Blurring The Lines (Part 2): Producer and Consumer

Pre-Web it was simple distinguishing the producer from the consumer regarding electronic or digital media content. Producers developed movies, television shows, commercials, radio programming and music labels; the consumers watched and listened. There appeared to be insurmountable obstacles for a consumer wishing to join the ranks of producers. These obstacles included studios, access to talent, distribution agreements, contracts, prohibitively expensive equipment, costly software, union agreements, and more standing in the way. However, the Internet and digital technologies are now leveling the playing field.

Make no mistake, talent and a great concept are as important as ever, but no longer is talent necessarily denied because there isn’t access to “the system.” As was discussed in part 1 of this post, contemporary Web capabilities and digital technologies have created an environment that has made it possible for the consumers of content to become the producers of content. The public will still decide what they want to watch and hear, but the choices for that attention will now grow much wider. Amateur produced content will certainly not rival the economic powerhouse of professionally produced electronic content anytime soon, but it will broaden the competition for eyeballs and ears.

Movies are difficult to produce, and I am amazed by what one of my young Sundog colleagues, Matt Charpentier, and his fellow collaborators were able to turn out with what sounds like an impossible timeline.  During the last few years, Matt and some of his fellow movie-making students (the Dandy Dwarves) from the Savannah Collge of Art and Design entered the New York Midnight Movie Making Madness competition. In this event, the competing movie-making teams are given just 24 hours to script, get resources, shoot, score and edit their movie. What makes this even more difficult is that they don’t know what the subject of the movie is going to be until midnight at the start of the competition. Only 24-hours later at midnight they have to present their finished movie for judging. And they have to do it with almost no budget. I have seen what Matt and his friends have produced in this 24-hour time frame and it is astonishing. It would also be impossible unless digital technologies and the Web were there to help assist their talents. More on the competition from Wired here.

Other examples of consumers becoming producers can be seen all over the Web. Sites such as YouTube and Brightcove allow consumers to produce and broadcast their own commercials, music videos or other video content. Podcasts, online radio stations and videocasts circumvent the old barriers of broadcast licenses and spectrum as well as the costly facilities to get the message out. Podcasts and videocasts are growing at a phenomenal rate. Feedburner reports that it is now serving over 50,000 podcasts and almost 2 million sites with changing video content to subscribers as of May 8. YouTube has wealth of consumer-produced commercials and many of these commercials are being used as promotional tools by some national advertisers. Sometimes the promotions can backfire, but it is a trend that will likely continue because it gets the consumer involved.

The cat is out of the bag on this one and electronic content will never be the same again.