The consumption of modern day mass media has changed. Adoption of online-based media has been on the continuous rise over the past decade, with more people gaining access to the internet and cheaper data plans from the various service providers. Additionally, smartphones have not only become more affordable but have become much smarter and efficient in carrying out their expected duties. It just makes sense, therefore, to adopt the modern day media consumption technologies to the changing times. This paper aims to look into the idea of auto-curated content based on the users’ needs and what benefits it poses compared to other forms of media
Why go digital?
Many have raised questions as to why the media industry should go digital. After all, the equipment required to make such a move possible would cost a fortune. Additionally, training personnel to work with the said items would be costly as well. This is both true and false. Media companies spend fortunes on high-quality gear that most small studios cannot afford, thereby creating a clear distinction between the two. However, smaller outlets have been utilizing one tool that the more significant players have failed to utilize: the internet.
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Companies like TMZ have based their operations on their blog and YouTube channels, a technique that has shown much success (Finamore, Mellia, Munafò, Torres, & Rao, 2011) . They are not the only ones, as various tech channels, as well as programs such as Top Gear place snippets of their interviews and episodes on YouTube in a bid to gain more viewership. Therefore, online streaming is fundamental to the growth of the media companies.
Video-based content is not the only winner in the battle for online dominance. Medium.com has established a niche for itself in the blogging world, with a high number of users utilizing the company’s blogging platform to air their views on any topic they fancy. The company charges a small fee for the premium subscriptions to the site, thus earning an income. Other companies such as WordPress have been touted to control the internet and online media in general, with over 40% of all internet sites running on the WordPress platform.
Clearly, with this in mind, it makes great sense to diversify media portfolio by entering into online media. The adaptive structuration theory argues that media is structured based on the needs of the population that will be consuming the said media (Rains & Bonito, 2017) . For example, if a grand majority of the public is taking up media apps as their primary means of collecting information and viewing content, then it only makes sense to target the said media to them via apps. Structures such as YouTube and IGTV are a means to an end, as they provide a free and fair way to air content to the general public easily and understandably (Dimopoulos, 2013) .
The media richness theory supports the move to digital, as each media outlet can have various media to try and explain the message they are trying to pass more accurately. An example of such a system is CNN, who combine their cable News coverage with online posts on the stories that they cover as well as short snippets posted on YouTube and other major online platforms to help the user get a clear picture of the entire story (Khan, 2017) . These posts and videos are structured to help the user peruse through as fast as possible.
Why Auto-curated Content?
Being able to post the content onto various online media platforms is only one part of the entire spectrum. Being able to provide the audience with the content that they are interested in first and offer more information on other topics later is the goldmine. It is a general assumption that people only read what they are interested in and not extra content that they may not have an interest in (Daft & Lengel, 1984) . Therefore, if a news platform only provides content related to sports, it would not appeal to a viewer who is more interested in finance related news. Similarly, a site that provides content on Hollywood and entertainment may not be an ideal place for someone interested in recipes to get their daily fix of information from.
A brief interview with Mikey Piff, a curator, and host for SiriusXM showed that being able to know what the target market wants and to provide it to them is compulsory in the growing online media market. A good example of this is the fact that Sirius has a vast array of the digital radio station to suit every listener's need. From morning talk shows to music marathons to inspirational shows; it can be argued that Sirius XM has it all. The core of the user experience within Sirius is to provide the listener with the content they are interested in as fast and as efficient as possible.
The job of music curators such as Mikey at the station is to choose the music that would suit the particular channel and filter out any music that would not. The process of curation is a long one, including checking for the genre of the music, style, content, and ability to woo the particular crowd it is intended for. Proper curation leads to the listener listening to the shows that they are interested in longer and therefore makes it easier for the station to rake in revenue from advertisers, as well as gain a loyal fan base.
For an online platform, curation is essential. Sites such as Spotify have taken it a notch higher, providing the users with the ability to build their curated playlists and stream the said playlists independently (Dimopoulos, 2013) . The strategy has been such a success that other players have decided that they would like a piece of the pie. These players include Google with their Google Play app, Microsoft’s Groove Player, Apple Music and Tidal, to name a few. The use of such streaming sites has reduced the need for users to listen to radio stations.
Application
The music and video market are already dominated by some huge players, including Spotify and YouTube. However, the print media market is untapped, as most companies have targeted their efforts towards providing all the news in one place, but not providing the user with the ability to curate the content that they would like to read or follow. A brief look at the NY Times website shows that it is quite hard to find targeted content on the site without using the search functionality (Bruns & Highfield, 2015) . The site has over a million subscribers who have paid their annual subscriptions to view news that they may not be interested in.
My solution to the entire problem is to create a website that would be used as a News platform. The said platform will have a login area where a user can log into their account and from the get-go be able to subscribe to particular topics that they are interested in. The content shall then be curated based on the user’s preferences, and their homepage shall have content that they would like and they would not be force-fed anything that does not fit within the bounds that they have set.
If the user has not signed in or registered previously on the site and is just ‘browsing through,’ the stories on the website shall change based on the stories that the individual has read through or searched. This ‘auto-curate’ feature would make it easier for the user to find the content that they are interested in and therefore stay longer on the site. The user would not have to wade through unrelated content to be able to get what they would like. Their search history would be stored within the browser as per the user’s consent, thereby making it even easier for the user to find what they need faster.
Several sites have attempted to do this in the media industry. YouTube currently has the auto-curate system whereby the videos shown to the audience are based on the previous videos watched by the person. YouTube gets to store the user’s history on their Google account, thereby making it easy for the artificial intelligence system to curate content for the user appropriately. This leads to user satisfaction as the user can get exactly what they need without much hassle.
One major downside to the auto-curate option is the fact that it is expensive to implement. Building an artificial intelligence system that will adequately curate the information it is going to display to the end user is a painstaking process. The field of machine learning is developing each day, with more and more technologies coming into play to aid in the creation of machine learning systems. However, as of now, it is a very technical and expensive project to undertake.
Conclusion
However, auto-curation is and will be the future of media consumption. The end user shall get the content that they are looking for, while the media providers can be able to engage their audience more. There are various ways that the media companies can monetize such a solution, including a paywall or advertisements. Either way, it is a necessary move for any media company in this day and age.
References
Bruns, A., & Highfield, T. (2015). Handbook of Digital Politics. Northhampton: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Daft, R., & Lengel, R. (1984). Information richness: a new approach to managerial behavior and organizational design. In L. Cummings, & B. Staw, Research in organizational behavior (pp. 191-233). Homewood, IL: JAI Press.
Dimopoulos, G. B.-R.-C. (2013). Analysis of youtube user experience from passive measurements. 2013 9th International Conference on Network and Service Management , 260–267.
Finamore, A., Mellia, M., Munafò, M., Torres, R., & Rao, S. (2011). Youtube everywhere: the impact of device and infrastructure synergies on user experience. Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement Conference , 345–360.
Khan, M. L. (2017). Social media engagement: What motivates user participation and consumption on YouTube? Computers in Human Behaviour , 236-247.
Rains, S. A., & Bonito, J. (2017). Adaptive Structuration Theory. The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication .
