[nfais-l] NFAIS Enotes, Number 6, 2013

Fri Nov 8 09:14:46 EST 2013

NFAIS Enotes, Number 6, 2013
Written and compiled by Jill O’Neill
Emerging Media: Just What Exactly Are We Looking At?

Barbara Fister, Librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College and blogger at Inside Higher Ed, wrote a wonderful post in August of 2013 about how her professional community’s communication behaviors were shifting due to social media. Where listservs had once been the dominant channel, now she noticed that she was communicating more frequently via Twitter. The last sentence that she used in completing her brief essay was: It’s intriguing to me how dependent so many of us have become on relationships that live primarily in virtual space and on borrowed time (See [http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/practices-communities] http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/practices-communities). 

Two things struck me about that sentence -- the reference to virtual space (that is, a disembodied online presence) and the reference to borrowed time (a concern for speed and brevity).  How can communication be made more efficient? Twitter’s success as it heads into its IPO depends upon conveying a message in 140 characters. That brevity has allowed it to become a fire hose for pumping content into other social venues such as Facebook and WordPress.

As many of us read recently, Twitter is now equipped for pumping images (see: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/technology/ahead-of-ipo-twitter-adds-photo-and-video-previews-to-timelines.html] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/technology/ahead-of-ipo-twitter-adds-photo-and-video-previews-to-timelines.html). According to the Times, because it was primarily a text-based tool, Twitter felt that it needed to be able to present images and video in order to attract advertising as part of its business model.  Within our own information community, there are readily-accessible examples of scholarly content providers using Twitter to connect and interact with customers, researchers, and librarians.  It’s a useful platform for communicating (primarily) through text – 140 characters.  But I don’t believe it will surprise anyone to hear that text is not necessarily the preferred mode in emerging media. 

The fastest growing social (or emerging) media platforms are Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr. Pinterest is largely notable for its display of images which makes it suitable for attention-grabbing visuals (fashion, architecture, food, etc.). Instagram is an app that captures stills and very short videos. Tumblr, the oldest of the three, was launched in 2007 as a blogging platform supporting audio, video, text, animated gifs, and video. All are visually-oriented, all do well in a mobile environment, and all are popular with younger demographics, although Pinterest doesn’t have as strong a case in that particular regard (See: [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/chart-where-yahoos-tumblr-ranks-next-to-twitter-instagram-and-pinterest/276017/] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/chart-where-yahoos-tumblr-ranks-next-to-twitter-instagram-and-pinterest/276017/). 

It is the emphasis on visual media that is a harbinger of things to come. In fact, the tech media is already referring to it as the Visual Web (See: [http://readwrite.com/2013/10/24/pinterest-tumblr-instagram-visual-web#awesm=~olzeC2pz7iu14d] http://readwrite.com/2013/10/24/pinterest-tumblr-instagram-visual-web#awesm=~olzeC2pz7iu14d).  It’s the marketing types who think of it as social or emerging media.

 In late September, Google-owned YouTube announced that the commenting capability on the site would be tied to the use of real identities as they appear on Google+ (See: [http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/24/youtube-announces-a-new-google-powered-commenting-system/] http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/24/youtube-announces-a-new-google-powered-commenting-system/). Why might this be significant? Because the most recent set of figures from the Global Web Index indicate that Facebook has 1.1 billion monthly active users, only barely putting it in front of YouTube with its 1 billion monthly active users.  It seems clear that by linking commenting on YouTube to a registered account on Google+ (a network with only 540 million monthly active users), Google hopes to pull their social network up by its bootstraps to more closely match Facebook’s user base. Like Instagram and Tumblr, YouTube also has appeal for a younger demographic (See: [http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/06/21-awesome-social-media-facts-figures-and-statistics-for-2013/] http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/05/06/21-awesome-social-media-facts-figures-and-statistics-for-2013/).

At the same time that Google announced its 540 million monthly active users on Google+, it also released new tools for editing visual images on the platform (See: [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/google-hangouts-and-photos-save-some.html] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/google-hangouts-and-photos-save-some.html).  They’ve been ramping-up their server capacity to more rapidly deliver video content and the cascade effect is having an impact on delivery of search results. (See USC Study: Google Search Serves Users From 600% More Locations than A Year Ago (See: [http://pressroom.usc.edu/usc-study-google-search-serves-users-from-600-more-locations-than-a-year-ago/] http://pressroom.usc.edu/usc-study-google-search-serves-users-from-600-more-locations-than-a-year-ago/).  Google also has its own mobile app, Snapseed, competing with Instagram and Twitter. 

In a previous issue of ENotes, attention was drawn to the Twitter-owned Vine app launched earlier in 2013, which allows users to make and tweet 6 second loops of video.  (You can see the descriptive blurb about Vine at Google Play here: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.vine.android] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.vine.android and in the iTunes store at [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vine/id592447445?mt=8] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vine/id592447445?mt=8.) The app reached the #1 spot on the iTunes Free Apps leaderboard in April and it was in the wake of that success that Facebook-owned Instagram made it possible to upload 15 second videos using their tool. Vine claims a user community of 40 million; by comparison Instagram claims a community of 150 million.

The sense one is given is that living in virtual space and on borrowed time requires the use of images in equal proportions to text.  Visuals -- whether moving or static photography -- are the key to success with the rising user populations when it comes to attracting interest in various forms of content.

There are news organizations (admittedly not any the size of Fox news or MSNBC) who have been using both platforms to jumpstart interest in their stories (See: [http://allthingsd.com/20131011/all-the-news-that-fits-in-a-15-second-segment-nowthisnews-tries-instagram-and-the-results-are-pretty-interesting/] http://allthingsd.com/20131011/all-the-news-that-fits-in-a-15-second-segment-nowthisnews-tries-instagram-and-the-results-are-pretty-interesting/).

Marketers are being urged to use Vine and Instagram for their product videos: [http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/63457-using-vine-and-instagram-for-product-video] http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/63457-using-vine-and-instagram-for-product-video.  (Tide and Oreos actually did create some 6 second videos for their Halloween campaigns: [http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/halloween-poll-oreo-or-tides-shining-vine-best-153502] http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/halloween-poll-oreo-or-tides-shining-vine-best-153502).

Perhaps even more indicative of the importance of video is the fact that the original founders of YouTube have now come up with a new start-up, Mixbit ([http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/youtubes-founders-challenge-vine-and-instagram-with-new-video-app/] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/youtubes-founders-challenge-vine-and-instagram-with-new-video-app/), a video app with a heavy emphasis on mixing and editing. 

For those with greater levels of expertise in creating video, there is the software, Camtasia, at [http://discover.techsmith.com/green-screen/] http://discover.techsmith.com/green-screen/

And again, just within our own information community, Alexander Street Press recently announced that they would be hosting content for libraries who are streaming their own video content, with Tufts University being their first client (See: [http://alexanderstreet.com/press-room/press-releases/2013-10-31/1217] http://alexanderstreet.com/press-room/press-releases/2013-10-31/1217).

I’m wondering if academic libraries aren’t grasping the criticality of video more rapidly than content providers. The combined influence of video gaming technology, mobile phone technology, and streaming media (particularly on those under 35 years of age) has meant that video is in many ways more important for purposes of communication than the text that frequently receives more attention in the context of scholarship and research.

Looking just at consumer behavior, it’s clear that video is rising in importance in terms of content value.  The rising population of youngsters (whose phones have *always* had cameras) are used to the format for communicating what they’re doing, where they are, and what’s happening around them. 

 Is this an issue for the content providers who make up the membership of NFAIS? Early attempts at popularizing video abstracts for the scientific literature were not particularly successful (See: [http://www.universityaffairs.ca/video-abstracts-the-latest-trend-in-scientific-publishing.aspx] http://www.universityaffairs.ca/video-abstracts-the-latest-trend-in-scientific-publishing.aspx).

At the same time, we know that video is part of many research projects, as in the project described in this Nature article, where video is taken (and preserved) of a knifefish swimming in a tank while data is gathered on the activity of the fish (See: [http://www.nature.com/news/publishing-frontiers-the-library-reboot-1.12664] http://www.nature.com/news/publishing-frontiers-the-library-reboot-1.12664).

We know that images permeate the scientific literature. On Twitter, The Lancet features both photographs and videos as part of their timeline ([https://twitter.com/TheLancet/media] https://twitter.com/TheLancet/media). Yet it is clear that video and images are still seen as merely complementary formats. Perhaps it’s because we lack the right types of tools to enhance the content? Based on the work being done at the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision, there is certainly room for improved tools. Johan Ooman, their head of R&D, offered an interesting discussion of the directions such tools might take (See: [http://www.slideshare.net/PaulaUdondek/fiatifta-2013-television-linked-to-the-web-the-case-for-audiovisual-archives] http://www.slideshare.net/PaulaUdondek/fiatifta-2013-television-linked-to-the-web-the-case-for-audiovisual-archives).

We know of initiatives like JoVE (the Journal of Visualized Experiments at [http://www.jove.com/] http://www.jove.com/) which is actually publishing peer-reviewed scientific material. Yet, none of these instances of experimentation with video in the context of scholarly communication have surged ahead with any marked success. Why is that? Based on the work of one Austrian researcher, Dr. Lyndon Nixon, the issues for linking media are similar to those encountered in linking data (See: [http://www.slideshare.net/linkedtv/www-linked-media-keynote] http://www.slideshare.net/linkedtv/www-linked-media-keynote).  There’s interest in working out the challenges associated with emerging media and the visual Web, but everyone is still in the process of building it.

Part of the answer may lie in the traditions of time. Alan Cann, a social media savvy researcher and Instructor at the University of Leicester, (see last paragraph at: [http://scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com/2013/10/grokking-visual-web.html] http://scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com/2013/10/grokking-visual-web.html) notes he’s not leaping to join Buzzfeed, one of the rapidly growing UK social communities heavily oriented towards lists, visuals and brevity. As a practicing scientist, he has learned that he isn’t nearly as facile with images as he is with text.

However, Alan points out that the community offers a particular approach to reporting scientific findings that is unique -- something in the style of a “teen romance magazine photo story.” In this instance, the reporter on Buzzfeed boiled down the crux of a study recently published in the scholarly journal, Science. The science editor over on Buzzfeed has an extensive list of posts that she’s created reporting on serious scholarship, but not in a standard journal format (See: [http://www.buzzfeed.com/kellyoakes] http://www.buzzfeed.com/kellyoakes).  It’s not necessarily how Alan might have communicated scientific findings, but it’s an engaging form of presentation.

As one British think tank put it, there’s potential in the Dumbing Up of Buzzfeed (See: [http://www.rsablogs.org.uk/2013/enterprise/buzzfeed-dumbing/] http://www.rsablogs.org.uk/2013/enterprise/buzzfeed-dumbing/).

Michael Ridley, librarian and formerly the Chief Information Officer of the University of Guelph, Ontario, spoke recently at an Information Today conference on the topic of post-literacy. The standard explanation of what that phrase entails is found in the opening paragraphs of his publicly-developed ebook, Beyond Literacy:  Writes Ridley, “Literacy or “visible language” is a profound capability. The ability to read and write is a transformative skill that fundamentally changes the way we think, act, and engage with each other. The power of reading and writing is undeniable. And yet there are challenges to the human condition for which literacy seemingly fails...it is possible to conceive of a technology or a capacity that would replace literacy. “Post-literacy” is defined here as the state in which reading and writing are no longer a dominant means of communication.”  Don Hawkins gives more of Ridley’s thinking at: [http://www.libconf.com/2013/10/30/beyond-literacy-exploring-post-literate-future-wednesday-keynote/] http://www.libconf.com/2013/10/30/beyond-literacy-exploring-post-literate-future-wednesday-keynote/

I don’t know that I buy into Ridley’s thinking, but I am primarily and personally a text-based learner and in this instance, that may hamper my vision of the future. (No one likes to think that they are following in the path of the dinosaur). What if that text-oriented approach falls into disfavor? Not because we give up words, but because expressions in images are deemed to be more efficient and effective in saying what needs to be said? Transformation can take a long time. In this instance, however, what if this shift towards new forms of literacy, fueled by video gaming, mobile devices, and six second clips, is embraced by the rising user population in the next ten years. Can NFAIS member organizations rest comfortably in the assumption that such a shift will impact more on the news industry and on the entertainment industry than on the information industry? 

Or should we be keeping an eye on this?

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Want to learn more about how new forms of content and big data techniques are changing publishing, plan to attend the 2014 NFAIS Annual Conference, Giving Voice to Content:  Re-envisioning the Business of Information, scheduled for February 23-25, 2014 in Philadelphia, PA (see: [http://nfais.org/event?eventID=530] http://nfais.org/event?eventID=530).  Registration opens on November 18th.

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