Old media is dying. That reality is evident in our daily lives and reflects how one consumes news, is entertained and stays engaged with the world. So, if the transformation of old media is underway, what does legacy media — broadcast journalism, public relations, advertising, television, and radio — have in common with the innovation and entrepreneurship that drives today’s “new” media? And, what do both old and new media have to do with engineering? Today’s “mashup” of media-entrepreneurship-innovation-engineering represents a roadmap for entrepreneurs and innovators to achieve success in today’s disruptive media marketplace. Accelerating this mashup are the problem-solving solutions produced by 21st-century engineered innovations and how entrepreneurs are disrupting the old guard.
With disruption of old media in full swing today, new media businesses are forming at an accelerated rate. But, not all new media entrepreneurial ventures are the same; some grow fast, some slow, and some stay small, while others grow large due to market demand and piles of investor capital. Some of these ventures are lifestyle businesses that exist around the founders’ passions or interests. Disruption has modified media’s ecosystem so that it is now common to see overnight YouTube sensations and Twitter-fueled social superstars dominating the digital media landscape. Digital media plays an increasingly important role in how people connect with one another and how the world becomes smaller.
Examples of today’s disruptive media landscape include:
- An Industry Constantly Changing and Continuously Disrupting: As web and mobile technology exponentially gain in popularity — and become ingrained as legitimate threats to unseat TV and radio as the mediums of popular choice — new media practitioners are tasked with finding innovative ways to reach audiences. This spells enormous opportunity to new media entrepreneurs and innovators who deploy technology platforms, business models, and revenue streams that connect to audiences in an increasingly “flat” and connected world.
- New Media is Today’s Business Model, and Today’s Business Model is New Media: Whether it’s pitching a story or writing a press release, new media practitioners must propel their companies forward in marketing and selling products, services and problem-solving solutions.
- Biggest Landscape-Altering New Media Startups are Media/Communication-Based: The biggest disruptors are companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and others. Some of the most popular mobile apps and heavily trafficked websites are built on “backbones” consisting of technology-driven engineered-solutions that successfully connect content sources to always-on audiences. Leveraging the basics of business, engineering, and communication helps new media entrepreneurs and innovators conceive and commercialize the next big things — or launch the next wave of game-changing, disruptive companies and digital platforms.
- Double Threat: Entrepreneurship and innovation prepare new media practitioners for almost any job in the ever-changing industry. These skills solidly contribute to professional success, profitable operations and new media platforms.
- Accelerating Trends: Consider the types of activities that are disrupting the media landscape. Melanie Witkower founded Screen-Bridge, a company that creates social content for popular TV shows. New media entrepreneurs created Capstory, a companion to wedding photography that helps guests capture videos and photos. And closer to home, Kim Wilson founded and operates Social News Desk, a company founded in Gainesville and now headquartered in Atlanta.
- Let’s look at Social News Desk. This technology company provides social media management software to broadcasters and publishers. By bridging social media and broadcast media, Social News Desk is uniquely designed to help professional journalists follow best practices, perform better as a team, secure valuable social contacts and measure results via data analytics. Kim and her team must be doing something right: Social News Desk was recognized in 2016 as a Gator100 company. Gator100 companies reflect entrepreneurial excellence from ventures that are either founded by Gators or led by Gators. A Gator100 designation requires businesses to have operated for at least five years and have annual revenues of at least $250,000. Gator100 companies are ranked using a compounded annual growth rate over the past three years; the companies are recognized, and celebrated, in February of each year by the University of Florida’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center.
INNOVATION APPLIED: THE NEXT NEW MEDIA STARTUP
Content has evolved so that it now needs different distribution channels. This paradigm shift occurred over the past decade and will not stop anytime soon. Back in the day, news was delivered by professional journalists and brought to the masses from a newspaper stand in the morning and via television broadcasters in the evening. Today, news is delivered in real time via Twitter and increasingly assembled by machine learning systems. Yes, more and more machines write copy — and people do less and less.
Further evidence of the disruption underway involves relevancy. For example, opinion columns used to be buried deep in newspapers. Today, opinions float into public consciousness via blog posts. Magazines used to be in physical form and stacked on shelves; now, they’re digital and found on mobile apps. Broadcast TV was three channels (we Baby Boomers remember!); journalistic content was curated and delivered by the studios. Then, cable networks proliferated, and now, news is delivered in real-time via the Internet.
Distribution networks have become flatter and operate in a 24/7 environment. They represent new communications platforms like Google’s Project Loon and Facebook’s Project Aquila and have been effective at connecting the world. The networks are powered by stratospheric balloons that extend connectivity to the “bottom of the pyramid,” where billions of people live on a dollar a day. With even more disruption forecast, future content is expected to become “smarter” — with machine learning algorithms writing for an audience of readers who include digital natives and non-digital natives alike.
New media innovators and entrepreneurs are tasked with constantly addressing the future of media. The goal is to reach readers/viewers/customers/users over a plethora of mobile phones, tablets, the web and digital platforms du jour. This includes 3D printing, so connecting with “makers” on platforms involving engineered media is good, smart business. The biggest opportunity to collaborate between technologists, engineers and “mediatrepreneurs” (a term I coined) in today’s ever-changing new media landscape involves, in my opinion, the Internet of Things.
How these Internet of Things-related collaborations might occur leverages the following resources and/or best practices:
- A “Digital Media Tool Kit” that students borrow for new digital tools, platforms, and “kits” to accelerate the formation and launch of new media startups. For example, journalist-entrepreneurs can “rent” Google Glass to see stories and experience how stories are told from a different perspective.
- Drones as a platform for capturing images and producing “broadcast-able” content. Two Gainesville-based companies born in Gator Engineering, Altavian and Prioria Robotics, are viable strategic partners for new media entrepreneurs to collaborate with and/or become joint venture partners. It’s only a matter of time — in my opinion — before “drone broadcasting” becomes a scalable business model and/or widely distributed technology platform.
- Oculus Rift as a broadcast network. By positioning virtual storytelling as a broadcast medium, people are part of the story. Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset, is the cutting-edge way for stories to be told and people (both subjects and readers/viewers) to be an integral part of the new media experience. This approach most likely also applies to Miami-based, augmented reality company Magic Leap.
- Curated content (music, film, video, stories, etc.) already represent the next opportunity in new media innovation and entrepreneurship.
Global media operates in many formats and across multiple platforms. Whether its goal is to entertain, connect, delight, engage, distract, inform or terrify, there’s always a backstory that drives the message. As technology advances and as barriers to entry drop, the future of new media reflects the accelerated automation of the industry’s value chain. Media’s traditional value chain will continue to be updated, disrupted, and replaced in the brave new world of media innovation and digital entrepreneurship. Old media is not yet dead, but the death of traditional forms of media is inevitable.
AUTHOR BIO
David Whitney serves as the assistant director in the UF Engineering Innovation Institute. Whitney previously served as the entrepreneur in residence in the University of Florida’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and teaches both undergraduate and graduate students in the college. The courses, Entrepreneurship for Engineers and Engineering Innovation, use real-world examples and the experiences of innovators and entrepreneurs to teach engineers how to change the world. In addition to his roles at UF, Whitney is the founding managing director of Energent Ventures, a Gainesville-based investor in innovation-driven companies. Whitney is also co-chair of Innovation Gainesville 2.0, a regional-based initiative in which people and organizations collaborate to strengthen Gainesville’s innovation economy by bringing 3,500 jobs and securing $250 million in capital investment to the region.