The way we get our news and gather information is changing at a pace we have never seen before.
There are now so many ways to get up-to-date on what is happening locally, nationally and internationally it would take a while to list them and far too long to digest them all. It is also a list that continues to grow by the day.
From 24-hour television news to the continued rise of Internet use, we can have a bewildering array of news and information sources available to us 24/7 with a flick of a TV remote or click of a mouse. We have the world at our fingertips.
It has led some to complain of information overload, but such claims miss a vital point.
We have the best possible filter available to us – we get to decide whether we access this information or not.
The opportunity to find news and information that is relevant to us, that we like, that we trust and feel confident in accessing is greater than ever.
It means publishers are having to find new ways to keep hold of their readers and advertisers and deliver their products.
And it isn’t just news and media outlets that are providing greater access either. An increasing number of companies are also becoming more open in the way they do business, giving clients and customers an insight into their daily operations. More importantly it can also provide a human face, something that remains vitally important to all businesses.
It is in that spirit that The Studio 4 has created this blog. It provides our clients with the opportunity to understand a little bit more about how we work and achieve the impressive results we do for them. The blog also allows us to share our knowledge and explain terms and procedures you may hear every day but do not fully understand.
Equally, if there are questions you have about a particular issue – for example, “Is HTML a ham, tomato, mayo and lettuce sandwich and what has it got to do with my website?” – you can ask us and we’ll provide the answer (HTML has nothing to do with your favourite lunchtime snack, by the way). We can also recommend ways of cutting down that list of news and information providers for you.
As the new Group Editor for TSP Media, sister company of The Studio 4, I have more than 20 years media experience and during that time I’ve seen massive changes in the way journalists and editors gather news, distribute it and interact with their readers. And it continues to change and evolve.
It is an exciting time for marketing, media and publishing companies as the potential to reach massive new audiences is huge. As someone who built a career writing 2,000-word articles and features for newspapers and magazines, I’m relishing the opportunity to get messages across in the 140 character limit imposed on updates by Twitter.
Content remains king, but there are now so many ways you can deliver it.
As a busy editor there are also some great tools out there for me to use to keep on top of what is happening in the various sectors we work in and others we can move into in the future.
From simple RSS feeds, to the likes of StumbleUpon and Reddit which allow you to search quickly through thousands of news pages and recommend websites and articles to others, such tools make it easier to trawl the web without it being a time-consuming chore.
Other sites like Scribd allows publishers to highlight their stories to a worldwide audience at the click of a button.
We’ll continue to keep up to speed on this ever-changing world of news, information and opportunity.
After all, it is our job and we really enjoy what we do.