“We are on the verge of mobile application explosion,” Kevin Rose, founder of social news site Digg.com, tells siliconrepublic.com, and he credits devices like the iPhone for bringing a “true, full-featured computing experience to a small handheld device”.
Rose’s site www.digg.com was one of the first to create an iPhone-friendly version but he says that though mobile devices are the next big trend it is the internet that is driving changes in how people are accessing information with innovations like search, RSS (Really Simple Syndication), blogs and social networking as major catalysts.
“The tollbooths of information are being torn down: the cost of creating and distributing content is now so low that anyone can produce content and blast it out to the world.
“And you can access just about any type of content anywhere, so content is abundant and accessible.”
He says that the challenge now is sifting through the overwhelming amount of content we come across on a daily basis to find what is most interesting and relevant.
“Digg’s approach is to harness the collective wisdom of the online audience to prioritise it all,” explains Rose.
He thinks that while traditional media is sharing new space with citizen journalists it is not losing out because Digg equally contains stories sourced from, say, The New York Times or a small, obscure blog.
“Media companies will need to implement more forward-thinking business models online but the news gathering and reporting business will always exist in one form or another: it plays a vital role in society,” he says.
Speaking further on changes in media Rose points out that while traditional TV is not dead it can’t reach audiences in the way that services like Joost and Digg’s distribution network Revision3 can.
“We have TV shows that speak to subjects that people are passionate about: technology, music, movies, comics – all things pop culture.
“We’re not killing traditional TV but people are watching our shows because they can’t find anything like it on the networks or cable.”
By Marie Boran
