by Allen Ratta (@allenratta)
The Internet is an incalculable Mount Everest of information. The rise of next-gen search engines offers the tantalizing promise of easily getting our hands on the precise information we want. Competition has become heated in the field of digital content distribution:
- In 1989 Bill Gates began to acquire the digital rights to the great art of the world. He realized something before anyone else. Digital content is the currency of the Information Age.
- On February 15, 2011, Apple shook up the world of online publishers by announcing its digital subscription plan.
- The following day Google offered a competitive subscription plan.
Technology is driving societal change. How have we changed?
1. We Want Information On Demand
Who wants to go to the trouble to drive to a bookstore, search through the shelves and lug home a book? I can search online, download an eBook and be reading it within five minutes.
2. We Want True Unlimited Access to Information
Two emerging technologies, the Cloud and next-gen Mobile computing, offer true anytime, anywhere access. People do not just want information; they want it at their son’s ball game and in the grocery store.
What are the implications of content distribution technologies?
Churches need to move beyond old paradigms of information distribution. Bulletins at church doors have a diminished significance. People aren’t attenuated to interacting with information that way anymore. Church websites, the holy grail of distribution, have many of the same issues. It’s naïve to expect people to search for information.
If churches are going to be effective communicators, they must learn how to push information to defined targets. Take it one step further and imagine a world where anyone in need could receive targeted digital content shared by caring friends, using content branded to their church.
It's astounding to contemplate!
A collection of free educational resources from Fellowship Technologies that combines industry trends, detailed analysis and best practices from dynamic churches and leading experts.
Each issue we will focus on a particular topic of interest facing the Church today.
