Last week I was asked by a media friend in Israel if I would contribute to a paper about where media will be in five years.  

My answer was that five years is a long way off, and way too distant a horizon to be thinking about media. (But it's still a hellova a measuring stick to use when trying to figure out Soviet farm production goals.)  And, anyway, when thinking about where things are going, rather than trying to plot specific points along the digital highway, I tend to limit myself to just trying to figure out the right direction, to try to see what's going on and hazard a guess as to where the media world might be heading.  And to that end, I have a compass, which as opposed to the normal one needle with four points, has only three points:  1. First-person Communication; 2. TheCurve; 3. Open-Source Media. Let's look at them one at a time.


1.  THE ERA OF FIRST-PERSON COMMUNICATION: 
We're living in it.  And have been for about two years.  It's a world where everyone can publish and everyone can distribute. And this, of course, is what is crushing what used to be called traditional media. 

In the Era of First-Person communication, celebrities, athletes, politicians and anyone else who can make themselves part of the news now can communicate directly to their audiences, without having to go through the traditional media. They can do it through blogs, if they have the time, and the writing or video ability; they can do it through micro-blogging applications like Twitter and Facebook; and they can do it through real-time social networking applications, like Foursquare.


2.  TheCurve: 

As I've written about throughout this blog: Technology moves things to the extremes — and that's going on right now in the media/content world at a continually accelerating pace. This means content consumers will be continue to seek the most high-end content, stop randomly grazing and be more selective about their consumption of medium quality content (the stuff created for the lowest common denominator), while far more of their time will be spent consuming the lower-end First-Person Communication directly from the news makers. (Like Shaq's tweets.)

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3.  THE OPEN-SOURCE WORLD = OPEN-SOURCE CONTENT = VOYEUR MEDIA 
The open source paradigm's migration from the tech world to the content world has had enormous effects, especially in journalism and the world of short-form video. 

Again, because everybody can now publish and distribute their own content, and because the tools for gathering and producing content are now so inexpensive and readily available — our smart phones, our iPhone's, digital cameras that shoot video with stills, etc. — we now live in a news world of infinite eyeballs.  And as we've seen with the Tiger Woods and Ben Roethlisberger stories, this has made millions of us participants in voyeur journalism, which naturally flows directly into celebrity and gossip journalism.

The immediate battleground for this trend in media is the sports world — and not just because of Tiger. It's because the sports world has been a remarkably closed ecosystem, controlled by the leagues and rights holders, that's inhabited by players and a sports media that, for the most part, all have their interests aligned with each other. Ah, but now onto the field has come a group made up of Everybody Else (as in "Here Comes Everybody," to use Clay Shirky's book title).  And the interests of Everybody Else are not aligned with the rights holders and players, the way traditional media's interest are.  Now Everybody Else is acting solely in their own self-interest, which for the most part is their interest in getting noticed and gaining status. The result is that now Everybody Else is looking to capture video and still images to blog and micro blog about their favorite and least favorite athletes. And the result of that has been the tabloid-ization of sports coverage, led by TMZ and Deadspin.

TMZ's, Deadspin's and other non-rights holding independent media are unaligned with the rights holders and players — because they don't care about the biggest thing that's kept the traditional media in sports, and in politics, in check: Access.  They don't want to sit in the press box. They want to enjoy what's happening between the lines, and they want to write about what's happening outside the lines: They want to be in the bars, restaurants and police stations.  And they want to be monitoring the athlete's own First-Person Communication, and creating their own content from there. And that's what makes them so interesting. 

Because these outlets don't care about access, the leagues, athletes and other movers and shakers of the sports world have no control over them.  They can't kick them out of the press box, because they're not in the press box. They can't stop talking to them, because they've never talked to them. 

("The Daily Show" enjoys the same enormous advantage over the network and cable news divisions — not because of the web but because of... their green-screen. Their green-screen is The Daily Show's middle finger to the politicians of the world. It's what says, "We don't need no stinkin' press credentials that you could take away from us if you got angry with anything we say, which would make us toe the line. We don't need to  get your permission for an interview, or for a camera location... so screw off. You've got nothing you can take away from us to force us to play your game by your rules.")  

And that's the same thing that makes Deadspin so popular.

Whether or not the traditional news outlets want to go down the tabloid path is immaterial, because they have no choice, and they're already well on their way. But how far down the path will they go?  It's quite a conundrum for them: If they don't move in this direction they will lose more and more of their audience to those media outlets catering to user generated gotcha content. But if they do follow this path it will put them in conflict with the leagues and rights holders with whom they are partners. 

This is going to get really interesting.

And, once again, this is where First-Person Communication comes back into play, as moving forward, the unwilling subjects of everybody's eyes and video cameras will have no choice but to engage their audiences in direct communication through their own blogs and micro-blogs, and like political candidates with their war room, they'll have to constantly be prepared to explain (and often apologize for) their behavior.

(On the other hand, as we all begin to live our lives more publicly, the standards for behavior will no doubt change — "defining deviancy down," in the words of Patrick Moynihan, who probably didn't realize that he was describing the 21st century media world — and so perhaps there will be less apologizing than we might expect.)

So, my compass continues to point to an expanding and ultimately infinite number of sources for content, with consumers continuing to value most those media outlets that don't just bring them content — most of which they can get a thousand other places — but bring them the tools and applications that work best for the consumers of content in ways that make it easy for them to find and filter what they want, aggregated content the way they want, personalize it the way they want, and share it the way they want.  (As I've written before on TheCurve: http://tinyurl.com/Open-Source-Journalism).

But wait!  What about the iPad?  

What about Steve Jobs controlling content providers access to consumers by not letting anyone put an app. on the iPad?  

And what about Comcast choking off the pipes?  

And what about Rupert's walled gardens?

What about the forces of control?

Well, that's why my compass right now says media is quickly moving into the intersection of greed and anarchy — and that's where a really big and scary battle is about to be fought.  And in that battle, I'm betting on anarchy to, if not win, then continue to do some real damage.  

Why?  Two reasons: (1) Because I think an infinite number of little guys who can network with each other can continue to make the big guys bleed — they're a guerilla army, and the topography of the digital battlefield favors them (you've seen The Matrix, right?) — and (2) Because the infinite number of little guys have one really big guy on their side (at least for now) and that's Google. Google likes and understands the open-source media model, and Google likes and understands that it's no longer really about the content — except in very rare events — and that it's about the tools and applications.  (Oh, ESPN's content and digital guys realize this too, which is why, unless someone there really screws up, ESPN will remain ESPN.)

Anyway... that's where my five year compass points.  At least for the next two to three years.

In the 1960s, a small number of absurdly gifted writers began to change the definition of journalism.  Using literary techniques found more frequently in novels than the New York Times. Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Dick Schaap, Jimmy Breslin, Hunter Thompson and George Plimpton were at the forefront of what quickly became called "New Journalism."

"Participatory Journalism" was a key element of New Journalism, and it developed in two forms out of the minds and typewriters of Plimpton and Schaap:  Plimpton was the author turned participant, who wrote about his often humbling experiences in magazine articles and books like "Paper Lion" and "Out of My League," while Schaap turned participants into authors, in books like "Instant Replay," which he co-wrote with the Green Bay Packers Jerry Kramer.  Both Plimpton and Schaap brought readers inside the locker room, the huddle and, at their best, into the mind of the athlete.  The result was "Up Close and Personal" in print, before Roone brought it to television.

Big Media & the "New Participatory Journalism"
Today, in the era of DIY media, where everyone has a camera and iMovie, and is publicly living their lives online, media companies can leverage their scale and resources to enable large numbers of participants at events to participate in their event coverage.

Rather than just have a single "special guest contributor" — which is Big Media's style and something that, if it isn't already, will soon feel like a quaint concept — media companies should be opening up their event coverage to as many participants as possible.

For example, prior to the SxSW Music Festival, at Blender.com we contacted bands and musicians and asked them to video their experiences and then submit their own reports for our Event Blog. The result was a collection of video snapshots and reports from these participants that provides a better picture of the lives of indie bands at their musical Super Bowl than anything else I've seen or read.

EXHIBIT-A:  this tremendous, short video report created by the band, "Produce O."

We received dozens of videos, all snapshots filed by the bands and musicians attending the SxSW Festival. 

And, get this: those band-made videos were viewed over 15-million times. (That's not a typo.) 

We're talking dozens of homemade A Hard Day's Night's (a film with one of the all-time great opening sequences: three minutes of pure magic).

(Again) Think Quilt, Not Blanket . . . and Sell It
Event coverage for Big Media is no longer about blanket coverage, instead it's about putting together quilted coverage from it's own and from outside soruces: It's about stitching together moments, fragments, video snapshots and commentary — creating an evolving scrapbook for an audience that doesn't just tolerate but has an appetite for low production values (the left-hand side of The Curve) and incomplete productions — and publishing them in real time for an audience that isn't looking for the whole story in a single narrative.

It's an audience that with regard to video is happy with fragments in the form of quick scenes, and in print online with pictures, short comments and links.  And it's an audience that loves new media's New Participatory Journalism.

Which means advertisers will like it, too.

As I mentioned at the end of the post before last ("Content is No Longer King"):

Being able to create high-quality content is a big advantage, but it's not the endgame. On the web it's less and less about creating and more and more about Aggregating ... Curating ... Annotating ... and Facilitating.  That's a big reason why the little guys are now jumping over the big guys like Jack Russell Terriers on a hunt, and in heat.

That said, the Big Guys do have a bunch of advantages.

Before we get to the advantages Big Media enjoys — and how they can create new editorial products that can be monetized, based on those advantages — let's review the current state of their affairs:

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DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS

The internet with it's ever evolving set of features and utilities has made it incredibly easy to aggregate content and information, and the inevitable result is that rather than create new content, most individuals have gone meta — the web is filling up with content about content, news about news, remarks about remarks, reviews about reviews — simply because it's far easier and faster to comment than to create. It's far easier to simply link, rate and rant, than produce original content.  So, almost all what individuals are producing, and a good chunk of what is now being consumed, is happening down on the left-hand side of The Curve.

To be clear: I'm not saying bloggers are lazy by nature, I'm just saying the web makes some things incredibly easy.  And it takes a lot of resources to do more than just comment and link.

So, the Big Guys are dying a death by a thousand cuts — make that a google's worth — in no small part because they're still doing the heavy lifting, e.g. they're creating news reports, episodic television shows and feature films, and spending lots of money to do it — while everyone and their mother is using Big Media's highly produced materials as grist for their own home brew mills. 

And, unfortunately for Big Media, the audience would just as soon read meta content, just as soon read coverage about the coverage than read the actual coverage itself; or, if it's video, the audience often would rather see the raw and unfiltered videos, rather than the produced, filtered and packaged coverage.

In short: the gatekeepers have lost their gates, and now they're getting nibbled to death by millions of little guys down on the left-side of The Curve, each one a nasty little blade cutting away at the Big Boy's audience.

Death by a google's worth of cuts.

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“HOW DO WE GET THOSE LITTLE BLADES WORKING FOR US?”

That’s the question the Big Guys are finally starting to ask themselves:

How can Big Media get the blades — especially the blades of the blogisphere — to work for them? 

One answer is by utilizing Big Media's biggest advantage, i.e. deep resources and scale, to create a TEAM of bloggers, each with their own style and individual sensibility, and having them contribute collectively to a single "Event Blog" — to provide a depth of coverage in a single presentation that none of the millions of individual bloggers acting alone can match.

That individual sensibility is especially important when it comes to coverage of major sports, entertainment and planned "news" events (e.g. campaign and convention coverage), precisely the events where resources and scale matter, and where the pre-packaged nature of traditional event coverage no longer resonates with much of the audience.

The Big Guys need to deploy their people on the scene in a manner that best fits the "post gate-keeper" media world — to enable their Event Blog Team to become part of the scene itself and — through a blend of raw initiative, a bit of chaos and a new form of participatory, ("Hey, let me take a video of us!") coverage.

The end result is an Event Blog — a product that is unique, easily branded and highly sponsor-able — and something, for now at least, that Big Media companies, because of their ability to invest resources, are best positioned to produced.

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THINK QUILT, NOT BLANKET

Instead of providing blanket coverage of an event, the goal with Blogging Teams should be to create quilted coverage, to stitch together moments, fragments, video snapshots and commentary about major events — to create an evolving scrapbook for an audience that doesn't just tolerate but has an appetite for low production values (the left-hand side of the curve) and for incomplete productions — publishing them in real time for an audience that isn't looking for the whole story in a single narrative. It's an audience that with regard to video is happy with fragments in the form of quick scenes, and in print online with pictures, short comments and links.
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EXAMPLES

We took a few steps in this direction for Maxim and Blender with their digital coverage of the Super Bowl and the "South by Southwest" Music Festival.

In each case, we flooded the zone (as the dearly departed Howell Raines would say), spraying it with a passionate team of young, video-enabled bloggers, all contributing to a singe Special Event Blog.

There's a wonderful rawness to both blogs — an authentic, behind-the-scenes sensibility, balanced with real smarts — the sort of sensibility that used to exist at Rolling Stone Magazine.

Captured over time, in real-time, the end result gives the multimedia audience a sense of the myriad moments — and ludicrous observations — that make up and surround any "big event."

(None of it's going to win a Pulitzer but that's not the point — at least, that wasn't the point when developing these for Maxim's online audience and sensibilities.)

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And because these entries were part of a single, special Team Blog, there is a cohesiveness to the chaos.

The end result doesn't "tell" a story as much as let the audience experience the story.

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“NO NAME” CREDIBILITY

Critical to the editorial success of these Event Blogs is the fact that they were reported by behind-the-scenes personnel, rather than on-camera "talent" or big name bylines.

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AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION FROM THE EVENT

Because in this "Do It Yourself" media world, the audience responds positively and interacts differently with productions they feel they could have contributed to themselves.

And Event Blogs should give those members of the audience also at the event an opportunity to do just that.

For the SxSW Music Festival we a contacted bands and musicians in advance, and asked them to file their own reports to the Event Blog — and their reports give you a truer picture of the lives of indie bands at their Super Bowl than anything else I've ever seen or read. Anywhere.

Here's a tremendous, short video report created by the band, Produce O:

Here are some more videos filed by the bands and musicians attending the SxSW Festival. We're talking 101 homemade A Hard Day's Night's.

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WHAT WOULD HUNTER DO?

If Hunter Thompson were in his mid-20's today, I think this (partially) is how he would be covering events.

Hunter and Cameron Crowe wouldn’t just be blogging, they'd be out capturing in sight and sound their point of view of "the scene" surrounding the big events.

They’d still file the ultimate wrap-piece or profile, but Hunter and Crowe's coverage would be "video snapshots" — posted during, not after the events, in a highly annotated and personal style.

And they'd be doing it as part of an Team Blog team. (And Rolling Stone would be selling it, big time.)

It's something the Big Media companies should be doing now, while they have the advantage — using the young, passionate and intrepid journalists and aspiring websters already on their staffs, i.e. the kids working for them as researchers, production assistants and associate producers, in their day jobs, while on their own blogging and building websites at night and on the weekends.

And they should do it before the independent bloggers start collaborating ad hoc on their own special events coverage.

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Finally, here are links for the Event Blogs for the Super Bowl and SxSW. (Again, both created for specific audiences with specific sensibilities — not for everyone's taste buds.)

Once again, let me say right off the top: I'm not bashing content.

Heck, I've devoted the last 25 years of my life to it — back when it was just called "writing" and "programming," and stuff like that. 

Content is still key.

But too many media companies are failing to make the most of their content, ironically because they've put it on a thrown and value it too highly, as I wrote below.  And at the same time, they continue to undervalue the importance of utilities.  The latter is now the most important factor for the success of media properties on the web: features and functionalities that get people to your content, get your content out to people, and let people do things with it.

Justin Kim, a terrific, on-the-edge indie marketer has an interesting take on this.  Here's some of it:

I think the never-ending quest for the killer app has resulted in the development of a ton of cool little tools. Like mitochondria, maybe one day they can come together with other apps to form an evolved interface.

...it's all about creating the best platform for serving content — be it RSS, aggregation, peer-to-peer, voting, whichever's clever.  And easiest to get your quick fix.  Different methods work better for different kinds of content.