It’s here! Our KeyTrends mid-year update report
The Canada Media Fund published last January the 2016 Trends report titled Entering the Age of Experience which dealt with an environment of content in which the industry’s actors are increasingly equipped and aware of the new avenues opened up by digital and are gaining in both experience and audacity. This experience—that one could compare to an age of reason—is accompanied by an awareness of the fact that another type of experience, the user experience, today has a profound influence on the creation and distribution of content.
However, we have repeatedly stressed the growing tension that exists between this new power that users have, on the one hand, and the increasingly sophisticated technologies and ever present platforms, on the other hand. More than ever before, we are surrounded by machines that have become “smart” by the strength of the Internet, the sophistication of algorithms and the ability of these machines to communicate together.
This update points out that computer programs’ “learning capacity” is even more significant. There is already no doubt that 2016 will be marked by the considerable place that artificial intelligence will occupy in the coming years and the profound impact that this new turn will have on all segments of the industry, including creative media.
More specifically, the current challenge facing content companies is to create user experiencesthat are both fluid and enjoyable and that enable consumers to easily navigate through an ocean of possibilities.
In the update published today, the reader will learn how bots have emerged in the last few months as a potential solution given the growing importance of text messaging in consumers’ lives. Thanks to the remarkable progress made in terms of artificial intelligence, bots may announce a new era of conversational platforms and business.
Although the growing power of these ever so “smart” platforms and technologies has its limits—among which Internet’s neutrality and interoperability challenges—our previous Trends reports demonstrated that increasingly automated processes that are more transparent for users point to the elimination of intermediaries in exchanges, namely monetary transactions.
In line with these previous observations, this present update will enable readers to familiarize themselves with a new revenue model, i.e., yield management. Although this technique is already present in other industries, for example advertising, the issue here is to explore how the audiovisual sector is currently experimenting with these monetization strategies which are compatible with a user-centred approach.
The update also deals with the emergence of blockchains. Initially associated with Bitcoin electronic currency, this technology is used to create an automated registry of all digital transactions regarding an asset. The particularity of this registry is that it is public and that all validation and authentication processes are decentralized. Applied to the content industry, this technology could make it possible to create chains of public titles which, for example, could automate the payment of fair compensation to all rightholders. It could also be used to simplify and standardize the application of online contracts.
Apart from these novelties presented in this update, readers will have the opportunity to take stock of recent data concerning the other themes covered in Entering the Age of Experience. It is namely question of the ever growing momentum of online video, the way to mass adoption of virtual reality, the creative power of new generations of users as well as the adoption of localized niche strategies by web and television giants seeking to conquer the world.
To download the full report, click here. Happy reading!