How to build your multimedia empire on the cheap
The online world is very different than it was just 5 years ago. As a content creator the landscape has changed dramatically. It’s also made what would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a few years ago essentially free.
Five years ago:
YouTube didn’t exist…
There was no such thing as Twitter…
There was no Facebook…
Hardly anyone owned a smart phone, let alone an iPhone…
Apps was just an annoying term developers used…
Five years later you can broadcast all the video you want with no fear of bandwidth costs. You can reach out to your audience immediately in real time. You can build a more personal community. Your content can go everywhere that your audience goes. People will actually pay for content.
In 2006 blogging was the best way to communicate with a large audience. I’m proud of what we’ve done with iTricks.com, but now the world has changed substantially. There are new ways to interact with an audience. Fortunately for us iTricks is an adaptable brand that can do things like blogging, podcasting and live content, thanks in part to the fact that iTricks editor Justin Robert Young is a very charismatic personality who works in a lot of mediums. I don’t think we need to set our boat on fire. But I do think it’s helpful to think how would we do things now if we were starting from zero.
I know if we were launching a site like our iTricks magic news site today we’d take a different approach. I’m not sure what the shape of that would be, but I think it’d be much more influenced by the current state of social media.
As a content producer it’s important to have a very good idea of what’s going on around you. That doesn’t mean jumping from fad to fad, but having an understanding of how your audiences are interacting with content in general.
How has your vision changed? How should you implement the idea you had three years ago? Can you admit when it’s time to put an idea to rest?
One of the smartest strategies in business is to exploit your least expensive commodities. That’s why Google gives up so many CPU units to free services. It’s why we build stuff in poor countries where labor is cheap.
The new rules for content are no different. Things that were once very expensive are now ridiculously cheap or free.
Here are the new rules. How do they fit your content?
• Bandwidth for video and everything else is essentially free.
• Scalable web platforms like Wordpress and SquareSpace cost almost nothing.
• You can video conference with any part of the world for free.
• You can reach your audience immediately and for free using Twitter (versus email).
• You can record an interview, take a photo, write a blog post or make a movie with your average smart phone.
• You can create your own live tv or radio channel for free.
• You can build an engaged community for free.
• There are more places to sell content.
How can you leverage these resources to build your multimedia empire?
