DIGITAL SHIFT: FROM
FOCUSING ONLY ON
COMMUNICATIONS TO
CRAFTING INTERACTIONS &
DEVELOPING EXPERIENCES
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35. Data (used respectfully) is service,
in the online world.
Privacy Personalized
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(Relationship-based)
trust
Anticipatory

36. For those dependent making money still via mostly
production and distribution control: Evolve or su"er*.
*And probably become pretty unpopular

37. The power of the ultimate aggregators.

38. Digital delivery enables shifts in context.
Which enables a re-imagination of nearly
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every every form of media.

39. There is nothing automatic or
inevitable about digital media
‘dumbing down’ creative or
journalistic expression.
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40. People are JUST. SO. DIFFICULT.
Bigger Smaller
Broadcast Personalized
Long form Short form
Iconic Participatory
Independent Connected
Bigscreen Handheld
Creator Aggregator
People want di!erent things at di!erent times, potentially with elements of the same content.

41. It’s not the structure it’s the content.
Albums Songs
Newspapers Articles
Encylopedia Wikipedia
Books Kindle

42. The new success: Win the minutes
(should probably look into this ;-)

43. Paper isn’t dead, it’s on demand.
Newer media seldom completely replace ‘old’ media, but it tends to rarify it.
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And in some cases, makes it more prestigious.

44. The ‘atomic units’ of traditional media is no longer
fixed in either space or time - it necessarily becomes
something that can evolve over time and flow over
space.
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YouTube: Johnny Cash Project
It’s never done, it’s never final, it’s never fixed, and it’s delivered on demand.
It’s not just the form, it’s the flow.

45. A JWT COMPANY COPYRIGHT 2013 A few predictions:
• The future is networked, portable and fluid.
• Digital connectivity links physical and interest points: What we wear,
what we use, what we expect will continue to converge.
• Everything will become even more collaborative.
• Multi-dimensonal storytelling: Multi-narrative ability means content
flows, is edited and updated.
• We will create monetization models around community and events rather
than content.
• Increasingly we are all media producers as the ‘hardware barrier’ continues
to lower.
• Overwhelm is the new normal; e"ective curation become more and more
necessary.
• ‘Old’ media isn’t dead: it’s on demand.
•

46. Bonus Question:
So what’s the ‘media professional’
of the future?
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Appendix

49. http://www.findingbetteragencies.com/wp-content/uploads/Internet-Advertising-Infographic1.jpg

50. Source: Digitalmarketing.edu