As the majority of people continue to work at home, and many parents seek activities to entertain their children while schools remain closed, video streaming consumption is skyrocketing. In fact, the growth of video streaming was so rapid that the European Union asked Netflix and YouTube to reduce the video quality on their services to avoid an overload on overall bandwidth capacity.

Handling Video Streaming Spike

Although video streaming platforms may be considered fortunate to be experiencing a surge in usage during the pandemic, the growth brings about a new set of challenges. …

If you weren’t familiar with web conferencing platforms before the pandemic, I bet you know all about them now.

The ongoing COVID-19 situation has many more people working from home than ever before, leading companies to use web conferencing as their primary means of communication between employees. And with much of the world on lockdown with social distancing measures in place, even spending time with family and friends is now largely restricted to video calls. From children’s birthday parties to high stakes business meetings, web conferencing and video call platforms are now commonplace for virtually everyone.

Web conferencing was on the rise even before the coronavirus pandemic. According to a Valuates report, web conferencing has an estimated worth of $12.5 billion and is expected to hit $19 billion by 2025. And we are fortunate to have this software in place! …

“The goal for the infotainment system is to say what’s the most amount of fun you can have in a car. I don’t think other car companies really think about it that way. It’s not just some sort of transport utility device with no soul and no character.” — Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla

The rise of smart electric vehicles — led by Tesla and its outspoken CEO, Elon Musk — carries many changes in the way consumers think about personal transportation, signaling a new era of the in-car experience.

As self-driving vehicles get closer to becoming a reality on our roads, the opportunities for media and entertainment to take center stage in cars grow exponentially. Many radically-new self-driving car concepts have already been revealed, some of which include interiors that more closely resemble a living room than a vehicle from the past, with TVs, gaming consoles, and much more. …

In the mid-2000s, data speeds and bandwidth costs had improved enough to support larger amounts of streaming video. Since then, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime have been growing steadily, and traditional TV usage has been declining. With the rolling out of 5G wireless technology and the rise of artificial intelligence, streaming services are offering better and more personalized services to their users.

Streaming Platforms Take Hold

As we enter the new decade, we can say with confidence that streaming is the future. …

Just like every year, CES 2020 was full of interesting tech ideas and concepts. While not every presented product is intended to enter the market immediately, still they are an indicator of what’s next in the world of tech. This especially applies to the media-related announcements. Below we break down the essential media announcements from Vegas and contemplate how they will affect the media industry’s near future.

Vertical Video: New Standard?

The vertical video format seemed to be a somewhat recurring theme at this year’s CES. During Intel’s presentation, Adobe presented an impressive vertical video editing tool that will allow its users to crop their footage into a vertical video format for social media. The most impressive part is that Adobe’s Sensei AI engine will automatically determine the main subject of the video and focus on it automatically. …

Today’s viewers are presented with an enormous number of options about what they can watch, resulting in a growing challenge for broadcasters to keep consumers engaged and avoid the fragmentation of audiences.

As the quantity of direct-to-consumer (D2C) offerings expands, what can we do to increase viewer engagement and loyalty?

Enhancing The User Experience

While there’s no question that high-quality content is an essential component for success, it’s also vital to ensure a superior user experience (UX) across multiple platforms for driving engagement and broadening viewer loyalty.

Research indicates that smartphones are now the primary device used to watch online video content. According to Limelight Networks’ The State of Online Video 2019 survey report, computers were the most popular device for online video consumption as recently as 2018. …

Audiobook sales have been skyrocketing in recent years with Audio Publisher Association (APA) reporting that in 2018, US publishers sold around $940 million audiobooks, a 24.5% increase over 2017. APA also notes that 91.4% of 2018’s revenue came from digital format sales. This shows how enormous digital media’s impact is on the audiobook industry growth.

Thanks to platforms like Audible, audiobooks are now more accessible. Users can listen to an audiobook on their phone, connect it to their car, listen to it on their tablet, laptop, and smart speakers. …

Publishers are the gatekeepers of modern literature. As technology advances, both traditional publishing houses and self-publishing authors benefit from technology-enabled tools and analytics which were previously not available.

There is already a wide variety of tools for all stages of publishing. These do not only help automate daunting processes, but also give power to new independent voices by making self-publishing more accessible. From automated formatting to royalty management software, here are eight ways that AI helps take publishing to the next level.

Automated Text Analysis

Automated text analysis has multiple benefits in the publishing realm, ranging from editorial optimization to copyright enforcement and plagiarism detection. Publishing has always been rife with plagiarism, even in cases of large publishers, such as Grand Central Publishing. …