SampoMedia was created with a singular intent – to help creative ideas find audiences.
That, of course, has always been the desire of media and entertainment organisations but it is becoming clear that an on-demand digital age has moved the goalposts.
Over the last few years, there has been a fundamental change in the relationship between audience and content, giving rise to new patterns of demand.
This is the Age of Ubiquitous Media, with vastly increased choice and new ways to watch, interact with and even change the works produced by creative people.
The founder of the influential MIT Labs, Professor Nicholas Negroponte, has described this change as the transformation of the world of ‘atoms’ into the world of ‘bits’. That change is far more profound than the idea of ‘digitisation’ that is often used (and misused) by industry.
We are not talking about a simple conversion or upgrade of old formats to ‘new media’, and there will be no simple ‘tipping points’ where the new replaces the old. In terms of content, it is tempting to see a clear path to the future, perhaps towards new transmedia, interactive forms of art and media in tune with the digital age.
In reality, our digital future is more complex and contradictory, because it is driven by the idiosyncratic, contradictory and sometimes plain perverse taste, desires and demands of human beings.
There is no longer any “new media” – the vast majority of recorded and filmed today is digital, from the earliest digitised archive of cinema to the latest blockbuster videogame. Film will very soon have made the transition from 35mm prints to digital files, following in the well-trodden path of photography; radio is in the process of switching from analogue to digital, and so on.
The latest videogame or app is no more part of the digital world than the YouTube posting of the pioneering Lumiere Brothers film of the train at La Ciotat in 1895.
For most creative businesses then there is a variety of digital means to tell a story or express an idea, and there is the real world of display and performance. The dynamic between the “real” and “virtual” worlds is one of the most exciting aspects of this new environment.
And then there are audiences: Not just passive consumers but active audiences, which want and expect content on their terms, which might mean more a desire for more interactive experiences, or it might just be a demand to be surprised.
SampoMedia is about connecting these new realities.
We believe that great ideas can find audiences but the link must be created not by ideology, wishful thinking or a reliance on the alchemy of second-guesssing taste, but on the best available knowledge.
SampoMedia is about creating that bridge between creative ideas and audience. Click here for more on our services.
Photo: Crowd @Cosplay BIFFF solo BCT Brussels international Fantastic Film Festival -1, a photo by Kmeron on Flickr.
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