In THE LAND OF INFINITE MASHUPS, it's hard to keep up.
I count on my twitter friends to share information, inspiration or insight into the continually shifting transmedia/cross media landscape.
One needs a guidepost.
Enter Lance Weiler, the critically acclaimed writer & director. Wired magazine named him “One of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.”
Lance recently shared the syllabus for his upcoming class at Columbia University which included this white paper produced by the
Convergence Culture Consortium in 2008: If
It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead: Creating Value in a Speadable
Marketplace by Henry Jenkins, Xiaochang, and Ana Domb. You can find
the PDF here.
A spreadable model emphasizes the activity of consumers — or what Grant McCracken calls “multipliers” — in shaping the circulation of media content, often expanding potential meanings and opening up brands to unanticipated new markets. Rather than emphasizing the direct replication of “memes,” a spreadable model assumes that the repurposing and transformation of media content adds value, allowing media content to be localized to diverse contexts of use. This notion of spreadability is intended as a contrast to older models of stickiness which emphasize centralized control over distribution and attempts to maintain ‘purity’ of message." -Henry Jenkins
• Stickiness depends on concentrating the attention of all interested parties on a specific site or through a specific channel; spreadability seeks to expand consumer awareness by dispersing the content across many potential points of contact.
• Stickiness depends on creating a unified consumer experience as consumers enter into branded spaces; spreadability depends on creating a diversified experience as brands enter into the spaces where people already live and interact.
• Stickiness depends on prestructured interactivity to shape visitor experiences; spreadability relies on open–ended participation as diversely motivated but deeply engaged consumers retrofit content to the contours of different niche communities.
• Stickiness typically tracks the migrations of individual consumers within a site; Spreadability maps the flow of ideas through social networks.
• Under stickiness, a sales force markets to consumers; under spreadability, grassroots intermediaries become advocates for brands.
• Stickiness is a logical outgrowth of the shift from broadcasting’s push model to the web’s pull model; spreadability restores some aspects of the push model through relying on consumers to circulate the content within their own communities.
• Under stickiness, producers, marketers, and consumers are separate and distinct roles; spreadability depends on increased collaboration across and even a blurring of the distinction between these roles.
• Stickiness depends on a finite number of channels for communicating with consumers; spreadability takes for granted an almost infinite number of often localized and many times temporary networks through which media content circulates.
I count on my twitter friends to share information, inspiration or insight into the continually shifting transmedia/cross media landscape.
One needs a guidepost.
Enter Lance Weiler, the critically acclaimed writer & director. Wired magazine named him “One of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.”
FROM THE WHITE PAPER
"Given these limitations, we are proposing an alternative model which we think better accounts for how and why media content circulates at the present time, the idea of spreadable media.A spreadable model emphasizes the activity of consumers — or what Grant McCracken calls “multipliers” — in shaping the circulation of media content, often expanding potential meanings and opening up brands to unanticipated new markets. Rather than emphasizing the direct replication of “memes,” a spreadable model assumes that the repurposing and transformation of media content adds value, allowing media content to be localized to diverse contexts of use. This notion of spreadability is intended as a contrast to older models of stickiness which emphasize centralized control over distribution and attempts to maintain ‘purity’ of message." -Henry Jenkins
SREADABILITY VS. STICKINESS
Stickiness seeks to attract and hold the attention of site visitors; Spreadability seeks to motivate and facilitate the efforts of fans and enthusiasts to “spread” the word.
• Stickiness depends on concentrating the attention of all interested parties on a specific site or through a specific channel; spreadability seeks to expand consumer awareness by dispersing the content across many potential points of contact.
• Stickiness depends on creating a unified consumer experience as consumers enter into branded spaces; spreadability depends on creating a diversified experience as brands enter into the spaces where people already live and interact.
• Stickiness depends on prestructured interactivity to shape visitor experiences; spreadability relies on open–ended participation as diversely motivated but deeply engaged consumers retrofit content to the contours of different niche communities.
• Stickiness typically tracks the migrations of individual consumers within a site; Spreadability maps the flow of ideas through social networks.
• Under stickiness, a sales force markets to consumers; under spreadability, grassroots intermediaries become advocates for brands.
• Stickiness is a logical outgrowth of the shift from broadcasting’s push model to the web’s pull model; spreadability restores some aspects of the push model through relying on consumers to circulate the content within their own communities.
• Under stickiness, producers, marketers, and consumers are separate and distinct roles; spreadability depends on increased collaboration across and even a blurring of the distinction between these roles.
• Stickiness depends on a finite number of channels for communicating with consumers; spreadability takes for granted an almost infinite number of often localized and many times temporary networks through which media content circulates.
FOLLOW: @Lanceweiler, Founder of TheWorkBookProject.com
FOLLOW: @henryjenkins, Confessions of an ACA-FAN
Enjoy the read!
