The digital content disruption continues. Whilst print media have been grappling with this for some time and the music industry has also been coming to terms with new forms of content distribution such as Spotify, it appears the next frontier of curation could be news & information content. Whilst this has typically been the domain of public radio, with a combination of location services and curated content from around the world we have started to see a new wave of applications which empower the user to curate their own news rather than rely on local radio to do it for them.
Early examples of this are Agogo and Swell. Recently launched, they pose a new challenge to traditional media outlets by creating new listening experiences for consumers of talk and news. They bring together segments of audio from news sites around the world into customizable and curated streams based around themes such as Business & Finance or Sports. Whilst they can also provide limited local information such as traffic reports based on location services, public radio still has the upper hand in terms of local content creation with the power of their own local journalists and talent. This is something that still gives public radio the upper hand for the moment – somebody needs to create the content in the first place.
However continuing the overarching trend of media money moving into digital, these types of platforms will no doubt over time see more of our traditional media money moved into digital and mobile whether they are independent apps or locally owned by networks, watch this space!
Alex
// Rebuilding_Creativity 
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