New Form of Media Publishing

The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.

(Richard Harding Davis)

THE advance emergence of today’s technologies often creates new opportunities for writers and content producers. Firstly, it is best to distinguish the conventional and contemporary media before proceeding. As cited in Fuchshuber (2007), Ganz–Blattler and Suss (1998) defined that the conventional media consist of the two big mass media goods; newspapers, journals - and apart from that including their elongation into the web whereby the homepages content with same or nearly the same content hence exclude cost free papers, maps and all other print products aiming at solely advertising products and services. In addition, other mediums such as television, radio and cable television are part of the traditional media as well. Contemporary media is the new media whereby its primary medium is the Internet and is generally a universal form of digital media (Boutie 1996). The Internet introduces the world with Web 2.0 applications. The application of Web 2.0 support the creation of informal users’ networks facilitating the flow of ideas and knowledge by allowing the efficient generation, dissemination and refining of editorial content. This created a multimodal environment which encompasses a non-linear method of reading, it provides readers with more choice and oppotunity to interact ( Walsh 2006).

According to Constantinides and Fountain (2008), here are some of the five basic classifications based on the applications types:

1. Blog/ Web logs: The most known and fastest-growing category of Web 2.0 applications. Blogs are often combined with Podcasts, which is the digital audio or video that can be streamed or downloaded to portable devices. Example: http://gizmodo.com, http://www.boingboing.net.

Screenshot of www.gizmodo.com

2. Social networks: Applications that permit users to build personal websites are accessible to other users for exchange of personal content and communication. Example: http://www.myspace.com, http://www.facebook.com

Screenshot of www.myspace.com

3. (Content) Communities: Websites that organise and share particular types of content in order to cater to the different audience. In other words; specialization. Examples are applications of video sharing: http://video.google.com , www.youtube.com

Screenshot of www.video.google.com

4. Forums / bulletin boards: Sites where ideas and information are exchanged amongst various online users. Examples: www.epinions.com, www.personaldemocracy.com

Screenshot of www.personaldemocracy.com

5. Content aggregators: Applications that allow users to fully customise the web content they wish to access. These sites make use of a technique known as Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary (RSS). Examples: http://www.google.com/ig, http://www.netvibes.com/.

Screenshot of www.netvibes.com

References
1. Boutie, P 1996, ‘Will this kill that’, Journal of consumer marketing, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 49 – 57.

2. Constantinides, E & Fountain SJ 2008, ‘Web 2.0: conceptual foundations and marketing issues’, Journals of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, vol.9, no.3, pp. 231-244.

3. Davis RH 2006, Emergence forms of publishing and content creation, viewed on 10 June 2009, <http://www.icantgetpublished.com/emerging_forms.html>.

4. Fuchshuber I 2007, User-generated content: Complement or threat to the print media industry?, GRIN Verlag, Germany.

5. Good R 2006, Traditional media as instrument to shape public opinion and elicit support for the corporate agenda, viewed 10 June 2009, <http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/06/26/traditional_media_as_instruments_to.htm>.

6. Walsh, M 2006, 'Textual shift: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts' in Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, p.24-37.