“Don’t go into print journalism. It’s a dying industry.” This statement has been echoed time and time again as people take note of the obvious downward spiral newspapers and magazines have faced in recent years.
There are various reasons for the industries’ decline. Newspaper and magazines’ competitors (television and the Internet) have the ability to share more news faster. They can also do so with more creativity, especially because they have the opportunity to utilize moving images and sound. In addition, television and the Internet provide advertisers with the ability to promote their services and products in a creative manner. Third, the Internet’s search function has made it easy for readers to pick exactly what they want to read about and for advertisers to tailor to niche audiences.
How has print journalism combated its seemingly unavoidable demise? Its major adjustment has been shifting to an online platform; newspapers and magazines have built their own websites. They even managed to find a way to monetize this platform through subscriptions and banner advertisements. Another adaptation has been an increased use of social media outlets to post newsworthy stories in real-time.
Now, a third adaptations seems to have begun. Dezeen, a magazine centered around architecture, design, and interior projects, and Space Caviar, a “design research collaborative,” have worked to gather to create and distribute FOMO. FOMO, which stands for Fear of Missing Out, is a real-time algorithmic publishing machine that pulls from social media as well as live speeches to create written articles. Hard copies of these articles can then be amassed in a magazine format and distributed.
The FOMO software made its debut in Milan at On The Fly, a series of talks centering around design and architecture and housed in Nike’s Aerostatic dome at Palazzo Clerici. Everyone was invited to contribute to the series’ conversation using the #OnTheFlyMilan hashtag (either on Twitter or Instagram) between 5 and 7:30PM CET on April 9 through April 11. In addition to pulling from social media streams, FOMO used voice recognition software to pull important pieces of guest lecturers.
Using its algorithm, built-in power generator, and solar-powered wifi hotspot, FOMO was able to create articles and print the document in PDF form. The publication was then distributed for free at the series and made available for download on Dezeen. You can find the link to the download here.
What do you think about this “backwards” form of journalism? Post your comments below!
