Grown Up Thinking

Everywhere you look, media properties are looking to bring individuals into the coverage of what will certainly be a historic moment in US history. Just as Obama himself has represented the rapid changes from a one-way communication to an open two-way dialogue through his creative use of Facebook, YouTube, blogs and a variety of social technology, the inauguration itself will serve as a showcase for how new technology has changed the way we create and consume media.

From Twittering with Current while watching the live event to CNN’s partnership with Facebook that will allow views to watch and comment together by updating their Facebook statuses, savvy networks have caught on to the new consumers’ desire to experience events together and be heard. January the 20th and CNN’s ireporters coverage go beyond the main event itself and seek to capture and broadcast personal accounts from individuals leading up to and during this historic moment by making it easy to submit their reactions and observations easily via e-mail, phone, video and twitter. Perhaps most impressive will be CNN’s The Moment, where they are asking everyone attending the event to take a picture the moment Obama gets sworn in and e-mail it to themoment@cnn.com. CNN will then take all those pictures and post a 3D image of the entire scene, with all the pictures combines via Microsoft’s Photosynch technology, within hours.

While such a transformational momemt in history certainly accelerates this desire to share and come together, what we are witnessing is a mere preview of what the mindset of Consumer 2.0 will demand from all media and information they consumer. Millenials have grown up with e-mail, IM, texting and social technologies. They will continue to expect instant gratification, dialogue and a digital soapbox to speak from.

While this unprecendented election and now innaugaration has showcased many of these new technologies, you can’t help but wonder how long it could be till the Super Bowl, gameshows, sitcoms and even commercials latch on to the new mindset and find ways to crowdsource content and create deeper communities around their properties. While 2009 looks to be a slow year for the economy, it certainly will not be in the evolution of media and communications.

Tags: crowdsourcing, politics, social media

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 8:02 pm and is filed under Consumer Insight, New Media, crowdsourcing, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.