Walking Among Giants

The future of convergence is something people are prepared for, but have yet to to comprehend how to handle. Content producers, especially, have the tools at their disposal; but are constant under pressure to adapt because how fast technology is advancing and users are finding new ways to view content. Adapting, however, is not a terrible thing as it forces traditional content producers (i.e. CBS, ESPN, NPR, etc.) to stay on their toes and continue to find new ways to reach their respective audience. Now, users have the opportunity to become content producers themselves. They are in position to be one step ahead of the media giants because they see things from the ground level.

BuzzFeed..."the viral web in realtime"

Hashem Bajwa's experience with the Jay Z Decoded: Campaign with Bing placed a tombstone over the traditional media template's grave. Here's a joint campaign where his team could have simply made separate sets of advertisements. Instead, they used the strengths of both brands and their industries to work off of each other. Bing had the financial capital and the greater potential to reach the masses because of the significant role search engines play in various landscapes. Jay Z is one of the most influential figures in pop culture, but books have a tendency to fall by the waist-side in terms of spotlight capital. Bajwa created a synergistic campaign. It wasn't just a book and search engine launch, but a partnership between tow unlikely giants that found a way to share the land and still win.

Two giants share the land

One of the reasons the Decoded campaign succeeded was the street credibility of Jay Z and Microsoft in their respective industries. This is where the common user is at a disadvantage. They do, however, posses tools that are a lot more powerful than the messages transmitted across them. In Marshall Mcluhan's 1977 lecture: The Medium is the Message, he discuses how the medium has much more pull than the individual pieces of content displayed upon them. Twitter, alone, is a simple micro-blogging tool. It allows users to share messages consisting of 140 characters or less along with pictures and videos with each other. A recent video has the internet abuzz about a young girl named Sharkeisha. The video displays Sharkeisha punching another girl in the face for reasons concerning a boy. The confrontation alone isn't signification as it only concerns those in the video and in the immediate area, but it Twitter as a tool has allowed the video to be blown into grand proportions. It's the tool's ability to reach a lot more than one individual can. This is a lot of power at the disposal of the common man. Power Shift.

People won't know the future until it hits them that the future is already occurring. And that's through the children. Children are and always will be the future. The education is system in America, is rather archaic. Kids simply are not in the best position to succeed if they're being taught passively. That is teacher tells them something and they nod their head in agreement. Slowly, but surely they are being taught actively in which they must apply the knowledge taught to them through projects. They are understanding at a young age that they can be and most likely will be content producers. 

The future is a toss up for media professionals. Optimistically, professionals and users alike will able to co-exist seamlessly. Shirky stated that “the web makes interactivity technologically possible,” (p 91). And it's through this interactivity is where the sky is certainly the limit.