It's painfully obvious to anyone who opens a web browser that the digital landscape is constantly changing at a fairly good pace, but once in a while we run across a development that seems to indicate a leap forward.
I just ran across such a development.
Ashish Patel isn't exactly a household name, but he's putting together an impressive resume in the digital world. Patel was formerly the Head of Social for Vice, the alternative news magazine founded in 1994 that has since expanded in exponential ways and has a fairly large global readership.
Patel is now the VP of Social for Now This, a video news service designed to distribute their content directly through social media. In fact, of you go to Now This' home page today, you will see that they, essentially, no longer have a home page. Is their move indicative of a coming trend, one that will marginalize or even eliminate websites as we know them?
We're Not Here Anymore
To understand what I mean when I say they don't have a home page, just look below at the screenshot from nowthisnews.com:
Nothing. Just links to download their app and links to all of their social media accounts. In an interview with NewsWhip, he explains that by feeding their content directly into social, rather than linking from a website home page, they are cutting out one extra click for their audience and streamlining the delivery process.
And in that one thought alone, the future of social media as the primary source of information and entertainment on the web may have just been born. After all, when people go through their news feeds and find interesting content, they do have to leave and go to another page just to read or view the content they want to see. How much sense does that make, really?
Who Has Control?
Of course, there are obvious questions and retorts to the idea of handing over control from your own website to Mark Zuckerberg and others. How do you monetize? Do you really want to be at the whim of Facebook's ever-changing rules? In the future, maybe. Or maybe not.
I'm certainly not saying that we should all abandon our websites and move strictly to social, but the point is that Now This has done exactly that. On purpose and strategically. So the question is, again, are we seeing the beginnings of a revolutionary change in how the web operates in terms of content delivery? Maybe, or maybe not.
Regardless of the end result, one message is loud and clear from this move: social media is a major component of digital marketing, content delivery, and - let's face it - the internet in general. And it will only become more so as the web evolves. If you aren't in the social pool feet first and up to your neck already, you might just drown when the next wave hits. If you need some help accelerating your social presence, just contact us to see what we can do for you.
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