Life After Apps: Content Contraction and the End of Your Personal Story

Creative destruction is eating the world

If there has been one simple but true trend in media over the course of the last 15 years, it is an abrupt climb to “more,” followed by a steady drift towards “less.”

Whether it was the sheer joy we universally experienced the first time we received 200 cable channels succeeded by the current disintegration of the cable bundle, or the slow transition from gathering information on the nightly news to grabbing it by the minute on social media, there is an undeniable trend of vast openness that eventually is distilled into singular or binary options.

It is the principle on which Medium is being built: the notion that we want the feeling that we are hearing from everyone, when in fact we only want to get the best quality from those among us.

In many ways, YouTube is the perfect example of the construction-disintegration paradigm of media in the modern era: we were overjoyed at the opportunity to so easily find Prince’s performance of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” yet the minute the platform became over-saturated with basement covers of “Along the Waterfront,” we leaped into the open arms of Spotify, Pandora, Hulu and Netflix.

The App Store followed a similar path, as the opportunity to have 3 apps just to tell you the weather seemed like too good of an option to pass up. The number of home screens you carried around in your pocket became a form of pride, and even a subconscious socioeconomic competition between friends; a sign that you were the most-informed, the most-tech savvy, the most-well-off because you had the leisure time to consume more than your contemporaries.

Oh, how the times have changed

Now, we find ourselves deleting apps more often than downloading them, slowly realizing that no one actually uses four different sources just for Fantasy Golf information. And that wine tasting app you once downloaded because you wanted to have the latest vintage for your friends when you had them over for weekly dinner parties? You haven’t opened it in 3 years, and you only hosted a dinner party once because your wife got sick of your buddy’s weird pickup basketball stories.

But, in a bizarre way, your inability to host dinner parties is actually the point: apps don’t fundamentally change a user’s life or behavior in the LONG RUN. We might think they do, we might tell ourselves they do, but in the end we’re still the same friends, the same lazy slobs and the same consumers that we were back in 2011.

Has the App Store opened up new markets and given us (at least on the surface) more avenues through which we can be exposed to products? Absolutely.

Has it redistributed consumer disposable income? Probably, but not as much as you would think (thanks in large part to retail behemoth Amazon).

Has it fundamentally altered the overall QUALITY of content? Not really.

And while you could argue that the App Store has changed the way we access news and information, that fundamental shift is only due to TWO apps (the pet products of Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Dorsey, respectively) and is NOT a credit to the App Store at large.

So, what’s the next step?

What’s the next way that we become leaner, more information-intimate and yet pull from fewer sources?

Simply put: what does a Post-App/Pre-Augmented Reality world look like?

Well, if one thing is clear, the social and search-oriented sites that you love actually know you better than you know yourself at this point. Check out a soccer blog during lunch and you’re more likely than not to see an MLS ad buried in your Twitter feed the next time you scroll through.

Looking for a new job? Make sure your boss doesn’t sidle up behind when you type something into Google because undoubtedly the first recommended search will have the word “careers” subtly placed in the text box.

Simultaneously, there is more great content being produced now than ever before, driving consumption patterns away from every TV execs two favorite “L” words: “Linear” and “Live.” You have your 3 favorite shows on Netflix, 4 on HBO and don’t even pretend like you’ve checked out that high-brow documentary on Showtime your mom told you watch last Christmas.

Content is everywhere you could ever hope to find it and yet, here we are: in the age of semi-real-time moment-making, filtering our faces with tacos, Chewbacca masks and the occasional lip-sticked-Goth, accelerating towards large-scale personal shows starring everyone on Earth.

So where does it all end?

How do we get from this data-driven world overflowing with content and apps you haven’t opened in 18 months to an interest-curated video content feed that draws from every resource available, while simultaneously leveraging the desire for Generation Z to touch everything?

What if the answer is interactive video platforms that enable users to connect to content producers in real-time? Whether it’s an athlete training in the gym, an actor on-site at a movie shoot or a freelance producer capturing high-quality surf content, interactive video platforms will enable content creators to crowdsource ideas, connect and engage with audiences and give users a behind-the-scenes glimpse into where the producer is at that moment.

On a broader level, interactive video platforms could be used as a news and information resource, able to pull perspectives from on-site high-quality freelancers, giving audiences a live window into situations as they are unfolding in real-time. Interactive video platforms would also then be able to collect data (through on-screen polls, questions and comments) and crowdsource what viewers would like to see and how the audience is reacting to what they are watching.

Additionally, what if the content could be geo-targeted, enabling viewers to be exposed to content on a national level but also giving them the opportunity to interact with creators at the regional and local level as well, ensuring greater real-time engagement between audience and producer?

Regardless of whether or not interactive video platforms are the answer or not, the writing is on the wall: the “Coronation of the App” is over and we’re hurdling into a period of unprecedented connectivity and first-person content creation. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess, but just like “Where’s the Chapstick” wasn’t going to be an internet phenomenon forever, odds are there’s an Everyman content contraction in our not too distant future.