As I have been in the process of researching material for my mobile storytelling book, The Story, I have come across a subject that I had not included in my original table of contents: audio.
You heard that right: audio.
Audio is hot and getting hotter. If in doubt, ask Alexa.
Enough of the people I encountered in my research mentioned audio and the use of one’s voice to access news as extremely important that I have now included an entire vignette on the subject.
Why audio? Well, there is nothing new about audio and news–just think radio for a moment. While radio use, especially by millennials has been reported on the rise for a while now, I am not talking about radio here. Indeed, I am talking about smart speakers, such as Alexa. Alexa is the name of Amazon’s voice-based smart home assistant.
Alexa is a very popular smart speaker and companion. Of course, you can ask Alexa all sorts of questions: You can ask her to play music, ask about the weather, or ask her or ask for the latest Washington Post headlines.
Since at least 21 percent of Americans own a voice-activated smart speaker — Amazon’s Echo is the most popular, while Google, Apple and other tech companies make such devices, too. And sales are climbing–isn’t it logical to assume that more people may be using audio to access all kinds of information including news?
Such is the thrust of a Nieman Lab piece:
Users can also ask for news. And this simple request has the potential to challenge the foundations of radio, turning broadcasts into conversations, changing the stories people hear, and creating individualized streams of information.
I would say that this goes beyond challenging the foundations of radio, but also for other news outlets as well. In my book I detail how audio —voice–will become a powerful storytelling tool, not just as used with Alexa and other smart speakers, but also to add background ambience in linear storytelling, podcasts and for snippets of news at various times of the day.
Some ideas are timeless
While my mobile storytelling book , The Story, is all about the present and the future, I am including some statements from my previous 13 books that still resonate today, like this one. Pre-order The Story here: https://thaneandprose.com/shop-the-bookstore?olsPage=products%2Fthe-story
Pre-order The Story
The newspaper remains the most powerful source of storytelling on the planet. But technology threatens its very existence. To survive, the Editor must transform, adapt, and manage the newsroom in a new way. Find out how, pre-orderThe Story by Mario Garcia, chief strategist for the redesign of over 700 newspapers around the world.
Order here:
https://thaneandprose.com/shop-the-bookstore?olsPage=products%2Fthe-story
An interview of interest
http://www.itertranslations.com/blog/2019/3/11/fd60ybflpvlqrgrpdp5ida5rq0c3sp
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TheMarioBlog post #3025