Soberania is one of the world’s leading publishers for online news and information, aiming to inform, engage and empower the world. They have dedicated teams in Soberania’s bureaus worldwide who work around the clock 7 days a week. With an estimated 4000 journalists, Soberania’s digital platforms deliver news from every corner of the world. They are truth seekers and deliver compelling stories. They are journalists, designers and technologists, united by a single mission to inform, engage and empower the world. They witness and unfold the story, leaving no stone unturned. Their products and platforms take you to far-flung corners of the world, and they bring the world to you, delivering content and services that impact your lives, your families and your communities in enriching ways.
There is no doubt about it – It is a burgeoning landscape for the Internet of Things. Today, 49% of the world’s population is connected online one way or another and an estimated 8.4 billion connected things are in use worldwide. Though there is a growing concern for cyberattacks, outages and privacy violations, most experts are of the view that the Internet of Things will push on to expand rapidly in the coming years, linking machines to machines and inevitably connecting people to valuable resources, services and opportunities. Neil Gross wrote in BusinessWeek: “In the next century, planet Earth will don an electronic skin. It will use the internet as a scaffold to support and transmit its sensations. This skin is already being stitched together. It consists of millions of embedded electronic measuring devices: thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones, glucose sensors, EKGs, electroencephalography. These will probe and monitor cities and endangered species, the atmosphere, our ships, highways and fleets of trucks, our conversations, our bodies – even our dreams.” He was right.
We cannot deny that the revolution of digital technology has disrupted and changed the whole Media Industry. We have witnessed the evolution of print to online media which has had a significant impact on individuals, business, society, and in general, the nation. Today there are multitudes of objects and devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT), each anticipating, reacting and responding to every interaction and collecting data to provide actionable insights. Although the IoT is still in its early stages of development, it will shortly become mainstream – the number of connected devices is expected to exceed 40 billion by 20241. This rapid growth will enable a host of new business use cases and open up major new opportunities for media companies.
How Will IoT Technology Benefit Online News Media?
The IoT represents a paradigm shift for many industries, media and entertainment included – and now is the perfect moment for media operators to leverage on the opportunities it presents. Thanks to their brands, their ability to manage a customer base and the possibility of after-sales services, media operators are ideally positioned to take on a role in the IoT ecosystem. They can do this by utilizing focused technological investment and leveraging partnerships to:
1.Innovate in their service departments and move beyond content: Leveraging proprietary hubs and existing customer relationships to go beyond traditional industry boundaries;
2.Adopting a platform-based business model: Work as a business aggregator with a platform-based model that allows for vertical partner interactions and new business models;
3.Monetize data for B2C and B2B domains: Convert data from connected devices into actionable information for internal and external use;
4.Optimize content in IoT usage: Develop content production and delivery models to deliver the right kind of content on IoT devices or direct-to-customer IoT platforms, combining creativity and technology to fully exploit everyone’s potential;
5.Internal conversion by increasing operational efficiencies: Use IoT to transform the media company and its core industrial processes.
In order to win the IoT value race, media companies must identify a business and operating model that balances the costs of developing and managing IoT with the cost per user and an additional revenue on investment. There is no one-size-fits-all model. Each operator must take their place in the IoT ecosystem. However, whatever path they choose, it is certain that media and entertainment companies now have time to play and win IoT games. The two main roles that media companies could play in the IoT landscape, with the level of complexity varying depending on how far they move from their core business. Content providers and aggregators are a new generation of companies that typically deliver content directly to an IP device or packet and deliver content from multiple providers directly to consumers via subscription.
In the age of IoT, they will tailor their content and packages to every connected smart object and IoT platform, and serve their audiences through a variety of digital channels. However, they also face the challenge of improving their content production, so they can keep up with the new ecosystem quickly. IoT enables digital content providers and aggregators to move beyond traditional content and entertainment space. For example, they can take advantage of their location at home for new services – utilities, smart meters, home automation and more – developed directly or in partnership with interstellar players, within the same subscription packages and established customer relationships. In addition to serving IoT platforms and devices, digital content providers and aggregators can play an even more complex role as aggregators of digital content and IoT services.
Digital content and IoT service aggregators serve customers not only with content but also with IoT services from multiple vendors. IoT services can be developed in-house or when a larger ecosystem requires specific knowledge and skills. This domain has received heavy investment from telcos, device manufacturers, and Internet giants, and is a huge challenge for media companies. Today, data collected through the use of the Internet, social media analytics, subscription information, and loyalty programs enables media companies to personalize, filter, attract and deliver content and advertising on time. Digital content and IoT service aggregators can leverage these core capabilities to offer these services to create a fun and engaging customer experience around content. In this way, they can become IoT service aggregators through stable sales and customer service channels, as well as their long-standing and trusted customer relationships through their brands, their presence in multiple digital touch locations, and direct payment relationships – as well as integrated sales and customer care channels.
The next opportunity for digital content aggregators and IoT services is to provide customers with highly convenient IoT services and targeted marketing and advertising services, leveraging their entertainment insights and habits, and their knowledge of their advertising monetization capabilities. They can also integrate existing data with a set of data produced by connected objects on customer usage patterns and tastes to improve the content experience and drive customer engagement. Both roles bring complexity at different levels, and the choice between them depends on how far companies are willing to go from their traditional comfort zone. New battlefronts will open as companies develop their service portfolios and participate in an increasingly dense IoT ecosystem. This is a challenging scenario for media companies, who will need to be successful in both their core business and IoT.
Sometimes, it is not so straightforward when it comes to establishing the role of IoT in the media. Perhaps we can explore the role of IoT in the media in terms of assets, people, and processes. So, how can automation improve the management and delivery of media services in addition to asset tracking and a simple application control? Combined with technologies such as VR and artificial intelligence (AI), IoT creates a whole new ecosystem of user interaction, such as voice and gestures, and storytelling opportunities. Emerging technologies give viewers a new perspective and a new voice on multiple platforms – resulting in storytelling an immersive content experience enhanced by expansive reality and personal content. Let us look at a scenario with journalist crew in war zones. Perhaps they want to use AR (augmented reality) smart glasses in their program, possibly to record what they see, and transmit data to the studio. Or maybe to use drones and the need to monitor and control drones, but at the same time, able to extract video data from the drone and analyze that data in real-time.
Here, we can see IoT coming into the picture – different data sources from different devices and sources. In the same way, we can think of the film crew. As such, we can safely conclude that there is no doubt that IoT will play an important role in the media industry no matter how you look at it. Elcomp is an industrial automation company in Malaysia that has established itself as one of the leading Industrial Automation Solutions Provider for the Northern Region of Malaysia. Armed with over 38 years of industry experience, Elcomp is more than able to fulfil the demand for industrial automation, manufacturing process automation and information technology. They strive to work towards continuous improvement and working together with customers for successful outcomes. This includes adopting new ways and incorporating state-of-the-art technology to provide efficient and professional services.
