Rise of consumer-generated media
Description
The last years we have seen a rapid increase of blogs, podcasting and wiki's. Especially blogs (aka weblogs) are very popular: it seems that almost everybody has a blog or at least can mention some friends that have one. Besides blogs, there’s now a new concept: vlogs (video blog). This was already popular in the United States, but now it’s also becoming popular in e.g. Europe. Podcasting is also a technology that is already quite popular. Every man/woman who thinks he or she has something to say, makes a podcast and everybody can listen/watch it on the time he/she wants. Wiki has also grown very fast. Nowadays we all know Wikipedia, the online free encyclopaedia as a good example of a wiki that has grown very fast and is extremily successful.
But what does it mean that those media are growing so fast? We see an emerging concept called consumer-generated media. People want to express themselves individually and the Internet makes that possible.
The rise of those media can influence the current ways of advertising. Those media create certain communities. For instance, one person has a weblog about a specific topic. People who like that topic, will visit this weblog because they are interested in it. This means that the visitors all have the same interest and that is very interesting from a advertiser’s perspective. You have a group of people together at one place and that creates the opportunity to customize your advertisings. You can place adds on this weblog and advertise for very specific products/service because you know what a customer wants.
Enablers
- Internet: without Internet no wiki's, weblogs or podcasts. Internet is the enabler / facilitator
- Broadband internet connections: people use consumer-generated media because they have broadbant internet
- Individualism: people like to express themselves in an individual way
Inhibitors
- Overload of consumer-generated media: too much blogs, wiki's etc. can cause an anti consumer-generated media attitude because people don't want to do what everybody is already doing
- Privacy/information hiding: People’s unwillingness to share their ideas/private information
Paradigms
Advertisers will focus on customized adds. The micro-communities (important weblogs, podcasts etc) are an opportunity for advertisers to personalize their advertisings.
Experts
- 24/7 Real Media
Timing
Consumer-generated media like blogs, podcasts and wiki's are already quite popular. The coming years this trend will continue.