“Authentic Content”
According to Forbes, the third biggest social media trend that will dominate 2017 is “Authentic Content” or live feed (Rohampton, 2017). Live feed is a video that is being broadcasted to the public while being uploaded to the internet at the same time. Live feed has been growing in popularity with both consumers and businesses due to its flexibility, cheap costs, and sharing potential. Businesses love to live stream because it gets the company’s name out there and because of revenue potential. An example of a company that has mastered live feed is Youtube. “In 2015, YouTube generated more than $9B in revenue. It sees more than 4 billion daily views and has more than 1 billion users worldwide” (Israele, 2017). Although these numbers are not strictly due to live feed videos, a lot of the traffic on Youtube comes across it.
One of the biggest and most popular examples of a live feed video, especially one that is dominating the internet today, is April the giraffe. April the giraffe is a 15 year old giraffe who grew to international fame because of how excited people were when her pregnancy was livestreamed via Youtube.com. April is a giraffe that is living at the Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, NY. “Animal Adventure is an interactive educational animal park; designed to promote up close and hands-on animal encounters! Hand feed many domestic and exotic animal ambassadors or get within feet of our cute, but less cuddly, carnivores” (Animal Adventure Park, 2017). April has become a notable animal for the park allowing the park to promote itself as well as answer any questions people have regarding animals and animal health.
There is a clear fascination with April the giraffe with an estimated 40 million people having already visited the youtube live stream of her. Aprils live stream sees an average of about 250,000 viewers every minute. This number does change due to traffic and the hours that people are awake to watch her. This extreme interest in April has allowed the Animal Adventure Park to bring in veterinarians to host other live streams on top of the live feed of April that is being shown in order to discuss her pregnancy. Viewers are able to ask questions directly to these veterinarians and get a response in real time. This live stream has even led to a partnership with Toys R Us. Toys R Us is sponsoring April the giraffe and the company logo is prominently seen in the live stream video.
What makes April so fascinating to watch? Is it the fact that live streaming has become such a popular tool in social media or are people just very fascinated with a giraffe? What will happen to this live stream once April has the baby? The future of live stream seems to only be growing, especially with the introduction of virtual reality into the public. Virtual reality could very well be combined with live streaming to create a new extreme technology. Although April the giraffe may eventually lose popularity, live streaming is likely to continue to gain.
References
Israele, E. (2017). Live Stream The Future of Social Media — business.com. [online] business.com. Available at: https://www.business.com/articles/why-live-streaming-is-the-future-of-social-media/ [Accessed 4 Apr. 2017].
Rohampton, J. (2017). Forbes Welcome. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimmyrohampton/2017/01/03/5-social-media-trends-that-will-dominate-2017/#5b9758136ffe [Accessed 3 Apr. 2017].
Theanimaladventurepark.com. (2017). Animal Adventure Park | Pet, Feed, Ride…Repeat!. [online] Available at: http://theanimaladventurepark.com [Accessed 4 Apr. 2017].
