• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, February 2, 2022

There’s a lot going on in digital media right now, but you need to know how to look at it to fully witness the transformation taking place.  The shift is subtle to the naked eye, but profound in the way businesses and consumers are leveraging digital media.

Over the last 15 years or so, the web has shifted from a content-oriented to a data-oriented medium.  It has been an evolution, with exponentially more data being created every year. What we are seeing now is the inevitable move to a transactional-oriented medium.

Content is still the focal point to the naked eye, but content is just a means of amassing more data, which is then used to facilitate more transactions.  More data does not mean better data, but better use of better data is what we are striving for in this new stage.

Let me explain. We’ve created an immeasurable amount of data, but not all data is created equal.  Most of the data we create is useless -- noise rather than signal. It is signal that helps us identify and understand what makes a consumer take action, or what helps a business to succeed.

As we shift towards a transactional internet, we see the signals being used in a broader fashion.  Data enables intelligent transactions and offers opportunities to merge together previously disparate actions and activities into a much more streamlined and efficient collection of experiences.  This is powered by new forms of tracking identity on transactions.  Basically, this is the blockchain, at least in my eyes.

Think about the way you use Google today versus how you used Google 15 years ago.  You used to go to Google for search.  Then Google created Gmail, which you used for email.   Google acquired YouTube and you went to Google to watch video clips.  Then YouTube launched YouTube TV and you went to Google for your entire cable television subscription.  In the meantime, Google offered you Docs and Sheets and all sorts of work-related tools. 

So  you can go an entire day without leaving the confines of Google, even having groceries delivered, and more.  Google essentially becomes your own little metaverse (maybe just shy of virtual reality, but that’s coming). 

The same goes for Facebook and Microsoft.  They are all trying to build a world that surrounds you, both practically and eventually virtually.  Today those worlds may be at your fingertips via a desktop or a keyboard on your phone, but tomorrow they will be through headsets and immersive experiences. 

These metaversal (yes, I made up that word) experiences are multistaged.  Stage 1 is purely entertaining, like games and fun little experiences.  Stage 1 is where we are now, and there are beginning to be transactional experiences embedded into everyday life.  These are things like paying for your Uber ride in the Uber app rather than going to a bank app and sending money to the driver via Venmo or Zelle or something else.  These are embedded financial experiences, and these are new to the last few years.  

Then on to stage 2. As the next wave of digital media matures, the lines will blur between transactions that are time- or monetary-based.    You may give your time to read an article and that article will be published on a site that rewards the writer with virtual currency tied to the popularity of their content (to some extent, this already exists on a few sites).  That virtual currency is traded for other items digitally, and eventually makes its way back to a tangible real-world transaction, and that is how digital media weaves ever more into our daily lives.

Maybe you will buy some virtual Nikes for your virtual avatar in Decentraland.  Maybe you will trade an NFT, cash out, and buy a car.  Maybe you’re using CBDC or USD Coin or Bitcoin or Ethereum as a day-trader.  Maybe your ID or license is in your digital wallet and maybe you access your health records and upload your health stats via your Oura ring into that same system. These two worlds are going to intersect more and more in the coming years, as digital media and the IRL world work their way towards one another.

All of this is protected, and all of this is accessible in whatever platform you choose to spend your time in. 

This is the new web and media environment marketers and advertisers will have to learn to navigate.