Sir Francis Bacon told us some years ago that knowledge is power. But what is knowledge? Knowledge develops where information meets the force of intellect. Throughout history, basic information and the knowledge that resulted from it were only for the elite. But in today’s Information Age just the opposite is true, with information available to everyone from all directions. The challenge is how to present it in a form that is most likely to yield knowledge.
In media production and publishing, whether delivered by Internet, TV and audio, or live, the word “content” is used to describe various types of information that may be managed to provide value for end-users in specific contexts.
Content is what we publish here at DVDxDVD Inc., in every digital form imaginable: digital audio and video in various lossless and compressed formats, static and animated digital graphics, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, online TV (we own the extremely popular tvzet.com channel), and video on demand (directly and via various delivery services).
The author, producer or publisher of original information may or may not be directly responsible for its value as content in a specific context. It is possible for people to derive their own value from existing content in ways the author didn't imagine. For example, a news headline can appear in two different contexts, once in the original source with full story, a second time with a group of just headlines as part of a search result. The value that the original headline has in the group of search results may be very different from the value it has when attached to the original article. Page design and advertisements can further impact how the headline is perceived in either of these two contexts.
New, advanced ways of presenting and delivering information have emerged. Thanks to computer graphics and modeling, complex technical and scientific ideas can be made appealing for a much wider audience than before.
Media production and delivery technology may enhance the value of content by formatting, filtering and combining the original sources for new audiences. Sometimes a given source of content for a specific audience gains the most value through such dynamic reworking. The opportunities for that have grown along with the increased emphasis on rapid repurposing, reuse and redeployment that has led many publishers and media producers to view their primary function less as originators and more as transformers of content.
Publishing is the activity of making information available for public view. It includes all stages of the process: development, acquisition, copyediting, graphic design, production, and marketing and distribution of visual, audio, literary works, musical works, software and other types of information.
Back in Bacon’s day, the term “publishing” referred to printed works, but these days it also encompasses all the digital methods of delivery, including Internet publishing, on-line TV, and media publishing (DVD, CD, Blu-Ray, etc.). Print institutions of all types devote vast resources now to capture online and digital markets with software, databases and other non-print products that fill the modern consumer’s desire for “knowledge on demand.”
Already the 21st century has brought us e-books, print on demand and accessible publishing. Google, Amazon.com and Sony have been working with publishers and libraries to digitize books. The e-book market served by reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iPhone and iPad, the Sony Reader and Palm is growing exponentially.
Everything today is geared to put content in its most refined form at the user’s fingertips in an instant. The result of all this is a knowledgeable consumer, and that equals an empowered consumer.
