Here's How These Technologies Have Changed the Digital Content Business in India Here's how a personal connection between the content creator and the consumer is established that leads to transparency and ease of access to the original content

A young demographic with more than 65 per cent of the population below the age of 35, high penetration of affordable smartphones, and rising Internet usage due to the emergence of players like Reliance Jio are key factors driving the world's fastest growing economy, India. New India is rapidly moving towards going completely digital. Traditional offline content has become passé. Digital content businesses are now seeing huge demand, and they are flourishing like never before. Support from emerging technologies has enabled digital content businesses to stand out from the crowd. Engaging user content, strategies to evolve business scalability, and, most importantly, a personalised user experience are important attributes for a sustainable content business. The objective of this article is to analyse the growing importance of emerging technologies, such as AI, ML, data analytics and blockchain for digital content businesses and outline the developments expected due to these technologies, which are likely to have a significant impact on companies operating in this space.

Personalisation With Deep Learning and AI Technologies

AI and deep learning have become the new face of productivity, efficiency and profitability of digital content businesses.

Until a few years ago, content businesses were sceptical about incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) in digital strategies. But now, there seems to be increased confidence in using AI because the ambiguity associated with this technology has been reduced. For instance, consider content curation by AI; it helps in connecting visitors to your platform by showing them relevant content. Besides, AI is now commonly used to make personalised content recommendations that the user may find interesting, such as the typical, "people who read X will also read Y," or something like Netflix's recommendation system that gives accurate suggestions for movies and TV shows. The question is how you can benefit from such developments. Imagine showing visitors to your blog content that is more relevant to them, based on the posts they've already looked at on your blog site or app. They would spend more time on it for sure.

Deep learning is being used to analyse millions of data points about the consumer and then figure out the best times or the days of the week to connect with the user. It then suggests the topics that catch their attention, and which e-mail subjects generate more clicks and recommends the frequency of posts. Isn't it amazing to know all this information before you can launch the primary metrics of your digital content platform?

Importance of Effective Data Compilation and Big Data Analytics

The existing platforms in the country are exploring ways to compile data and uncover intelligence to drive effective business outcomes. Content platforms that are interested in investing in ideas and comprehending audience behaviour and interests will need to have access to quality data. Also, data collection involves the parameters of metadata. The data generated directly from your platform, called the first-party data, is the key data for content analytics. The second-party and third-party data collected from data management platforms help with correlations and enrich your entire analysis cycle. Once there is access to the right data, you can perform predictive analytics techniques like data mining, statistical modelling, and machine learning to take the data to the next logical level. A dashboard can be created that can help your business in formulating factors such as content strategy, promotions, and personalisation of content. Value can be extracted from rich data for smart decisions.

The Blockchain is the New Addition to the Array of Emerging Technologies

Blockchain has been attracting attention for its growth potential and its wide range of applications. The technology is now breaking out of the financial space and testing its functionality in new sectors. As a result, a blockchain-based content distribution platform with decentralised computing is a reality today. Now, the power has shifted to content creators, and they can have control with profits staying in their pockets instead of being dependent on the content-hosting companies for rewards. The cost of content intermediaries is reduced. A personal connection between the content creator and the consumer is established that leads to transparency and ease of access to the original content. As an example, consider Flixxo, a decentralised content distribution platform, which lets creators offer their content to select audiences, who pay cryptocurrency tokens to fund and enjoy their projects. Blockchain-based solutions have all the security needs covered, with their networked nature, decentralised hosting and encryption. Overall, with content distribution ecosystems powered by blockchain, the original content developers will be financially benefitted, and the middleman will be eliminated. Amidst all this disruption across the globe, usage of this technology for digital content platforms in India still seems to be in its infancy. It's time for you to rethink blockchain strategies for your business.

What is in Store?

The new era of news will be hyper-personalised content curated by a trained algorithm that learns users' preferences over time.

Digital content businesses are doing everything to stay ahead in the current competitive environment. Personalisation, in particular, is expected to evolve as a "must have' and what lies ahead is a progression towards smart personalisation. In future, apps will do most of a user's work and pre-empt the needs of the end consumer—the next phase of digital content evolution. So, as technology keeps evolving, content platforms and user expectations will change too. And whatever happens from now on, I expect it to be "advantage" end user.