You Say Toe-mayto, I say Toe-mahto.
There is a “newish” term that is being used in Hollywood these days. It is “transmedia storytelling.” It is a term of academia and business. It doesn’t exist on Dictionary.com nor is it recognized by Merriam-Webster. And if it is not recognized by Webster, well then does it really exist? Well, there is a pretty good definition on Wikipedia, and if you Google (which, by the way, is recognized by Webster as a verb) the term you’ll find that it has been around for a bit, although it seems that it has only gained real traction over the last couple of years.
So why is it relevant now? And what does it mean? Well, it is a concept that has made sense for a while but, like a lot of other concepts, it’s had nowhere to go given that the stars were not aligned with respect to technology convergence, business models, social norms and all the other factors that tend to slow new concepts out of the gate. It simply refers to the idea that a story can be told across multiple platforms, but not just by re-telling the story; rather transmedia describes a process whereby different pieces of a story are told via different mediums — be it Web, video game, mobi-sode or digital book. It is the very definition of the traditional model of content creation meeting the new model of content creation. It is anywhere, anytime content meets interactive, engaged content consumption. And it is coming into its own now because the Internet, broadband pipes and consumer devices have evolved to the point that true multi-platform delivery is both possible and marketable.
If you are in the business of enabling or serving the media and communications marketplace, this phenomenon is important to watch. It will drive increased interest in hardware and software that facilitate multi-platform content delivery (storage, DRM, CDN’s, even editing). It will change the way content is developed, shot, edited, stored and distributed.
At the 2010 NAB Show we’ll be talking a fair bit of transmedia. We have a couple of major sessions dedicated to it, including “Unboxing Advertising and Entertainment: Building a Transmedia Experience”.
We love our cool industry terms. There’s always a new one; and they come and go. In the end it is the concept that counts and what it really means for how the marketplace behaves. The NAB Show is a transmedia show. The NAB Show is a crossmedia (transmedia’s close cousin — the term used to describe the more common approach of distributing, or re-purposing, the same content across multiple platforms) show. The NAB Show is a Television and Hollywood 2.0 Show. Pick a term. We call it broader-casting. In the end, the NAB Show is about helping reflect and define a brave new world of content creation and delivery. We hope you’re using the same lexicon.
Now, if you really want to talk exotic terms, let’s talk augmented reality . . .
