Published: April 27, 2009 in articles » management by Thomas Baekdal
These days, everyone is trying to figure out how to connect with other people. It used to be simple, you just placed some ads in whatever newspaper that was most suited to your product, but now that world is becoming ever more irrelevant. So how do you connect with other people today? And more importantly, how do you do it tomorrow?
In this article, we are going to take a little tour through the history of information, or more specifically, where to focus your efforts if you want get in touch with other people. It is a really exciting time, because we are currently in the middle of the most drastic change since the invention of the newspaper.
We are seeing an entirely new way for people to interact. One that makes all traditional ways seem silly. It is a fundamental shift, and it will completely change the world as we know it. And the best thing about it is that you get to help make it happen.
So join me on this (unscientific) tour of the last 210 years of information + 10 more years into the future.
But before we start to explore the future, let's explore how we got here. Let's go back to 1800 - back when information was nothing like what we have today...
Note: The graph predicts influence over time.
In the 1800, the only way you could really interact with other people was to go out and meet them. It was all about face-to-face communication. If you wanted to sell a product, you would go to the local marketplace, where you would setup a stand. But this also meant that the only way for you to get information - or to give information back - was to be at the right place at the right time. You didn't really know what happened in another part of the city, nor could you sell your products to people in another place.
Some people did talk about this new thing called the newspaper. But it wasn't really the same. You had to meet people in person. That was the only good way to interact.
By the year 1900, the newspapers and magazine had revolutionized how we communicated. Now we could get news from places we have never been. We could communicate our ideas to people we had never seen. And we could sell our products to people far away.
You still had to go out to talk other people, but you could stay on top of things, without leaving the city. It was amazing. It was the first real revolution of information. The world was opening up to everyone.
During the next 60 years the newspapers dominated our lives. If you wanted to get the latest news, or tell people about your product, you would turn to the newspapers. It seemed like newspapers would surely be the dominant source of information for all time to come.
Except that during the 1920s a new information source started to attract people's attention - the Radio. Suddenly you could listen to another person's voice 100 of miles away. But most importantly, you could get the latest information LIVE. It was another tremendous evolution is the history of information. By 1960's the two dominant sources of information was LIVE news from the Radio and the more detailed news via newspapers and magazines.
It was really great times, although some meant that "The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio is simply to get out better papers", an argument that we would hear repeatedly for the next 50 years.
During the next 40 years a new technical revolution, the television, was introduced. It started to real get public interest in the 1950s, and by the year 1990 it was huge. It had surpassed the newspapers and magazines, and it was slowly obliterating the radio. Now people could not only hear information, they could also see it.
The 1970s-1990s was also the time where the newspaper executives were realizing that something was going terrible wrong with their market. They have had many problems with competing with radio, but the TV was in a different league.
Only 8 years later, television is ruling the world, radio is almost reduced to ‘a place where you listen to free music' and newspapers are doing everything they can to stay relevant. But the constant evolution of technology plows ahead with never before seen determination. A new phenomenon is looming in the shadows - the Internet.
1998 was the year when the internet changed from being a geeky place that had little relevance, to ‘every company needs to have a website'. The revolution had started 3 years earlier, but in 1998 it reached critical mass and caught everyone's attention.
It still wasn't used much, and most people didn't have access to it, but everyone agreed that it was the future. It was the dawn of a new era. It was a place where everyone could get information from everywhere - at least in theory.
People also started to realize that the internet was more than just information. You could give something back. You could join the conversation. You could be a part of the experience instead of just a spectator. And most importantly, you could choose what you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it - a concept that hadn't been possible since the 1800. The possibilities of the internet were just mindboggling.
In 2004, only 6 years later, the internet had revolutionized how we approach information. Televisions and newspapers still dominated our news sources, but the new world was definitely online.
In 2004 everyone was making new websites. People were exploring the world of web applications, and online workflows.
People could do an incredible amount of things, and participate in so many areas, that a new concept appeared - information overload.
For the first time in our lives we were being exposed to more information than we could consume. In the age of newspapers we had to choose what we wanted to see. But in 2004 we had to choose what we didn't want to see.
This had a devastating effect on the traditional forms of information. In the past, you could get people's attention simply by making something. People wanted more choices, so you simply had to give them another choice. But in 2004 this changed. People started to have enough, and now you actually had to make something better. It was not enough that it was different.
2004 was also year when a new phenomenon started to take off - Social Networking. The concept had been slowly gaining ground with the concept of blogs. It was an easy, simple and affordable way for everyone to share their ideas. And you could post a comment. For the first time, everyone could create their own sphere of information without doing ‘technical things'.
Information changed from being tools for the professionals, to a tool for everyone to use.
3 years later the social element if the internet showed just how powerful the voice of the people really is. The TV was from the first time no longer the primary source of information, and newspapers are struggling to survive.
Everyone wanted to create their own little world, and connect it with their friends. But 2007 was also the turning point for the traditional websites. It was once the most important change, but now people compared the traditional websites to newspapers - a static and passive form of information. We wanted active information. We wanted to be a part of it, not just looking at it.
The blogs also started to get in trouble. Just as TV had eliminated radio (because it was better and richer way to give people LIVE information) so are social networks eliminating blogs. A social profile is a more active way for people to share what they care about. Social networks are simply the best tool for the job, and the blogs could not keep up.
2 years later, today, the new internet is completely dominating our world. The newspapers are dead in the water, and people are watching less TV than ever. The new king of information is everyone, using social networking tools to connect and communicate.
Even the traditional website is dying from the relentless force of the constant stream of rich information from the social networks.
In the past 210 years we have seen an amazing evolution of information. We could:
But 2009 is also going to be the start of the next revolution. Because everything we know is about to change.
The first and most dramatic change is the concept of Social News. Social news is quickly taking over our need for staying up-to-date with what goes on in the world. News is no longer being reported by journalists, now it comes from everyone. And it is being reported directly from the source to you - bypassing the traditional media channels.
But social news is much more than that. It is increasingly about getting news directly from the people who makes it. Instead of having a journalist reporting what some analyst are saying, you hear it from the analyst herself. Social news is about getting news from the source, directly, and unfiltered.
A new wave of entertainment is emerging (the light blue and purple areas), one dominated by the games, video and audio streams. Instead of tuning into a TV channel, you decide what to see and when to see it. We are no longer subscribing to a channel, where someone else decides what you can see. You decide and control everything about the experience.
And a new concept in the form of targeted information is slowly emerging. We are already seeing an increasing number of services on mobile phones, where you can get information for the area that you are in. E.g. instead of showing all the restaurants in the world, you will only get a list of the restaurants in your area.
This is something that is going to explode into in the years to come. In the world where we have access to more information that we can consume, getting only the relevant parts is going to be a very important element. And, this will expand far beyond the simple geo-targeting that we see today.
In the next 5-10 years, the world of information will change quite a bit. All the traditional forms of information are essentially dead. The traditional printed newspapers no longer exists, television in the form of preset channels is replaced by single shows that you can watch whenever you like. Radio shows is replaced podcasts and vodcasts.
The websites have a much lesser role, as their primary function will be to serve as a hub for all the activities that you do elsewhere. It is the place where people get the raw material for use in other places. And the websites and social networks will merge into one. Your website and blog is your social profile.
Social news, as described previously, is going to be the most important way that people communicate. The traditional journalistic reporting is by now completely replaced getting information directly from the source. Everyone is a potential reporter, but new advances in targeting will eliminate most of the noise. The journalists will turn into editors who, instead of reporting the news, bring it together to give us a bigger picture.
The news stream of the future will be personalized to each individual person, and is constantly adjusting what you see - much the same way as Last.fm is doing today with music.
Everything will incorporate some form of targeting. You will be in control over every single bit of information that flows your way.
In 2010, two new concepts will start to emerge. One of them is intelligent information, where information streams can combine bits from many different news sources. Not just by pulling data, but summarizing it, breaking it apart and extracting the valuable parts.
Instead of reading 5 different articles on the same topic, you will be presented with one, highlighting the vital point of interest.
The world information is also going to be available almost everywhere. The concept of having to get the paper, sit in front of your TV, or look at your computer, will be long gone. Information will not be something you have to get. It comes to you, wherever you are, in whatever situation you happen to be in.
In the same way, information will not be something you ‘consume' a certain times - like you did with prime-time on TVs. The information stream will be a natural part of every second of your life. It is not something you get, it is something you have.
The static and controlled forms of information that we see today will soon be a thing of the past.
Ask yourself. Are you still trying to get journalists to write about your products? Are you still making websites? Is your social networking strategy to ‘get a Facebook Page'?
...or...
Are you making yourself a natural part of people's stream of information?
Download bigger version of the graph, or get the white or black desktop backgrounds
Update: Graph without a 'flexible' time-line
A lot of people have commented that the graph were misleading or downright inaccurate because the time line is not linear. So I created a new graph (very quickly I might add) that shows you the same, with a single day increments.
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Excellent post and visually appealing.
May i suggest you post a bigger version of that timeline?
I would love to have it as a wallpaper. :)
post of the month! u rule (also thinking that gaming will have much more space).
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Jeton, Thanks, and I will post a bigger version later today :)
George, There will always be laggards who refuse to change, and cling on to the old ways. But, as a strategy, those are not the people or the markets you should focus on.
This article is about the best way to connect with other people in the future. And that certainly will not be by turning to the traditional newspapers or TV channels.
BTW: Another article is coming about social news - and why the traditional media will all be replaced. It is not about if the news is printed on paper or posted on the internet. The change is in who controls the news, not how it is 'printed'.
Thom i'm going to fully translate this article in italian (nerdgranny.com as usual). Where's the place for search engines in your chart? (websites or blogs are just invisible without search engine market).
thanks
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Simo, The search engine of the future is, in my opinion, not that relevant. Instead you find new website via the social bookmarking sites, or via people personal streams.
I can already see this affect here on baekdal.com. 94% of all my referrer traffic comes from social bookmarking tools. Google only accounts for about 1%. This a dramatic change in user behavior in only 5 years.
In 2004, about 60% of my traffic came from Google, 25% from other blogs and the rest from varies sites around the world.
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Simo, BTW: Great about the translation.
Jeton, downloadable version of graph is here: Download bigger version of the graph, or get the white or black desktop backgrounds
Oh how I love your prediction articles. According to this, I'm still in 2006. I've been slow to jump into the social network bandwagon.
The markets need us sceptics though: If we didn't exist, old forms of communication would die in an instant, leaving investors stranded. Also, we'd miss the smooth transitional layering graph. I know it'll be on my desktop.
Thomas - an outstanding visualization: I liiike!
Regarding social news: am not totally convinced that getting unfiltered information is of advantage all times. I truly believe that quality journalism will continue to add perspective and inspiration in a way that users will continue to appreciate. Do we want unfiltered news by governments or do we want to read well-thought evaluations by independent professionals who put things in perspective to the big picture?
Professional journalism will have to rethink its business and distribution models - but imho its cause for existence will not die any time soon.
Really interesting article, thanks.
Where I become more cautious is in the future-gazing part. What you have is an entirely plausible picture of the future.
However, most future-gazing suffers from the context in which it is made. So, right now, everyone is talking social media of one type or another. It is natural to assume that the future offers more of the same and to a greater degree - everything more social, more personal, more ubiquitous.
This may be so. But often, innovations seemingly come out of nowhere - sudden mutations rather than gradual evolutions. These are the ones that really turn the world on its head. And they are also the ones it is virtually impossible to predict. I guess we'll see in 2020.
Thanks again for the article.
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Nice Presentation, for those who are still in denial, take your time, you will get used to this picture~ :)
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Aku, we are all like that. With some clients I am still struggling to convince them that the web is more than just a fancy business card (like it was back in 2002). That it is, in fact, a radically change in how people connect with each other. With other clients I am actively working with the new social concepts :)
Lukas, I do not think that analytical journalism is going to disappear - as I wrote: Instead of having a journalist reporting what some analysts are saying, you hear it from the analyst herself.
Was is going to disappear are the reporters. The people who find the news, and report it to you (which is 95% of all newspaper's content today).
Jason, You are absolutely right, new innovations do sometimes appear out of nowhere. That was actually what I was trying to illustrate with the last two gray areas of the graph :)
Leon, Thanks, and good one! :)
A very interesting read!
And some very bold predictions!
I wish I could see 11 years into the future, as did most media companies 11 years ago. I doubt that the future of our global information sharing will evolve even close to what you predict Thomas... but that's what's so exciting, that ideas can evolve faster and can be shared easily these days.
Who in 1998 could have predicted Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Google for that matter was unknown.
Food for thoughts, thanks for sharing Thomas :-)
I like that "ecology of news/information" diagram/timeline a lot. You could have pushed it further out.
However, traditional journalists did at least learn the first rule of effective journalism-because their editors forced them to do so-how to get their points across without subjecting the reader to a huge wind-up.
As soon as you wrote "we are going to take a little tour," I skipped to the end.
Your point about intelligent news & information is well taken. It's actually what newspapers & magazines have done for many years to hold their readers to their publication and no-one else's. It seems as if the new media and the blogosphere will have to learn this lesson all over again in the new formats and with new technologies.
All the best for your continued exploration in this field.
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This is very interesting. well done.
i can't help but notice though how much more impactful and broad the earlier forms appear and how the predictions refer to things that don't really seem well defined yet. like, i don't know if "podcasts/vodcasts" really deserves it's own stripe the way TV does. a lot of what is happening right now may very well turn out to have a fad-like quality looking back on it.
Remember "Facebook"? oh yeah!! i was on that thing in like 2009 and 2010... whatever happened to that? It was supplanted by something that's coming in 10 years that we literally have no idea about right now.
Nobody predicted Facebook in 2002 and I don't think in 2009 we really know yet what's going to be going on in 2020
It's all damned interesting though and i'm excited to see where it goes!
Agreed with simo that gaming will have more space.
I also think a more nuanced view of social networks, social news, and what they'll become is needed. As our networks become more dense, we'll of necessity adopt strategies and invent new tools for qualifying them. Our networks will develop strata, a continuum from most to least-important/trusted sources of social news. The strategies are already emerging, but the tools at present are somewhat lacking.
My 2020 looks somewhat different from yours. Ultimately, we'll come full circle back to the local marketplace that on your chart dwindles to nothing, but it'll be a different creature - still a physical space, but enhanced by all of the info we get from our networks. Emerging technologies like augmented reality and spimes will drive this re-emergence of physical space and face-to-face connections. Phenomena like SF0 (a physical world game where play is driven by a social network), geocaching, and the like are suggestive of the types of interactions we might see. What these things have in common is that at some point, rather than our networked info sources totally mediating our interactions with dumb objects and people we meet in reality (which is the direction the pendulum is swinging at present), the physical world will start to bite back. Our interactions with our physical surroundings will be as data-rich as our interactions with networks, upsetting the neat distinction between local space and Everything Else. We might not be fully in that kind of world by 2020, but we'll be really close.
I'm just tire-kickin', though. Overall, great article.
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About gaming and its relatively small influence. First of all, the gaming industry, and more importantly, the time people spend with it is going to be huge. We already see this trend today, where many people now spend more time playing games, than watching TV.
So why does it not take up more space in the graph?
The thing is that the information value you get from games is lower then when interacting with direct information using Social news etc. Spending 5 minutes on Twitter might give you the more insight and information, then playing 6 hours in a game. The importance of games is low, even if it takes up a lot of people's time.
This is interesting article. Now I believe i'm starting to conscious why people suddenly disappear from the newsgroup, blogosphere and only to be found in facebook, twitter, etc! I think you may have to explain why. The characteristic of information spread and information media trend?
I imagine somewhat mere fictional, some time in future I interact with people around the globe in old fashion face-to-face way; showing them all my family pictures, videos, coffee sipping, laughing, sporting, only its all done via some kind interconnected technology of virtual reality, what people that age may know as 'virtual reality facebook'. And we don't just get and see the news. We experience it.
I'm an Italian podcaster...I'm really happy that the podcasting era is beginning! Even if in Italy will start 2-5 years later than in the rest of the english speaking countries...
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I am skeptical that technology will provide good enough filters needed to manage the information coming from all these new sources. I rather think that we will have more efficient ways of getting our news from our social networks.
That is why it feels to me (like Jack Graham already point out) as if we were on the way to complete the circle back to the marketplace.
I do think however that this marketplace will not be just local (for some people maybe), but our tools will allow us to manage information so that we can move in a global marketplace picking out the relevant information for our particular need or question.
We love the content you've created. It will help me immensely illustrating where we are at today and where we should be when communicating.
I notice you make very specific distinctions about social networking, social news, blogs, sites... stuff that "could" be mixed up (like a site that has a huge social media component into it), but you do not mention mobile as a means to obtain info, or the time people spend on software tools (even small stuff like phone widgets) or even browsing on Google.
It this somewhat included into the mix somewhere?
thanks a lot for the great info!
@James Brooks a lot of people predicted the Idea that Facebook embodies.
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Andre, The reason why I do not mention mobile, is that it is a platform, not 'type'. Mobile will of course be very important, and it is a big part of the predictions I make where I wrote "The information stream will be a natural part of every second of your life. It is not something you get, it is something you have."
Very interesting post. Just at the right time. I'm starting my thesis on Information Overload and I think that increasing number of information sources that we face everyday is going to change everything. Just as you said we can't cope with processing everything by ourselves.
I know that Social News is what is happening now more and more but for me it's extremely unreliable source of information. On the other hand targeted information is relaying completely on the technology what is not good as well.
Maybe what we need is change in the mindset so we won't be willing to follow everything, every time and everywhere. I already observed this on twitter. Where I only see what happened recently and don't care about what I missed at all..
Really nice article.
Nice to see exponential growth in every field of technology. Ask myself how its gonna end... it is something like the matrix scenario in which everybody lives in a virtual world...
but i think we can stop the overload and can define keytechnologies that last for a long time.
After 2020 (2041) is slowly the beginning of intergalactic communication first moon basestation etc.
exciting time we live in, well every time is exciting (:
Although the subject matter is quite interesting I think that touting the "death of traditional media" is a little over dramatic. I don't think radio, TV or even newspapers will "die", I think they'll just take a less prominent role in the consumption of information and entertainment. More options mean smaller audiences but that doesn't mean that they will die altogether.
This looks like a bell-shaped curve to me, proceeding from knowing a lot about people and events very local to you; spreading out (evolving) to where people all over the world have news delivered to them about goings-on all over the world, increasingly sharing the same news-context each day because of the decisions of huge corporate media conglomerates; to self-selected insularity, focusing in on increasingly local news.
People already pick and choose where they get their news.
I can tell who enjoys getting their information from Fox because their emails mention specific "talking points" that come from those perspectives. They live in their own reality, which is different from the one I live in. Even though I try to pick my sources of information widely, I recognize that I tend to spend more time on a handful of favorites.
Maybe I've devolved into an unawareness of important world events that just don't happen to interest me. How would I know the difference between that, and my habit of judiciously ignoring mainstream stories I find unworthy of so much attention (the OJ trial, Wardrobe Malfunction, flu hysteria) in favor of stories the corporate media pay little attention to that I think are important.
It's going against the grain to seek out "oddball" news sources, and takes a certain amount of sophistication just to know how to search - and then how to evaluate the quality of the information being offered.
What happens when everything is atomized into each of us having our own "news" to tell? Is everything equally valid, equally important, and equally interesting? Search becomes ever more important as the large conglomerating entities disappear. Those news agencies sifted, sorted, prioritized our news, and even did some fact checking.
We already have U-tube videos, in which amateur content swamps the few brilliant bits with what is essentially noise.
In terms of information theory, the situation looks increasingly entropic, as it becomes harder and harder to obtain any useable information from the system.
When "news" becomes like U-Tube, we'll have millions of pieces of "information" competing for our attention, and it will constitute such a high noise-to-signal ratio that it will be too much bother for most people to try to find anything out.
How to tell people about a product? I've been trying to do just that for the past few months. For most people MY signal is noise, and I have not found avenues that work efficiently. Choices are between spending huge amounts of money on ads, or try to "seed" post by post, person by person, in a virtually infinite internet.
...Information entropy is how it all ends.
This looks like successive overlays of the Gartner Hype Cycle, what's new that you are trying to say and what about the death of the oil economy and it's impact beyond peak oil?
Is this just about ABC1s and their toys within the Northern Hemisphere?
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Nice article. Quick - and important - question though: on what numbers/source did you base the graphs?
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Thanks :)
The graph was based on combination of a lot of things, a number of interviews, general study, general trend movements, my experience etc. I cannot give you a specific source though, because I used none specifically.
The graphs before 1990 are all based on interviews, and a large number of Google searches to learn about the history of Newspaper, TV and Radio - and more specifically, what people uses in the past. The graphs from 1998 and up to today, is based on all the things that have happened in the past 11 years, of which I have probably seen 1000 surveys ( it is what I do for a living). And the graph from 2009 and forward is based on what I, and many other people predict will happen in the years to come.
One very important thing though, this is not a reflection of my opinion. This is the result a careful analysis. There are always variations, and different types of people. But I believe that this graph accurately reflects consumer focus.
Another question. I think this is a static point of view that only shows existing medias and refuses the future ones; those we don't have developed yet and those that nobody have thought yet. Which area are they going to steal? gaming? social networks...
And... why is altered the graph scale? It starts taking 50 years, then 20, then 2, then. .. ..
Any visual journalist knows that it´s the easiest way to "lie" with graphs.
A good aproaching but...
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I fail to see how the scale of the graph can be seen as a lie. You can clearly see each year.
The scale changes because it would be impractical (due to size) to create a graph with one year increments over a span of 220 years - and impossible to dig into if it was in 50 year increments. This way, the graph scale expand or contracts based on the important changes over time - giving you a clearer image of what is happening.
As for the future ones, then they are the one represented in gray colors at the end of the graph. How that will specifically turns out is always left for one to predict.
Two things: One anything can happen, and as Steve Jobs said "Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you're going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years."
I think this is a very plausible outline of the future of media. I'm always glad to see when someone talking about the "crisis" traditional media is currently in, compares it to the "crisis" the now trad. media created when they were new. It's refreshing to see someone looking into the future and realizing that aging institutions like newspaper and radio are going the way of the telegraph as "on demand" information access becomes the norm. - @tsmuse
Thanks great post.
Though today parisian went crazy with their Twitter about a tower in Flame in the business district. Helicopters, evacuation... It took an hour of Twitpic and others to come to the conclusion that nothing was happening. This media is so quick that sometimes it lacks of an analytical brain behind it. Everybody is RT false information. I love social news but it still lacks filters.
Back to 300BC the Agora was the marketplace, replaced on your visual by the Lokal Marketplace. Aren't blogs, websites and social digital spaces just other terms for that same Agora minus heart and soul?
I disagree with the illustration that shows the death of certain communications channels instead of their morphing into a more contemporary society. It also appears to be heavily "westernized".
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while i think this was a well thought out idea, i think that by leaving out the telephone's place in information, you're leaving out a huge part of communication. granted, it's very one-to-one, but it was at one time a place where a ton of information was exchanged, and where one might get news or information from another part of the world.
"The graph was based on combination of a lot of things, a number of interviews, general study, general trend movements, my experience etc. I cannot give you a specific source though, because I used none specifically."
I think this is very typical of the social media age you're describing. It will become sort of a "amateur hour", right? If we don't have the journalists and academic circles to critically adress propositions, anyone can claim anything - and the one who sets the agenda doesn't need to have any facts to back him, just his hypothesis and spin abilities - like Seth Godin. A profet, rather then a scientist. A preacher more or less.
But then again - I'm very critical, and will remain more loyal to the news desk and academic institutions. I wont give social media much credit, but thats my nature. And I've been here since -96, through usenet, IRC, GeoCities and forums (the social media platform that preceeded blogging platforms,I'd argue).
I don't think amateur hour will come. why? Because the grand institutions that were the newspaper, they became radio, then they became TV. Much are owned by the same people. They will also turn to the web, allthough they turn slow. Or in short: Professionalism prevails.
There will still be greater benefit in getting a percieved neutral perspective on your product, than you writing og telling about it. Or you writing and telling about other things. Cause Art directors also make profecies and they say: "in the future, there will be information caos! Be short - blitz them! For they do not care about your tooth brushes or nitted scarfs"
Things will change. Yes. But they allways do. Its flux. And we allways adapt. No worries.
Very interesting stuff. Kudos. But I think you're making a few mistakes. Forgive me if I protest too much:
1) In your summary, you forgot a few important media: before newspapers there were letters and books (kind of a big deal); after newspapers there were movies, telecom and i think from time to time, people still talk face to face. (At least they do if they're not bloggers :)
2) You assume that everyone is just like you. Yes, web-savvy, blog-literate people will follow the pattern you set out.
But for every blog-literatti, there are 4 other people who prefer phones, books, or good old fashioned face-to-face. Us unenlightened slobs will continue to access 'information' the same old way. If social nets and googletargetblah will mean anything to our way of life, they will be additions to the old stand-by's, not replacements - especially not by 2020.
3) You define this in terms of 'new ways of connecting to people' - but i think the real nature of the beast is that we have new ways of TRYING to connect to people, and often failing.
In the age of the internet, everyone is talking and few are listening. For example, plenty of people will comment on this article, but how many will read any comments but their own and maybe the first five...
Newspapers are not dead in the water. They are just trying to figure out how to make as much money online as they did offline. The printed paper, maybe... but definitely not the process. There will always be a need for curated, journalistic type content.
In respect to Social Media consuming blogging sphere? You must be crazy. Social Media is only one of two things. A way to bring people together to talk and discuss and share, OR a filter for web content. Both are valuable but neither is powerful enough to stop me from posting on my blog. Having my own blog makes me feel unique, it makes me feel different. It makes you stand out from the rest...
But I'll say this much. Yeah, the trending may suggest some of the things you're implying like the death of print, which is still pretty controversial. But websites, whether you want to call them website, or blogs, or portals, or applications will be relevant until a totally new medium is created. Otherwise Social Media will just play a supporting role, the sugar on top... not the whole cake...
That's like me hanging out at a bar all day? What good does that do?
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"All the traditional forms of information are essentially dead."
I know you don't mean 100% dead. Every few years someone says x or y is dead. Like Unix.
Very Interesting though...
Very very interesting stuff. Kudos. But I think you've made a few oversights. Forgive me if I protest too much:
1) In your summary, you forgot a few important media: before newspapers there were letters and books (kind of a big deal); after newspapers there were movies, telecom and i think from time to time, people still talk face to face. (At least they do if they're not bloggers :)
2) You assume that everyone is just like you. Yes, web-savvy, blog-literate people will follow the pattern you set out. But for every blog-literatti, there are 4 other people who will always prefer phones, books, or good old fashioned face-to-face as ways of gaining information (news entertainment and all the rest).
It takes intellect and curiosity to find the good stuff (like your article) on the web - and that's something that a lot of people simply don't have. Yes, all of your readers know about delicious and fark, etc., but I'd bet we're in the vast minority. The rest will continue to access information the same old way if only because it's easy.
I really enjoyed reading your article. It's always interesting to read different views of the future of information delivery, especially when accompanied by nice graphics :)
However, the graph loses focus after Television. A more appropriate path would have been to list the personal computer, then the mobile phone. In response to Andre, you mention that mobile phones are a platform, not a type, but it is these platforms and advances in technology that allow the types to flourish.
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Liz, Thanks :)
But I need to clarify something here (to all of you who have mentioned computers and phones). The point of the graph is not to show the advanced in technology, but to show where you should focus if you want to connect with other people.
As such, the personal computer does not come after Televisions. A personal computer is a thing, not a way to connect with other people. The internet, however, is a way to connect with other people, many of whom (at least in the early days), used a personal computer.
Its the same reason that the graph states 'television' and not TV. A TV is a thing, television, is what happens on a TV.
So the internet does come after the television, and the TV, personal computer, phone, etc. is just one of the many devices we can use for that purpose.
As for those who question why I left out the books and phones. The books were left out because they are not ways to communication, but rather ways to inform. (although that can be debated)
The phone is not left out, it is very much a part of the internet revolution and the social elements. E.g. I use my phone to connect with people over social networks. But again, it's a thing, not a way to communicate.
-
anyway, I really enjoy all your feedback. Keep it coming!
Everyone what does lokal means?
Love the graphics , but grey areas indeed exist.
Face to face, Paper, Tv, Internet, mobile; these should be the main categories.
You missed out mobile here.
The above should be one graph by itself.
The secondary graph should be then the internet and it's marketing and social capacity.
And within the internet space, there is websites emails, blogs, social media and so on. I think you missed out the email bit. Here too.
But please let me know what you mean by lokal, its not in wiki.
Everyone what does lokal means?
Love the graphics , but grey areas indeed exist.
Face to face, Paper, Tv, Internet, mobile; these should be the main categories.
You missed out mobile here.
The above should be one graph by itself.
The secondary graph should be then the internet and it's marketing and social capacity.
And within the internet space, there is websites emails, blogs, social media and so on. I think you missed out the email bit. Here too.
But please let me know what you mean by lokal, its not in wiki.
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this is a fantastic post....the time of newspapers is going to finish...they need public founds to survive ...now the information is online(webs, blogs, social media ect) and free...where the old press can't survive...
and we have to do a good using of web for our best...to keep it helpful and in high quality for all the people...
let's hope for better days :)
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Very interesting and well put together.
I have to agree with nick's comment that books, letters and movies (especially back in the news reel day) are pretty important and need to be included to make this complete. I also wonder if journalists are going to disappear . . . may get their paycheck from different sources but the job may stick around in the same way that writers have existed through all these memes.
lastly - i would question whether there is as much differentiation between websites/blogs/social media etc as the illustration depicts. TV has a progression as well from networks, to cable, and depending on your definition of it one might make the argument that youtube and other sites are on the same continuum - though i'll accept the definitions in this cause i think the post is making a great point.
I guess the thing i'd like to hear more on is this: can we view the 'targeted' area in the end as a modern version of the local marketplace where instead of soap boxes we are using iphones? and if that is legit does how does it affect this depiction?
This was fundamentally awesome, thank you.
I'm commenting because of how I reached this:
Clicking on a Twitter link => a blog that only had a thumbnail of the big picture => a tumblr account that had a larger version => yet another blog entry that finally => sent me here, to the actual source.
Diffusion can be downright obnoxious. 2020 might suck.
Not sure I entirely agree with your reasoning. Firstly broadcast medium still have mass appeal ,-a tautology but nevertheless a good one particularly in developing nations. Newspapers just need to redefine themsleves away from being a product into being a brand. I trust the brand across all media. If you mean the death of paper products almost certainly much more consolidation. In UK I suspect 2 will remain standing
Secondly I suspect there will be a few bits of info/meme's that spread that will be materially wrong and the fundamental quality of info will be questioned. We have recently had a major story in the UK on our parliamentarians being involved in fiddling expenses. This was started by a journalist 5 years ago. The story has subsequently been picked up by a quality daily who was given a CD containing all the expenses details, and probably paid a good deal for this. Over 1m pages to go through with a team of 25.
Rant over....
I think the semantic web will begin to flourish and there is definately an opportunity for social aggregation of info
All of this is if people want to be connected to the world every second on their lives, and this will start only in a 'half' of the world 'cuz for example countries like Africa doesn't have many computers, let's think in how to share not only our knowledge or info let's think in share tech to others, it's right all of this search it's true but let's think in others ... and a question! I don't understand good about blogs, they will die? when? are blogs dieing now? thnx! regards!
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Just a quick note: This graph does not illustrate the size of the different forms of media. It illustrate their importance. In short, where should you focus your efforts if you want to stay relevant.
And, do not confuse technology with communication. There are tons of different devices around, but this graph is not about that. It is the different communication forms. And that is why I do not mention cable TV, satellite phones etc.
The chart is pretty, but I immediately wanted to know what the vertical scale was. Audience reach? Adoption? What's being charted, exactly?
Then I saw this:
"The graph was based on combination of a lot of things, a number of interviews, general study, general trend movements, my experience etc. I cannot give you a specific source though, because I used none specifically."
OK, then it's still a pretty chart, but sorry, it's pretty meaningless. I'm also concerned that the horizontal scale shift to being more compressed. From the first half of the chart, you cover 200 years. The second half, you cover 20.
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anotado
ditto simo: post of the month!
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Very interesting post. I found it via a tweet by Mashable btw.
You sir, may actually be pundit. For reference, please see my tumblr post at http://SoumendraN.tumblr.com
FYI: Broken links on your site?
I was unable to visit http://thomas.baekdal.com/ which was linked from http://www.baekdal.com/about/
I like your commenting system. What tool do you use?
cheers
Soum
I really enjoy this post, everything has it's own time, some day the internet as we know it will be dead just like market stalls died out.
I have been glad to rely on the trained and paid efforts of professional journalists to validate (or not) the "sources" of news and to provide context. I hope the current (seeming) devaluing of the fifth estate will be short lived.
ha, I meant fourth. Can you tell I'm a Canuck?
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Enjoyed the article. Reminded me of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" http://www.cluetrain.com/ The important thing to remember is that the tools are only as good as the people using them. The mindset of the majority of people have a hard time adjusting as quickly to the changes that are happening with technology.
Because of this, I don't think you should be so quick to announce things obsolete. I predict that while much of what you suggest could be in our future, there will also be some backlash and a return to "traditional" forms of communications on a smaller scale. The return of vinyl record albums after their supposed demise is an example of this.
Great articles!
I still think phones are missing- they've been around - some form!- for a very long time, and evolved, from Alexander - to ericson! You could argue tv is just a format- u can watch it on your phone, tv .,. As you say it's the content, telecommunications have been vital for many - and have uncreased with differing tecnologies. A method but also a broadcaster, as much as visiting a market place. Gaming? But not telecommuication?
You could add telegraph as defunct... I hear that was quite important too.
;)
Are people actually getting news from Social Networks? I don't. I see some people post articles, usually links to blogs or websites. The social network may sometimes be a vector, but it's not a source of news.
I agree with the chart up til 2009. Then for some reason you postulate news coming from Social Networks, from people themselves, from ... games? what?
And, targeted? You don't describe what you mean by this other than people getting localized information on their cellphones. I do this now. It's not news, though. RSS feeds are "targeted" enough for me, it sounds like the same thing you're talking about.
So, I don't see what we currently have changing that much as you describe. RSS feeds already "target" information for people from blogs and websites. They share links sometimes. If my cell phone taps into that, it's just an extension, not something new.
I think the projected change after 2009 doesn't make any sense to me at all.
(First, I do not mean these comments as attacks, but merely as critiques. And I'm breaking them up into separate comments to avoid one big long comment.)
"I fail to see how the scale of the graph can be seen as a lie. You can clearly see each year."
When people see a regularly spaced scale on a graph, they assume that means the units those spaces represent are equal. You may not be intending to lie, necessarily, but you _are_ distorting "the truth."
In my opinion, you should consider what you are trying to show with this "graph." When I look at it, the first thing I notice is the area that each medium takes up. But what does this area represent? This is less than evident, because there is no label for the y-axis, nor is there a title for the "chart." This is why I think your inconsistent time scale is a bad idea... the inconsistent scale makes comparison of the illustrated areas highly inaccurate and worthless. Were I to make this chart, I might have opted to use several overlapping line graphs. Then you could more easily see when two forms of communication have roughly the same y-value. For example, with the way it is now, when I look at 2002, it is hard to tell which is larger: websites or newspapers.
To deal with the impracticality of of a consistent scale, I would recommend either creating an overview and a detail view of the more detailed portions of the graph, or only graphing the detailed portions, and ignoring the parts which you are willing to shrink. After all, if you don't feel they're important enough to keep at a normal size, why include them at all?
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This is a nicely-compiled list of information. I enjoyed reading it a lot and thanks for the graphs. Here is my feedback:
The "Targeted" future seems terrifying. What it implies is not a technology advancement, but a reflection of people getting increasing self-centered.
In a lot of ways, technology did not help human interaction, but merely help us manage the increasing noisy environment by compressing all the information. Look at the first step, "Lokal Marketplace", as an example. It is still the basis of human interaction, even today. For example, despite the Obama campaign is helped by social networks or social news, a lot of its power comes from grassroots movements that are garnered in local community meetings - and that was how his news was spread around in the first place.
The problem of Targeted media is that we will feel increasingly uncomfortable leaving our comfort zone, and it is already evident in our television sources: The conservatives only watch conservative channels, while the liberals watch only liberal channels. I feel the pinch myself, as I found myself never bother touching FOX News, while laughing at the Daily News every day. I am just sticking inside my comfort zone.
The prediction of Social News taking over is absurd. Its unreliability was shown during the recent swine flu outbreak. While it is true that news that would otherwise not be found by reporters can be reported with the power of social media, it also have a great tendency to create bias, as a result of the lack of fact checking, and the lack of reporting skills, which contaminate news with biased viewpoints and opinions.
In my opinion, the author= is a little obsessed with the pretty graph that is resulted by a biased viewpoint. If the graphics are really about "ways of communication", then "Lokal Marketplace" should still exist, because after all "Social News" is just an online version of such classic form of interaction.
And instead of seeing one medium replacing another, we would instead see the constant struggle between the two distinct forms of communication: the pyramid top to bottom (i.e. Newspaper, Radio, TV, Web site), and the pyramid bottom to top (i.e. Local marketplace, Social Media, Social News, Targeted News). We will be able to analyze the differences between generations, where one would like more information from author=ity than their local bartender, while the other would show distrust of author=ities and going local instead.
Meanwhile, if the graph is about the news medium of the past 200 years, then "Social News", "Social Networks" are just part of "Websites", and I would think that "Mobile GPS SMS" will be the future medium. And brain-controlled interfaces will be the medium of far far future.
"The point of the graph is not to show the advanced in technology, but to show where you should focus if you want to connect with other people."
"The phone is not left out, it is very much a part of the internet revolution and the social elements. E.g. I use my phone to connect with people over social networks. But again, it's a thing, not a way to communicate."
I think you need to clarify some of your terms. "Social Networks" should be "Online Social Networks." Or (in my opinion a better option) you should keep the term "Social Networks" as-is, and add in the importance of voice communication via telephone (a hugely important form of communication), and mix that with the "Local Marketplace" since that, too, is a form of social network.
"The books were left out because they are not ways to communication, but rather ways to inform. (although that can be debated)"
Also, I think it is important to state clearly what exactly is being measured? You mention "ways to communicat[e]", and "connect[ing] with people," and yet you openly exclude books and phones. A person can communicate with people via book, its just (arguably) slower than the other methods you mention. Your argument that they are not "ways to communicat[e], but rather ways to inform" could be made with equal strength for just about every other method mentioned on your graph.
"The search engine of the future is, in my opinion, not that relevant."
"One very important thing though, this is not a reflection of my opinion. This is the result a careful analysis. There are always variations, and different types of people. But I believe that this graph accurately reflects consumer focus."
"The graph was based on combination of a lot of things, a number of interviews, general study, general trend movements, my experience etc. I cannot give you a specific source though, because I used none specifically."
I put several terms in my previous comments in quotes (like "graph" and "the truth") specifically because of these statements of yours. You can not state (as you have done) that this graph does not reflect your opinion AND say that you used no specific data sources. It is one or the other... opinion or fact. That which is not fact is opinion.
That aside, I think your predictions of the future are interesting, but should be more clearly indicated as your predictions, based on your personal opinions. You would probably save yourself a lot of criticism if you cited sources.
Interesting historical context, and I guess I'm proving your point by pointing this out... I just wonder if this interesting article doesn't become too science-fictiony or messianic for some. The future cannot be totally predicted.
So here's my two cents:
Origin of the word utopia:
1551, from Mod.L. Utopia, lit. "nowhere," coined by Thomas More (and used as title of his book, 1516, about an imaginary island enjoying perfect legal, social, and political systems), from Gk. ou "not" topos "place." Extended to "any perfect place," 1613. Utopian originally meant "having no known location" (1609); sense of "impossibly visionary, ideal" is from 1621; as a noun meaning "visionary idealist" it is first recorded c.1873 (earlier in this sense was utopiast, 1854).
We can always strive to communicate better and technology definitely helps, but information, especially, by the people and for the people, must be digested with a grain of salt because there's bias in everything. Technology can be used to unite us, but it can also divide us. So let's just be careful what we consume and what we let consume us.
Haha. That's it for my rant.
Thanks for listening.
Nice job on the graph through time.
One thing to think of: we have a clear picture of our past and a less accurate take on present/future projections. Case in point:
1507 World Map:
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/uploads/2007/11/universaliscosmographia.jpg
Europe is very well defined, Africa and the Far East somewhat less, but with America they had very little data to go on at the time - and it shows. There's a little bit of data available - there isn't dragons there - but it's a far incomplete picture of what the actual lay of the land is.
I wonder how you're projection of 2020 turns out - and what the 2 bands above Targeted turn out to be!
The present moment continues to be an interesting place.
Is this chart based on any real data or completely fictious? The graph is visually appleling, but I don't see all the "old" media coming down that fast. I think if you would look at real statistics, the graph would look quite different. Still many people read newspaper, few get their information from social networks.
loved the article.
i have a business in the country ( Serbia) where according to the statistics, only 20 percent of the people are using computers. Still, there is no way one can thrive on this market without implementing new ways of information stream, simply no matter the statistics, the number of people connecting via networks is tripling by a day. It is speed of info, identifying oneself, and connecting(great word)....if i did not read the statistics, i would have said, everyone in my town (Belgrade) is doing it. So i guess i just blog and connect instead of spending budget on prime time tv commercials.
A very nice summary, but you are starting out with platforms and ending with behaviors, which isn't the same. The big paradigm shift we're seeing now is behavioural, which has little to do with the actual platform we're consuming it on.
One example is modern media centers like Boxee and Plex - targeted content with some social media functionality on the television platform. TV is not going to die, but how we use it will.
Interesting article, but some stuff are missing:
On platforms you left out the "Telephone News Service" which was started in 1887 and basically worked as a "dial in" radio station, and you left out letters which were a huge part of the scene - and if I equal letters with e-mail, then they still are.
My other problem is with the Social Networks part. The local marketplace is/was a social network. The letter exchanges were based on social networks. Journalism works in and with social networks. Going to the golf club and getting information there: social network.
Social news are the same. Can you point me to any non-social news?
"We are seeing an entirely new way for people to interact"
We don't really. What we see is new tools that allow people to interact with more people, more easily.
We still interact by talking and listening, writing, reading, drawing pics, etc.
We just don't have to fly, drive, walk to the meeting place.
"Information changed from being tools for the professionals, to a tool for everyone to use."
No, information has been a tool for everyone, all the time.
The tools that was available only to professinals, to pass out information, now those tools are for everyone to use.
It is all about platforms and tools, who can do what and for what price.
We tend to mix up the technology - your graph - with the interaction between people.
For this reason while I agree that broadcasted, centralized news will stop being a monopoly, they will change but stay.
People need author=ative, dependable news sources, so when they read on Twitter "omg, did u know lemon causes throat cancer?" they can go to a site or source where they can verify it.
What I see is two kinds of sources fluctuating in importance/availabilty: interactive "social networks" - ie. other people, and centralized news - TV, Official sites, etc.
And people pick their sources depending on trust.
All that is changing is the actual technology, and the availability of that technology.
My 2 cents :)
I apologize in advance if I missed it, but...
Although an interesting, nicely graphically made, and thought provoking, the article doesn't seem to include any actual verifiable information. Where did you get your statistics? What studies do you reference? I'm sorry, but posting something on the internet doesn't make it true. If this article is to have any validity at all, it needs research behind it, it needs references, it needs more than just pretty graphics.
The issue isn't where we get information, it is where we can find RELIABLE information...
one flaw i see in this targeted notion of microinformation is that i don't always just want news that's only relevant to my sphere. i like being surprised by information that i hadn't expected to come across, that sparks new thoughts, and if it is significant enough, maybe a reorganization of my own ideas, or a refinement.
This is exciting stuff to see how quickly things are moving and how we are swaying away from traditional means of information. I can speak for this since I recently moved and have yet to order cable. I have streaming netflix, internet news sites, and a much better active lifestyle from it.
The thing that concerns me is that the more this information is "coming to us," the more I am reminded of movies and books (Fahrenheit 451, 1984, TX1138, W.A.L.E., etc etc etc) where the viewer finds themselves in a world in the future where a mindless announcer rattles of information from a governmental type source that reads statistics, war updates, and other random information.
Hope we never see the mind numbing scenario. But that's the best part about the future, do we really know what will happen?
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Update: The graph no longer spells 'local' using the danish word (lokal)... sorry about that!
And thank you all for a ton of great comments.
My prediction is that the human brain is going to begin to physically shrink at a much earlier age because of a trend towards more focused and specialized processing and self-destruct because it no longer can find answers to issues outside it's realm of expertise that it can truly rely on. In fact, I believe that we as a living organism are well on our way to becoming tangibly unproductive.
So unless any future means of communication can provide valid sum zero logical outcomes that stream qualified answers, don't bet the farm on any one source or self-professed expert filling the bill unless you are also predicting that we are to be herded and immediately brainwashed by the newest trend, ad nausea.
In principle, you may be saying "I'm money;" invest in me and you will earn what exactly or better yet what's in it for you? Enthusiasm or answers?
My prediction is that the human brain is going to begin to physically shrink at a much earlier age because of a trend towards more focused and specialized processing and self-destruct because it no longer can find answers to issues outside it's realm of expertise that it can truly rely on. In fact, I believe that we as a living organism are well on our way to becoming tangibly unproductive.
So unless any future means of communication can provide valid sum zero logical outcomes that stream qualified answers, don't bet the farm on any one source or self-professed expert filling the bill unless you are also predicting that we are to be herded and immediately brainwashed by the newest trend, ad nausea.
In principle, you may be saying "I'm money;" invest in me and you will earn what exactly or better yet what's in it for you? Enthusiasm or answers?
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Updated the article to include a graph with a linear time-line, as many of you have requested.
Bravo, Thomas!! Well-done and visually-stimulating. People have a hard time understanding that the Present and the Future of media is INFORMATION/DATA, not media vehicle.
One only needs to look to our youth-they do not differentiate between radio, newspapers, tv, online, etc.-to them, it is all 'content'; 'entertainment'; 'videos'; 'pods'; 'blogs'; 'games', etc.
How we receive information matters not, because now, as people become reporters, content-generators, etc., content becomes as accessible as AIR. Where there will be a tremendous need will be to link this content, aggregate it, and present it to the user to make their content consumption much more pleasurable/efficient in as many platforms as the consumer deems necessary.
CONGRATULATIONS, once again, I will be reading/viewing Baekdal.com regularly from here on out......
great article...
Superb, very nice illustration of darwinism at work among information channels.
Other points :
Just don't forget to mention the choice made for the scale : waves are far more rapid than ever ...
I don't believe the death of tv and newspapers, it's gonna be fragmentation in bits of information (like on google news) where you do some cherry picking.
Forums deserve a better place than ... void ;) I'll have put them as natural extension of websites.
Some websites (think e-travel, e-books, ...) will still grab a big chunk of information flow in 2020.
Family networks and news will also grab a part of the cake ... as they do in our every day life.
Congrats again.
Pierre Paperon
www.youbridge.com
While I agree with most of your points, I honestly think the death of traditional media will be delayed for a least 3 or 4 generations into the future.
It's very easy from a socially aware, digital type to predict these things, but it's very hard to get into the mind set of your average, boy, woman and child.
Their are also social divides which inflict technological uptake, those who have and those who don't.
I firmly believe that choice is the future and media will evolve but to predict the death of traditional media within the next 100 years is purely fantastical.
Thank you for the article it got me thinking on a dull Tuesday afternoon.
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About the death of newspapers.
1: I do think that the newspaper, as we know it today, will become totally irrelevant within the next 10 years.
2: That doesn't mean that a few people/companies will stop printing them (I mean, the Ford T is still around, but it's not the kind a car you will want to drive to work in).
3: What's dying is the newspaper, not the news itself. What's changing is what we consider newsworthy, and who makes it. We don't need reporters, when we can get the news directly from the source. (or worse, we don't need newspapers that reprints news stories from Associated Press or Reuters)
4: We do need journalists, Especially those who do more than simply report the news. We need people who can dig into news, and find the bigger picture. Although, you don't have to be a journalist to do that. You just have to be good a something.
5: It is completely irrelevant that old people still want to read newspapers. The newspaper will die when the market changes. People who are unwilling to change, will be force to adapt when the newspapers go broke (and they are already doing that at an alarming rate).
The future of news is actually much stronger in the future than at has ever been in the past. It's more valuable, more interesting and it is everywhere.
Traditional news is failing because it is neither of those.
Really appealing.
I think that traditional media will survive a little bit more.
That is mainly because, in my opinion, there will be a matter of a geographic technologic and social allignment.
Until this gap is filled, and technology will be availble widely at low cost, traditional communication will survive.
This comment is presented also at http://ictheworld.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/the-future-of-communication/
Hello Thomas!
I am very interested in this post. In my blog I decided to explain that, and I made a graph using real data from Spain and Catalonia. You can find the post translated form catalan in the following link!
http://url.ie/1l79
Hi, this is a great overview and very inspiring post. The vision of the future makes sense, in 10 years from now this post will be still interesting to read.. and compare how the things moved.
I miss the telephone from the media, resp. communication channels you listed. I find telephone as a huge step and this is also being slowly replaced now.
Reading your media evolution I have a feeling that somewhat we are returning to the beginnings. The "decentralized" communication based on face to face interaction moved to a centralized one, the information was pushed through radios and televisions. Now we are returning to a more decentralized model of interactions, however we are not determined by the location, interactions happen based on the interest/common goal, or whatever much less geo restricted.
Thanks for your post!
Cues to changing media landscape!
Fun and compelling article, relating to the "Stream" metaphore http://www.twine.com/item/128lryv9z-46/is-the-stream-the-next-new-metaphor
Critique about sources and data will persist, being a researcher I know, but that doesn't take away the ease of explaination to the tangible trend on-going as we speak.
"Technology is a word for something that doesn't work yet" D.Adams and given the responses to this article we still focus on techologies rather than how we as humans interact and communicate to go through our lives.
With all the triggers to be social on the net (mobile or stationary), we are reaching a staggering amount of connections. Findability in the future blurred reality (already there...) will be something we need to adress. You refer to this as "targeted", but if we get this social net to act more adaptive we will get through without getting overload. Filters will be humans in conjunction with technologies, no doubt about it.
Temporal modalities to our information quest is also key: we act in different modes to find, act and contribute in our networks.
To me "targeted" relates very much to "context aware" communication. Where spatial and temporal themes will be mashed-up with topics.
Journalism to be or not, well I do think some practices will have to be revised: but I dare to say that we all change slowly and like "prose" from professionals in a blend with amatuerism.
Lastly: Future in the hand of our kids! 20yrs from now, our discussions like these will be seen in the light of reality check. I remember reading the popular science papers about moon trips and so forth in the 70's :) The only thing we know for sure, is that technologies change our social behaviors in a unforseable manner = FUN place to be!
Question :
Do you make the difference beetween information and communication.
For example, The Twitter of Lance Armstrong is a source, no more journalist to have information about this champion, his races, the day to day life.
Communication. He is controling the message, no way to ask him any question.
How can i check what i'm receiving as an information ?
thank's for your article.
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Yes,I do make a distinction between communication and information, but not specifically in this article.
But I don't understand your question? You can simply ask Lance Armstrong anything on Twitter.
Adib is an ideas person and a lover of all things aesthetically pleasing. He is also a deadly multidisciplinary designer.
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Very interesting article and a great visual to represent the information.
May I add my two cents worth.
I think that in the future, with "Targeted" being the keyword, the role of the curator will be extremely important. There's only so much that algorithms can do to 'suggest' news a la last.fm.
I am of the opinions that a few super-personalities will rise beyond the internet noise and become author=itative sources in their own right. These will be your very own personal curator, someone whom you develop a personal relationship with. This person will be the most popular, coolest friend that you have whom you can ask for opinions or engage in a random chat. "Authority" will not be from 'official sources' like the big newspapers but rather this uber cool 'friend' of yours.
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I don't understand the fuss about the scale. The most natural thing to do to contract a scale when changes in one direction are not uniform with linear scale is to use a logarithmic scale. It's a very natural way to portrait data.
In a graph that is not numerical but rather conceptual this is even more natural.
Besides this unimportant question, I loved the graph. I think it's an idealization, of course. But idealizations are useful: they allow us to see trends more clearly than looking at the raw data. And all predictions, in science, economy, social studies or what have you, are made by looking at the data with a somewhat idealized model of how things evolve in your mind. And this is what you have done with this graph.
I live in an 'developing' country (Brazil) and never been to a more developed place where this trends are more unleashed I suppose. So here we are at a point where TV news and newspaper, with radio in a much smaller scale, are still the main sources of information and news for politically/economically/socially relevant people.
Among my young peers at the university, internet news are very important, but it's still traditional journalism in a different media. Social networks are full unleashed, but it is used more as a socialization tool (make friends, find dates, keep in touch with family and so on) than to exchange information. Social media are being discovered by this young people but it's still very incipient.
But the interesting thing for me is that in older media the developing world was just of a consumer of what was really produced on the developed countries. Our timeline of media evolution was always delayed one decade or more. But social media allows us to be main actors too. We produce as much as consume this constant flow of information
Of course I'm already idealizing and exaggerating. Of course we have a much smaller access to mobile gadgets to be connected with this information flow, we have a poorer quality of internet connection, an this things are expensive and never really reach as big a fraction of the population as it would in a developed country. May be this is what keeps us in the TV/Radio/Newspaper phase - it is a lot cheaper to have a FM receiver in your car to listen to news while going to work than to buy an iPhone or another fancy little hand computer.
But still... it feels like it can be in our hands too.
It is a beautiful-looking diagram but I don't think the evolution of massmedia is really going to change exactly like as described. There is no massmedia to have gone away or disappeared.
To start with, massmedia is known to have started in ancient times when important announcements were usually made through message papers or boards placed on the walls in very public places.
After Guttenberg invented the print press around 1440, there were more more than 2500 cities around Europe having printing machines in 1499 and that was a revolution. But message papers on walls did not disappear. The still exist today. One can see them out in the streets: so many paper posters and billboards are telling us for some upcoming event, campaign, new product.
Radio was invented by Marconi and Popov somewhere in between 1880 and 1900 and was another revolution. Radio was soon considered to be a powerful propaganda tool. A lot of owners of big newspapers were shivering because they believed radio will make the papers useless. Do we sill have the newspapers?
Later on, when television came into reality, the owners of newspapers and radios were shivering ???. It was a revolution once again. TV was much quicker massmedia, providing the temptation of the motion picture, even telling the news in real time, wow! Papers and radios sincerely believed television will kill them. Do we still have papers and radio?
What we see is these types of massmedia are not disappearing. What happens is that they are slightly changing their roles each time a new massmedia type "arrives". For instance, after the TV entered peoples homes papers kept telling the news, but now they are prone to give much more details than the television: additional information, theories, archive data, comments and opinions by experts, etc. - things that TV has not enough time to present.
What is happening with the arrival of Internet is yet another revolution...
Very appealing an interesting. Good job!!
I am curious so see why telegraph & telephone is not in the graph and what would be view from a rural areas, particularly in developing countries.
"We don't need reporters, when we can get the news directly from the source." - alas, I don't have that much faith in governments / large corporations / etc. to give me news about their wrongdoings.
The "watchdog" role is one of the key elements of the press, and investigative journalism requires a lot of time & effort (not just amateur, part time blogging). However, it doesn't seem, per se, to be something people will pay for. The watchdog aspect of journalism has traditionally been subsidized by newspapers (paying full time salaries to reporters who write other kinds of articles, all paid for via advertising revenues, in a nutshell). The large size of media companies also affords a certain degree of protection against retribution from those being investigated. It's harder to pressure the NYTimes Company to squelch a story than it is to pressure Pat Microblogger.
Sadly, a bunch of amateurs twittering won't uncover corruption/etc. I'm curious to see if there's some new model that can replace this critical function of the "free press."
Great article! Great comments, I just read all of it…and all of them.
The later years in the graph apply extremely well on the English speaking population in the world.
I want to put some light o the fact that not everybody speak English and within the different languages there should actually be a different graph. The overall pattern are probably the same but the actual years are different.
I do not write his to be picky about years/details but because it is easy for an English speaking individual to read this fabulous article and - in mind - see the entire world as the reachable world of the social networks that the article describes. But due to language differences there are some pretty waterproof barriers between different populations.
In that sense the new social media is still quite local. Not in terms of national borders but in terms of linguistics.
I am longing for the day when this articles facts apply for - and between - all people at the same time. Think about it. Think about when we can have this kind of discussion within the whatever-media-valid-at-the-time-being included the minds of everybody who doesn't speak or write English. All of us. When we can communicate anyway. The cultural influences have not yet been as borderless as the technology. Social news will still be pretty limited in my eyes.
I am working on a project covering a global attitude issue and I would love to have your (everybody's!) input on how to not only cross the social borders by diving into the facebook-and twitter ocean but also how to cross the cultural and linguistical borders in real time. Or at least faster than to have to learn all the languages needed, or wait for everybody else in the world to learn English.
Anyone who knows the answer already?
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Thank you. Very informative and great to see that longer graph. That really gives perspective on the speed of changes in the future as well. Worth a tweet for sure!
The problem with information on the web is you have to think, "is this correct?". Most of it is bovine excreta, especially social networks!
May seem like a stupid question but what does the Y-axis represent?
With the prior poster I agree that it is important to read articles like this critically. What information are you actually getting that is fact based? For example, look at that graph. It tells you no real information. What is the "x" axis? There isn't one defined. What are the wavey lines about if we don't know what units the graph is based on?
If the world changes so that we get most of our information from the internet, we will be mighty stupid. The internet is full of garbage mixed with fact and no one is paid to tell you the difference. For free, I'll tell you all that this article is garbage.
this article has been pharyngulated
good luck, good sir
Nobody was watching television before it existed. Why is it listed as a source of information in 1900? There were predecessors, sure, but nobody was getting information from them.
Um, what is this chart supposed to show? The time line starts at 50 years. Next up, it goes to 20 year intervals,after that, it's 10 years then jumps 5 then 3 years 1995 & 1998. 1998-2002 is every 2 years then hits single years 2006-2010, then jumps 2 years 2012 and then jumps 3 years 2015.
Where did you get the data for this? As Martha said, where is the "X" axis? What population numbers are you assuming for this 'graph'.
The colors are really nice looking, but other than that, it doesn't say very much at all.
According to wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-listened-to_radio_programs
as many people listen to the top two syndicated radio programs as watch the three major nightly news broadcasts:
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/narrative_networktv_audience.php?cat=2&media=6
so maybe you're calling radio dead a bit too soon.
So people never communicated via or got any information from books?
Where's the data and legend to explain whatever is in the vertical axis of your graphs? Unless your graphs convey meaningful data, I have no inclination to believe anything you say.
Unless you expect everyone to be home schooled and to write their own laws and regulations, there will always be "static and controlled streams of data" for educational and informational purposes.
Unless you have some special plan for eliminating all partisanship in politics and government, there will always be at least two (probably more) news sources for most areas/subjects.
What? So, we are to just take your word that there is some actual data out there from which you draw your chart. What quata were measured or what are the units of something you are scaling with? This is indistinguishable from guesswork. Useless bunk. I wish I had the ten minutes of my life back that it took to read this garbage.
You realize newspapers were invented several hundred years before 1900, correct?
You have no verifiable sources for your information, no perceivable methodology for examining whatever information you had/made up, and the most astonishing of all - no actual measurable presentation in your "graph." How do you measure how much websites are "used" proportional to everything else? What single unit of measurement is supposed to be displayed here?
This graph is completely unscientific and without any merit. Your purely speculative analysis should be considered just that - purely hypothetical, with no real scientific foundation. You concede in comment #30 that the information in your analysis is based in part (who knows how much?) on your own personal experience. How anyone can really take it seriously after that is beyond me.
Might I recommend Edward Tufte's book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information?" I like your aesthetic sense, but I feel the graph is terribly deceptive, and based on very little actual data ("Google searches" and "analysis" are not particularly acceptable forms of research). Of course, I am coming from a background in the sciences, where this kind of thing would not fly (in fact, it angers people, as you have discovered in the above comments).
Aesthetically, it is appealing, but you need to refine your respect for the information consumer. Imagine how powerful your graph would be if it was based on real numbers! The lack of a Y-axis is a crime for those of us who want to know exactly what percentage (or proportion or amount-again I am confused because of the lack of units) of the various media you are discussing occupied the time fram you reference. All I can draw are approximations. That makes me sad and confused.
Or, at the very least, you might add a note explaining what your intent is with this "graph" and that it isn't based on much except your own personal thoughts on the subject. I know that probably seems self-evident to you, but I bet the comments above show that it is not to your viewers.
Sorry if I'm "piling on" at this point.
Can you elaborate on what exactly "information" means here? What gets lump into this basket? I'm thinking, among other things, PBS-Newshour-like news; weather reports; marriage & birth announcements; food recipes; celebrity gossips; major technology advancements; major scientific discoveries; what I had for lunch; what you had for dinner; op-eds; movie reviews; etc. etc. etc. etc.
But then I realized that in your graph, pre-1900 on the X axis, you didn't include books and letters and posters and works of arts and scientific journals as a medium for the transmission of "information".
Are they being lumped under "Local Marketplace"? Or do you consider them to be of no relevance for the propagation of "information"? Inconsequential?
And that's not all that I'm confused about this article.
While some of the general concepts presented in this article seem somewhat reasonable (the general trends in media and advertisement over time are known), the graph itself reeks of BS.
Would you care to quantify the Y-axis of your graph? Very pretty, but there's more factual information in a piece of abstract art... and by the way, your graph resembles some pieces of mass-produced abstract art I've seen.
Come on, throw us a bone here. Provide some sort of data, units, sources, or other verifiable and empirically supported information, or just admit that you fabricated the whole graph on your gut feelings.
You know, if there was some sort of methodology and data to this, it would be fascinating stuff. If you have some sort of serious scholarship and analysis behind that graph, I think we'd all love to see it.
The previous posters have covered all of the major critiques I have. Nevertheless, I must throw my two cents in:
This is crap.
Thank you.
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The Y-axis is 'Influence'
Quoth you: "A lot of people have commented that the graph were misleading or downright inaccurate because the time line is not linear."
Who's to say this is accurate in the first place? Is this chart based off anything beyond speculation? ... I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to discredit you - that's not my intention at all - I just don't think we should be treating this as fact and carefully extrapolated trend analysis if it really is just speculation.
That said, even if it is just speculation, it's still pretty interesting.
Cheers,
-Carlton
What is "information"? Is it information to educate? To keep up with current events? To advertise products?
If it were about a broad definition of information, to educate people about the world around them, then it is a serious error to exclude books. If it's about news, then it's an error to ignore the telegraph, which Thoreau was writing about in the 1840s-50s. The article does mention news as an aspect of information, but it mentions advertising too. OK, news and ads generally come through the same channels. But if advertising is part of this, then why are web sites going to die? Web sits with product information are an excellent source of information for someone looking to buy. Social networks will not displace them, they will supplement them, and steer customers to them. Both can be valuable, working together. The idea that old media necessarily die to make room for new ones, is false. Books, for example, have been around for thousands of years, and are a bigger business now than ever.
But then entertainment comes into the mix. So we have gaming, which can also serve as a conduit for ads and I suppose even news. But what happened to radio, which has been primarily an entertainment medium from the 50s (not the 60s as the article says - TV news was taking over from radio news by the 50s). And the movies - where are they?
What are these things that are graphed? Newspapers, magazines, radio, television and web sites are media: ways to deliver information. (Newspapers and magazines are different media, by the way, with different time lines, a fact ignored by this graph.) But blogs and social networks are also web sites. Perhaps you want to distinguish "traditional" web sites from constantly updated blogs, and more interactive social networks. But the lines here are mushy. What distinguishes a blog from a "web site"? Nothing about a traditional web site prevents it from being updated every day. Likewise, what is a social network if not a collection of blogs, with fancy goodies attached?
And what is "Social News"? The concept is so unclear that you had to write a separate article about it. In that article, you write
We are more interested in the little things that happen in the life of our friends, than reading about people being killed in a mine in China. We are much more interested in reading the thought and ideas of people that influences us, than reading about Prince Harry's little PR trip.
But what about the fact that the financial industry is stealing money from citizens all over the world with the connivance of their governments? Are you interested in that? Is that social news? If you're a taxpayer, it certainly influences you. But it's there on the same pages as Prince Harry and the Chinese mine disasters. How will you know about it unless you read beyond the lives of your friends? You could read about it in blogs, which you say are going to be replaced by the same "social news" that these blogs have brought to your (or at least my) attention. This whole part of the graph makes no sense. And how do podcasts and vodcasts differ from web sites, which host them; and blogs and social networks, which publicize them; and "social news", which presumably are them?
Intelligent information? I'll believe it when I see it. This kind of artificial intelligence is ten years away. For fifty years now it's been ten years away, and it will stay like that for another fifty, because intelligence is still poorly understood. We can't program it until we understand it. We're slowly making progress, and applications will come equally slowly, not all of a sudden.
A couple of minor nitpicks: the top of the graph is a constant, but the total amount of information we have to deal with, and its influence upon us, has been and is increasing hugely, as the article rightly says. And radio: white letters on light gray? No. Just ... no.
I wouldn't give this a failing grade, by the way. The idea is interesting, and it shows some thought and effort. Just not nearly enough. Its view of the past is inadequately researched, while its view of the future is credulous and confused. I'd give it a D. Work on it till it's an A, and it will be something great.
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Amos, I that was a long reply and thank you for it.
The graph illustrate what influences us, in the light of 'consumer focus'. What that I do not specifically mean advertisement, but where should you focus your efforts if you want to interact with your audience.
The point of the article is not to present data in a graph. It is to show people that the world changes, and that you need to change as well. Which means that the point of the graph is not give you data, but to tell a story.
Seth Godin once wrote:
The only reason (did I mention only) to use a chart in a presentation is to make a point. If you want to prove some deep insight or give people textured data to draw their own conclusions, DON'T put it in a presentation. Put it in a handout. Give them a URL with a spreadsheet at the other end.No, the reason you put a chart in a presentation is to tell a story. A single story, one story per chart. "Oh," the attendee says, "our costs are going through the roof!" Or, in the case of the picture here, "Oh boy LA and Florida are in big big trouble."
There is no room for nuance here. You don't have nuance in the other parts of your presentation, and it doesn't belong here.
If the facts demand nuance, don't use a graph, because you won't get nuance, you'll get confusion.
This is basically why the graph was made the way it was. I didn't add nuances (like the telegraph and the many other information sources), because isn't important to include everything. This article is not about the data, it is about the story of change (although I do think it is pretty accurate view of that change).
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Thomas,
Congratulations... very very elucidative article. The graphics are awesome and very easy to show people where we came from and we're going to, and convince them that orkut, twitter, facebooks and so on are not only teenager's stuff... I receveid the tip from a researcher friend who lives in Barcelona, and almost imeddiattely posted it on my twitter and sent to some friends and clientes interested on communication and information issues.
Fábio
Mooi artikel over toekomst social network
Newspapers will most definitely not disappear by 2020, but other than that interesting post.
Kev.
Nice Article
Looks like this was written by a person who never took a history class and has a modern bias. That is not to say I disagree with where we go from here. However, where is direct mail? We are door-to-door sales? Where is telemarketing? Are these not mediums of communication where the roots of a sale begin?
People in this world wrote letters for a very, very long time. As someone pointed out they read books as well. Both of these mediums had and to some degree continue to influence how people view the marketplace. How many readers of this blog published a book to promote themselves or their services? To frame the commerce through a modern consumerist perspective is to discount two centuries of history.
I like the design and the thought process, but would disagree with the shapes, it all could be true for a modern middle class westerner, but I think a true image of the world today would be the slice around the year 2000.
Nice graphs. But I don't think newspapers, radio and tv will be dead by 2020. Most predictions fail even if they are base on facts. We still don't know what lies ahead.
Your article is mega-great. Now we have a russian translation on blog.yed-prior.com, and link on them via popular IT-site habrahabr
Thx, very, very awesome article.
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Thanks :)
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Fantastic visualization, although I believe a couple things are occurring... local markets are now returning as populous areas begin to turn to more effective communication methods to buy and sell goods locally. The green movement is also impacting this.
Blogs aren't going away, they're evolving into the threads of all content management systems since they're so effective. Blogs did to content what Ford did to cars.
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The story starts even earlier: with Gutenberg and the possibilty of spreading printend material, than with the age of technical reproduction.
And where does it "end"? I think, there is a place for every medium: there still will be books and newspaper lovers, there will be radio listeners and TV-viewers and there will is the crowd, struggling in a huge stream of unbound information, lost in space and in the illusion of »friedly« feeds …
Great post! I have reflected on the issues you raise and how they specifically might affect bibliobloggers - a niche of bloggers who write in the manifold fields of biblical studies.
Internet and the spread of information is going to be bottlenecked by the way we visualize information. The next step is going to HAVE to be a new form of visualization and controls (ie; 3d vision, interactive hands-on sites, IR cameras for motion detecting, etc). That and in the future... perhaps, hopefully, a world wide government connecting almost everyone on the planet to vote and decide real world issues.
Interesting - but your blog itself points out a contradiction. I had to scan 137 posts to gather only a modest amount of interesting comment. Editors and reporters skillfully filter information. Not everyone has to be/should be heard.
News distribution is an expensive, time-consuming business. Only when we all learn to be journalists will there be any standards in social info-distribution.
Interesting stuff, but I find it strange that the "local marketplace" category narrows so sharply. My desk is a few feet from a water cooler, and I hear people talking, face to face, this very minute. You don't really expect verbal communication to be dead by 2020, do you?
Great stuff! I remember dismissing the internet as a source for information or as something I would market... now we're in meetings, thinking of new ways to promote our site, get viewers involved via websites/email, and utilizing social networking sites on air. It will be interesting to see where it all goes, and to be a part of that swing.
@Lauren
Actually, yes. Walk around and look at how many people have their faces buried in their phones, text messaging etc. Sadly, verbal communication and "social skills" are becoming a lost art. It will never die literally, but it certainly isn't how people are getting information anymore. I can't think of any conversation that I have about any current event that doesn't end with me Googling the topic.
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Excellent post! Interesting to wonder how this graph will look like 5 years from now ;-)
Things are going fast!
I love prediction scenarios, so when I saw the line "So join me on this (unscientific) tour of the last 210 years of information 10 more years into the future." I was ready to be entertained. And it was a good piece, but the readers need to be reminded that it IS unscientific and therefore should be taken with a large grain of salt.
Personally, I predict that as time goes on, severe problems with computer technology will develop (possibly health-related) and that people will become weary of being in touch all the time. The comfort and smell of a good book, the feel of slick magazine pages between your fingers, and the family-style watching of television news will keep our interest for many decades to come.
As for your comment:
There will always be laggards who refuse to change, and cling on to the old ways. But, as a strategy, those are not the people or the markets you should focus on."
That certainly depends on who you want to reach, yes? Just look at the Republican Party. ;-)
Wow!!
It's a great figure on the communication we had and will have.
You gives us clear idea on the communication business ahead.
I totally agree with your view that in the coming future a kind of potable device will collect news and information and that summarize key concepts on my preset demand.
Yes, I will be continuously fed up with the information of my personal concern.
I hope translate whole this view into Korean at my blog site, if you don't mind.
Thnaks.
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Thanks, JoonJeong Yi,
...and sure no problem with the translation
Thanks for the great article, Thomas!
Just a quick note on your comment about information overload: while the movement of information online has given wholly greater proportions to the problem, it is not exactly a "new concept." The Journal of the History of Ideas, for instance, devoted a 2003 issue to it as a problem beginning in early modern Europe:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_the_history_of_ideas/toc/jhi64.1.html
Interesting articles, and maybe even some useful tips :)
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Thanks Ty :)
Great post really impressive !
Thomas,
I just was thinking that you haven't made any comment on pricining vs. information.
As my point of view, since 2004 apart of the internet success in providing information is that we were having information for free. ?
Internet has developed the idea that everything should be free and we would only pay if we see an extra mile for us. ?
JoonJeong Yi,
Mr. Nicholas Negroponte, said exactly the same in his book called "Being Digital" written in 1995 !!!
I recommend this book for everyone who's interested in what's going on tomorrow with internet and in general in our society.
This book is still very interesting today because a lots of changes happened as they were imagined in 95.
Best regards to everyone,
Karim
great story! I am really curious what will be next.
Especcialy in the marketing business they have to rearrange their entire strategies.
Most companies are new to social media and once they get on the train, they are to late as the new next media is already passing by
@George; There's no way newspapers will be around until 2040 as they are already fading out. You mention that books are still around but how many people buy a newspaper and read it for a week? Books provide a different type of information.
Just the fact you such voluminous comments is scary in itself...but all of it is so true, so relevant!
Gets me to think that George Orwell's 1984 should be re-scripted to fit today's reality: we've all jointly become our own big brother, we're all expected to be "aware" of the globally commonly known current state of things. Everybody's become our own 24/7 live tv-show and most of what we're doing anymore is just broadcasting.
Then again, I just got a hold of this 5 months late so, either i'm really out of it, which might be true, or things are not as bad as we might fear they are...
Great post. It is true how, so quickly the internet has changed everything. Even faster then TV did I am afraid. This just shows how people and marketing companies need to stay ahead of the current media trends, or they will fall behind.
That was a great article. We are certainly in the information age. I truly believe that everyone should use it to their fullest advantage. Why not, it's there for the taking. I use social networking to spread the word about energy conservation and generation, that is my passion.
But for folks who don't believe in sustainability they can help themselves by creating thier own portal on iJango.
http://vicpat.ijango.com/ It's fun, easy and allows you to organize all your internet activity. And you get paid for it. Life is good.
Isn't it curious that you started in 1800 with the dominance of "face-to-face" communication, then went through lots of versions of technology, only to find that we are back to the "face" scenario?
When people are relying on their peers to tell them about shopping, entertainment, philosophy, they are reinforcing the dominance (still) of interpersonal relationships.
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Chad, I am actually writing an article about that :)
Thanks for a very interesting summary and a provoking prediction. As a journalist, I can't help wondering about your prediction for my group in 2020:
[quote]The traditional journalistic reporting is by now completely replaced getting information directly from the source.[/quote]
One of the most important things journalist do is checking facts and talk to other people about companies and peoples hidden agendas. This is a time consuming work, and I bet most of us have better things to do in our spare time. After 20 years in the business, I can tell you that we spend most of our time checking stuff which is not straight forward. I can agree on that the most obvious news could be gathered directly from the source. And yes, I totally agree that ownership to a paper press doesn't have anything to do with journalism. Seen from my point of view, most journalists have to raise their skills when it comes to communication in social networks and understanding the new business models.
Every day companies have information strategists trying to sell targeted info to boost their market value. The same goes for government on all sorts of levels. When it comes to news, you can't trust everything people tell you. Too often - you can't even trust what's reported by journalists. I think that's the biggest problem. To think we only will have some specialists left in the journalistic industry is farfetched and short narrowed. In such a context what actually could happen is that rich people would be the only ones that can afford to buy journalistic content of high quality within their sphere of interest, while the poor bastards has to rely on trolls which is always making the web a less interesting place.
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Apr 27
2009
George
I don't think the newspapers will be dead by 2020. There's still far too many people of older generations that buy them out of habit. I'd give it until at least 2040. I think this will instead spawn more weekly magazines, like TIME. Newspapers will morph over into the Internet as they've already begun doing, and the same staff might publish a weekly magazine to give a more artistic/complete view of current issues.
Just like books aren't dead, and aren't going anywhere, the written medium will continue to be around - even for current events. I think people will still want to sit down on Saturday morning with their weekly magazine and get a real in-depth view of current events that they're just not likely to get from the 24/7 fast-as-lightning news feeds you get on the Internet.
TV channels such as CNN, BBC, Fox News, etc. will also stay the test of time, although there might become fewer of them due to hardening competition (all for the better, really, there's way too much crap out there). There's nothing like watching live events unfold on your TV - not even trying to do so online.
On your TV, you know that the feed is not going to drop, like it so often does on the Internet if there's a huge event happening and everyone is trying to download the video feed. In this manner, TV represents a stability that the Internet tries to emulate as best it can, but still has not been able to duplicate entirely.
Shorter to the point: old habits die hard.