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Seven Digital Media Trends of 2011
by Daniel Anstandig, from RadioInfo


With 2011 on the horizon, here's an overview of the top seven digital media trends coming in 2011.
 
1. Print Goes to the Tablet  
Reinvention and new digital distribution is better late than never for print media. Some big breakthroughs are on the way for print media moving onto the tablet. Touch screens are the new newsprint.

Last month, a new iPad only newspaper was announced by Apple and News Corp. Rupert Murdoch is investing $30 million to create The Daily, a new “paper” that will have no website and… no paper. It will only be available through an iPad application, which will cost $0.99 per week to use.

Wired Magazine and Adobe Digital Publishing have also been collaborating to create a new digital magazine experience for the iPad, Kindle, and other mobile devices.

The business model for distribution via tablet has also become more competitive. Amazon.com announced last month that they would pay publishers 70% of the retail price of their magazines and newspaper sales on the Kindle electronic reader—a virtual 180 degree turn from the terms the company previously had with major publications like the Wall Street Journal.

2. The Digital Talent Pool
Media Executives: Forget everything you think you know about where your talent pool is forming. It’s not growing in smaller markets, and with a few exceptions, it’s not coming from your programming or sales internship programs. The real talent—the ones you really want—are entrepreneurial and creative, and they’re not waiting around in your lobby to get a job. They’re trying it on their own.

Media outlets will find future talent on YouTube, iTunes, or other popular audio/video on-demand sites like BlogTalkRadio. In fact, equal-opportunity stages like the above-mentioned sites already made stars out of many living room dwellers.

This year in Radio3D, we have featured a number of YouTube producers who are earning six figure incomes by creating videos on a regular basis on all sorts of topics from how-to videos to comedy spoofs.

NBC Universal announced an initiative last week to harness the power of the 20 most influential Twitter users in each of the ten markets where NBCU has a local TV station. They will select 20 popular “tweeters” in each market to create content for their websites, broadcast segments, and other distribution channels.

3. Deal Hunters
If you are a deal-seeker and coupon-clipper, this is the most glorious time to be alive! Groupon is just one of many local deal-brands that are emerging now with growing reach and success stories. Other players in the deal-and-savings space include The Dealmap, AOL Wow, Dealradar, and Yipit. Amazon.com and eBay are also investing in the local retail business. This is a significant move by ad networks that have typically been national in focus. Now, there will be more local reach where radio, television, and print have long exclusively dominated.

4. Mobile Momentum
Like radio, mobile media is instant and portable. It has one more killer trait though—it’s personalized. It may be premature to say that mobile has revolutionized the way people consume entertainment and news, but it is certain that mobile has changed the way we communicate.

Next year will bring some big breakthroughs for traditional media in the mobile world. Right now, radio does mobile through a one-way speaker into the car. Mobile media offers a whole new toolbox for creating a mobile brand experience for radio stations.

Any radio station without a strategy for reaching mobile users in 2011 is woefully behind and missing a major opportunity to reach literal movers-and-shakers in the marketplace.

5. Social Nets Deliver Qualified Traffic
Facebook and Twitter are significant traffic and awareness drivers—especially when used in tandem with traditional media. Already, many ad agencies use social media to amplify a client’s local reach and customer engagement. The cost of marketing on Facebook and Twitter makes it hard to justify their absence in any marketing strategy.

Social networking for broadcasters will become an even more important part of maintaining and growing audience. Next year, smart broadcasters will use social networking as a way to drive web engagement, tune-ins, and time spent viewing/listening.

6. Power to the People
Audience-driven television shows like Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, and America’s Got Talent have harnessed the power of the crowd to create compelling and interesting programming. Watch Twitter or Facebook during any big TV show, whether it’s the NBC Christmas Special or Glee, and you’ll see people posting comments and having conversations about the programming in real time.

In my other life as President of Listener Driven Radio (LDR), we have been working with radio stations to create interactive broadcast programming. Our software is in use at some of the world’s leading broadcast companies, and we’re seeing some fascinating impact on station ratings and website traffic as a result of empowering the audience to participate in real-time programming. We’ve seen real-time voting on music stations impact tune-ins and website traffic. In an instant-gratification society, giving your audience real-time influence in programming is natural and powerful.

7. Target Power
Digital ad targeting technology is getting better, more accurate, and more important to ad buyers. Precise geographic, demographic, and psychographic targeting is increasingly valuable, and I anticipate the technologies and systems that make better targeting possible will appreciate in value in 2011. Broadcasters’ digital outlets have a unique asset already, in that their digital audiences are largely concentrated with a specific demo group / lifestyle group respective to the station. Broadcasters have an important road ahead of them in developing audience databases, since precise tracking/databasing of the audience is the first step in making targeting possible.