In the last 20 years the term New
Media has entered our lives and made a stronghold there much like the likes of computers, mobile phones or for that matter like how much we know about TRPs. The term New Media is interchangeably used with Digital Media or Online Media or Interactive Media. No matter how we want to interact with/through it or install it - it is an absolute necessity to be connected to the Internet with an operating system based device like desktop or laptop or tablet or mobile phone (smart phone).
New Media started as a communication facilitator like reading from static websites, searching through search engines and getting the required text and photo information. In the next stage of development i.e. Web 2.0 or the Interactive Web - it demanded more participation and engagement from us in the form of writing, choosing, liking, adding, etc. actions mostly through social media. Slowly the use of videos and high quality photos increased and we started using richer and heavier file formats uploading and downloading them, this was mainly triggered by the increase in storage capacities and also due to the increase in Internet connection bandwidth.
Just like every other technological evolution all developments were mostly prompted by the need we felt and the technology that was available. In parallel people were working on Big Data, AI, IoT, Blockchain, Quantum Computing, 3D Printing, etc. technologies with a two point agenda.
1. How they can improve such technologies.
2. How they can implement such technologies in our daily lives to make our lives better.
The above technologies were being tested and also being used in doing some functions of some processes of some projects in some parts of the world. But not in a major way. We were of the estimate that they would take a few more years to get in the mainstream of human life.
We mostly measure "mainstream" or not by looking at the number of users and the amount of time spent and also by looking at the financial transaction amounts.
By the above three counts the newer technologies were merely smaller ones in this ocean of human uses.
Just then came 2020 and the Pandemic happened.
The Pandemic forced to implement specific requirements for human interaction and daily work efforts. Few of which I am listing below.
1. Social distancing gave rise to :-
(a) More Work From Home or WFH.
(b) More video/conference calls.
(c) More webinars.
(d) More online classes.
(e) More ecommerce.
(f) More cashless transactions.
(g) More online media (Both audio and video) and entertainment consumption like OTTs (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and all).
(h) More use of Telemedicine and eMedicine.
(i) More home deliveries of food, groceries, medicines and other items boosting the Gig Economy.
2. Deployment of automation and A.I. more than expected.
3. Focus towards FinTech.
4. Huge gains for MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses.
5. Huge boost for the Internet Service Providers or ISPs.
And there are many more shifts but I am noting the above for understanding.
Now how do the above shifts in technologies and their implementation affects you?
Primarily in three ways :-
• How they make your work easy (or difficult) directly or indirectly.
• How they contribute or disrupt the economy in both Macro or Micro scales.
• Last but not the least how they are contributing to their primary work i.e. restricting the Pandemic.
This is as far as understanding the situation goes.
How to tackle this change, methods and trials is beyond the scope of this writeup.
Published on LinkedIn on 17th April, 2021
Photographs from the Internet.
