It’s time for media to start thinking about their audiences in new ways – because technology makes new relationships possible.
To me an audience assembles around a common interest in some content. That common interest should be the starting point for a new relationship that builds and explores the diversity of the audience – not it’s sameness. Heres an example of new media doing this – LastFM is a music service that aggregrates MP3 playlists. Each song has an audience. Each user fits into lots of different song audiences.
What LastFM does – and all media need to think about- is it takes that songs audience data and lets listeners use it to build new expereices that are only possible because LastFM recognises the inherent diversity in their users – and the different objectives users have over time.
Want to hear a different song that most people find similar to a current favourite – you can. What songs that are similar to a favorite but have the fewest listeners (for trend leaders) - you can do that to – and it’s built on simple recognition that an audience brings diversity and that brings new ways to for media to add value for the audience.
It’s about you afterall.
