Category: Digital Media

The adoption of networked digital technology enables consumers to more easily and rapidly connect with each other, wherever and whenever, whether through email, instant messaging (IM), mobile messaging, or platforms such as eBay, Friends Reunited, LinkedIn, MySpace, Friendster, or Facebook. Consumers increasingly connect, reconnect, trade, and share with like-minded people across time zones and geography, extending and reinforcing social networks and building new virtual “communities”.

Digital media’s interactive, interconnected nature enables consumers to increasingly express themselves in writing and create their own content, whether through discussion forums, message boards, feedback forms, voting platforms, personal photo galleries, or blogs (web logs using services such as Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, and TypePad). By the millions, they’re gathering and disseminating their own news with blogs as well as podcasts (a method of publishing audio programs via the Internet through syndication) and increasingly taking an active part in creating their online lives.

When it comes to personal expression, digital video provides the ultimate level of rich content, and with services like YouTube, enormous amounts of video content is being unlocked for general consumption.