A Call for Creativity in New Metrics for Liquid Media

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a call for creativity, within adaptive structures, to develop new metrics for new media. It first reviews recent innovations in audience metrics for online media, including some evolving metrics for the Web 2.0 media ecosystem. It then describes the disciplinary roots of academic research on which the current understanding of audience engagement and persuasion are based. It further describes current software and hardware developments that are driving a new era of liquid media. A framework for conceptualizing layers of media delivery and audience engagement that will be enabled by these new technologies is described. Recommendations are made for collaboration between academics and practitioners in order to rapidly pursue an understanding of advertising effectiveness in this new environment and to develop metrics that can be harnessed to monetize audience engagement, rationalize media expenditures, and create reporting structures for sharing insights.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author thanks Carl Hewitt, Dragan Boscovic, and Neal Burns for helpful comments to an earlier draft.

Additional information

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Martha G. Russell is Associate Director of Media X at Stanford University, a membership-based, interdisciplinary research center focused on human use of advanced communication technologies. From consumer issues at The Pillsbury Company and Coca-Cola to technology leadership and information sciences for companies such as Nortel, Control Data, 3M and Honeywell, Martha’s background spans a range of marketing, innovation, and technology transfer endeavors. She has led research programs at the University of Minnesota and The University of Texas at Austin and has consulted internationally on technology innovation for regional development. She organized the Internet2 Sociotechnical Summit in 1999, bringing together social scientists and engineers from Internet2 sponsoring organizations to accelerate experimental activities using the high bandwidth Abilene network and develop a research agenda in high bandwidth communications for the social sciences. Dr. Russell is a Senior Research Fellow at the Human Sciences and Technology Advanced Research (HSTAR) Institute at Stanford University and also at the Institute for Innovation, Creativity and Capital (IC2) at the University of Texas at Austin. She has produced award-winning educational films; her presentations and articles on technology transfer have been translated into Chinese, Hungarian, and Italian. A photographer and flutist, Martha has authored several cookbooks and serves on the Boards of several organizations emphasizing music, arts, and programs for at-risk children. E-mail: [email protected].