It’s unprecedented

There’s a whole lot of hype when it comes to digital media. Lots of stats, lots of comparisons, lots of videos with Right Here, Right Now as the soundtrack.

Cutting between the hype and the reality can be confusing. Above all, one thing is clear to me – the amount of change we’re experiencing is unprecedented.

We’ve never seen change of this magnitude. And we’ve never seen change happen so quickly.

Twitter turned ten last year and think of the way that’s changing the way that ideas are distributed, from politicians, to rock stars, to terrorists. YouTube has been with us for only a little longer and think of the impact that’s had on video consumption.

We now can cheaply access devices to create and display high quality content, demonstrated by Apple's 'Shot on iPhone' campaign. And we now have the pipes to share content and ideas with the world.

The five most valuable companies in the world are either digital device producers or digital sharing platforms – Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon.com and Facebook.

So, yes, there’s a lot of hype about digital media, but one thing’s for certain – this change is unprecedented. The challenges and opportunities are unprecedented.

No matter what you do, you really should be paying a lot of attention to it.