Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Snapchat, Twitter and the Unknown

As I began discussing yesterday, I think that the trend in media tech will move further toward citizen engagement. We briefly touched on snapchat, but I think that its model, and its success, will inspire similar innovation going forward. The setup on snapchat is often for an event, for example, and those attending the event are given the ability to upload their own snapchats (photos and short videos) to the events snapstory (feed). The feed can then be viewed by anyone that has a snapchat, and the viewers are able to view the event through the literal lens of those that are in attendance, in real time. As I mentioned in class, these feeds are expensive to produce, but it is possible that media technology will find a way to amend that issue going forward.

The other aspect getting news from snapchat comes on the “discover” page, which is set up similarly to Apple’s Newsstand feature, and there are 12 news producers including CNN, ESPN, Vice, Yahoo!, Daily Mail and more. It has become a great source of news because viewers are able to quickly get information on things that are happening. The news is also delivered in a visual way, and is connected to written versions of the stories for those that want to know more. Having the 12 news sources in one place also accomplishes the goal of aggregation that we discussed in class yesterday.

I also increasingly get my news from twitter. Again, a place where everyone can interact in real time is what makes the social media approach successful. I love that I can follow my favorite news platforms and see the stories they produce all together in one place, rather than having to go to each individual site. Again this kind of aggregation will likely be a feature that remains in place going forward.


Other than that, it is difficult to say where the future of media technology is going. The need for news will always remain, although the way that we get it will undoubtedly evolve.

No comments:

Post a Comment