Digital publishing is on quite a high right now and with the Internet of Things (IoT) it is poised on the precipice of growing much bigger. While IoT and its ways have permeated into most sectors, the publishing industry has been slowly catching up. For those in the sector, the entry of IoT into publishing has translated into a smart and intuitive means of delivering customized content. It is this simple advantage that has drawn several in the industry towards testing out various IoT strategies to implement.
What many in the publishing sector have realized is that IoT is simply an extension of digital publishing and is another opportunity to generate useful information that will help with integration being done in homes, businesses, as well as the everyday lives of consumers. The rise in the use of IoT in publishing is largely because publishers now understand that with the increase in the number of mobile devices around, content distribution channels will need to grow in parallel.
It is estimated, in a report by eMarketer that in the year 2018, media and entertainment industry will spend around $72.6 million on IoT, which is a 54% jump since 2015. Publishers are constantly working on adapting their content and data to continue to stay relevant to consumers.
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How does IoT help in Publishing?
The media and publishing world has been a slower adopter of mobility solutions. Thanks to this, the monopoly in terms of revenue has been cornered by a few large names in the industry. With the adoption of IoT, there is bound to be a massive shift in the business world.
The whole idea of publishing is to spread the right content at the ideal time to the appropriate audience. With organizations becoming more data driven, IoT will help with the creation of information marketplaces that will come up with the right content. This information may even be based on localized content that will be disseminated based on the location of an individual. Proximity marketing becomes easier and this helps publishers rake in the revenue.
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IoT will also help in automating journalism and the creation of content based on predictive insights. Reporting will grow to become analyses-driven as well as machine moderated. Analytics will help in creating content and delivering it based on personal preferences of the audience it is going out to. Picture a newsstand being able to communicate with smart phones and tell the receiver of key articles that they may be interested in, based on analytics of their information consumption.
With the coming up of Cloud computing, those publishers working on shoestring budgets have benefited immensely. One of the joys of Cloud computing, besides its connect with IoT, is the significantly low costs of operations. Its flexibility in being scaled up in terms of capacity during peak requirements, and scaling down when needed, is beneficial. Publishers also benefit a great deal from Cloud-based apps which work on improving ability and are available with no restriction of time or location. High end data encryption is possible and for those in self-publishing, the Cloud resources can be hugely useful.
Getting Started with IoT in Publishing
With IoT in publishing growing quickly, it is a given that media companies need to have their strategies in place and executed well. Irrespective of which rung of implementation you are on, it is necessary that you think of scalability at all times. As a publishing organization you will also need to think smartly about revenue models. All work published needs to have content that is presented seamlessly and which is based on optimized data to provide context.
It is important that the strategies that you put in place focus on consumer experiences. This is especially important when you are working around being innovative. Know how much you can take on at a time and work from there. It is okay to remove certain strategies that will not work for your organization.
Investing in data streams is also a good idea to be able to figure out proprietary information. This is a very important layer of information to have when using IoT based data. The jump from print to digital has happened a while ago. The challenge today lies in media based organizations understanding that they have a short window of time to become a data company in themselves. There is a lot of investment that is needed for this and it needs to be done strategically.
Cloud and IoT based apps work on streamlining publishing as well as the distribution process, and this helps publishers focus on the crux of their business – quality content. Cloud-based apps provide the media industry with the IT infrastructure that is necessary to support mistake-free publishing. IoT will help publishers in getting insights that are automated and will then be able to help in designing contextually significant content.