The Age of the Stream
The following is also my column in next week's Adage.
Media consumption is changing. You don't need me to tell you that. However, you maybe unaware just how much it's shifting as we embrace "the stream." What's the stream? It's a way of consuming content as a continuous feed of brief bits, singles, ten-minute videos, tweets and status updates. It's reflective of the societal shift from analog to digital. And it's a natural fit for the web, where attention spans are minuscule.
Streams are everywhere. The Facebook news feed and Twitter are two prime examples. However, streams aren't just on social networks. You can spot them on sites like MuckRack.com or Timeswire from The New York Times. It's where, when the news is important, it finds you.
As it becomes the primary way we interact with content, streams threaten longer formats like TV shows, articles, albums or books. Over time, we will find we're no longer a nation that eats media meals. Rather, we're all-day content snackers - which means we become more source agnostic too.
This dawned on me recently as I considered how my own habits have changed.
For years I would engage long-form content like books or audio books in continuous blocks of time. I enjoyed each sitting like a fine meal. But that was back in the day when I would be disconnected for hours at a time - or the mobile experience was poor.
Nowadays, however, thanks to the iPhone, the web is always on. I find it all too tempting to dip into Facebook or Friendfeed for a quick fix of the stream. Yes, the Net ate my books.
Now, granted, I am an "edge case" - an early adopter. Still, if you think about your own patterns, I believe you will agree that streams maybe taking over. Sound scary? I can understand it might and I promise a future column devoted to tips to "keeping up" and managing your stream (versus your stream managing you).
Nowadays, however, thanks to the iPhone, the web is always on. I find it all too tempting to dip into Facebook or Friendfeed for a quick fix of the stream. Yes, the Net ate my books.
Now, granted, I am an "edge case" - an early adopter. Still, if you think about your own patterns, I believe you will agree that streams maybe taking over. Sound scary? I can understand it might and I promise a future column devoted to tips to "keeping up" and managing your stream (versus your stream managing you).
As the age of the stream takes hold, it will force marketers to get more creative about how we break through. It's unclear if ads will be welcome. If they are, they will need to be brief, useful and funny. Otherwise, they will just get in the way and be ignored.
Comments 20 Comments
Hasn't that always been the case in advertising?
It seems to me that "the stream" is simply providing a more efficient way for us to weed out the mediocre.
As for brevity: people like Sparknotes. Summaries are nice. But like Edward says, knowledge requires more.
One major problem, how did human brain became so fast preferment? We've been loosing 'the reflection time'.
Is this all? No, we gained the ease of comparing, debating and commenting. I now enjoy not only to read instantaneous news but also long term running comment, often very valuable. A great way of 'maturing' the fast stream meal.
One, as you note, people like us (Steve, and those who added comments here) are nowhere near typical - we're twitchy, excitable, borderline-ADD, technology and media fanatics. We scare our friends with our behavior. I imagine the vast majority of people will not be consuming media, any time soon, in such an extreme fashion. So this is a glimpse of the future. Is it Utopian / dystopian? Is it near or far future? Don't know yet.
Two, your analysis under-emphasizes the power of narrative and storytelling in helping people make sense of the world. Media fragments, ideas do not. Stories bind fragments. I think a major opportunity for marketers is to find ways of using the stream to feed a broader 'current' (to extend your metaphor) that's a more consistent narrative thread existing across platforms, or 'transmedia'. 'Anytime//Anywhere' media consumption creates a canvas for the extension of storytelling about brands into everyday life and away from more traditional formal channels of engagement. An example: apps for the iPhone such as Hidden Park show the potential power of using stream-based devices (in this case an iPhone delivering an augmented-reality fuelled treasure hunt) in combination with other media to tell stories about brands in which the consumer is a participant and actually partly a creator.
So as the boundaries between traditional media and real life continue to blur, the opportunity is to find ways of using the stream to extend and make more relevant the way that brands engage consumers. As you note Steve, this is likely to be through a move away from advertising as we currently understand it. But who would lament that?
Does this make paid media scared? I think so.
Let me know if you would like me to change anything, and thanks so much!
Remember how people used to say "watch football with the TV sound muted and listen to the radio commentary while watching the TV?" That was because the radio play-by-play was more colorful, more informed than the TV which basically explained to one sense-your eyes, what you could already see on the screen.
Now, a teenager, for instance, has the Internet on all the time, with live chat some of the time, (Hint about "always on" social conferencing-it's coming), Ipod to (one) ear, video streaming live gaming, even Anime on another screen (split screen? Multiple windows?)running on the same system. Think it can't be done? It is being done, and more and more.
The point is advertisers are now using frequency to get reach in certain venues, mainly because it takes MUCH MORE frequency to get even basic "reach" because of eyeball competition.
Consumers, particularly young adults and teens already "tune out" to commercial messages, and are getting more strident about "so many commercials."
How then to capture the hearts and minds of people?
Might we return to "Branding" as the primary way to ensure loyalty, when and if a purchase is to be made?
One thing for sure, the thing we call "advertising" will have to change; have to evolve into something that accomplishes the Grail, namely, when a customer wants a product or service, when the need and the opportunity converge, the decision is YOUR brand.