Big Idea 2013: Unbundling Media

By Pete Cashmore on LinkedIn

My big idea for 2013 is actually very small. Much smaller than this article.

You see, while the sharing of news stories on social media has boomed in recent years, I often find myself wanting to share just one part of an article. For instance, if I see a quote I like, I’d like to share that to my Twitter account. Or if I see an image within an article, I sometimes want to share just that picture to my Pinterest page. Sometimes I want to share just the video embedded in a news story, not the news story itself.

That’s why my prediction for 2013 is the rise of “microcontent sharing”.

Media is increasingly becoming unbundled, with news stories being consumed separately from the magazine, newspaper or blog that created them. For instance, news stories from multiple sources are reassembled based on social shares by mobile aggregators like Flipboard. Personalized news readers – like Zite – aggregate stories based on your interests. And localized news readers, like the new iPhone app Spun, aggregate news stories specific to your location. In every instance, the news is “unbundled” from its source, then reassembled for the reader based on his or her social networking connections or personal interests.

This unbundling is often good for readers because it allows for a more tailored experience.

Microcontent sharing takes this to the next level: What if you could break down an article into its constituent parts and share them independently? Perhaps one day aggregators could reassemble not just articles into a personalized newspaper, but also individual quotes, images and videos?

This is an excerpt. Click here for the full article on LinkedIn.