It’s no secret that news cycles are shrinking. They have been ever since the advent of 24 hour cable news. The Internet only serves to shrink news cycles further. At some point in the near future the Onion’s 24 second news cycle won’t seem quite so funny.

Traditional media outlets have been struggling to adapt their formats in a world where their audience already knows the news. Meanwhile, communications professionals of all varieties are trying new strategies for disseminating their messages to audiences facing information overload.

While media organizations have been focused on competing in a world of increasing competition and decreasing audience attention span, a complex social media ecosystem has emerged to present us with an entirely new type of news cycle — the viral news cycle.

Blogs, social news aggregators, podcasts, and web video have proven to be a highly effective platform for propagating news, in a manner that couldn’t be more different from traditional media. While traditional news cycles offer a top down dissemination of information, viral news cycles have emerged as the result of news audiences sharing and filtering news directly with their peers.

In many respects, the viral news cycle exists in an entirely different dimension from the traditional news cycle. Traditional news cycles are linear, viral news cycles are jagged and unpredictable as stories work their way through a complex mesh of social media nodes.

(Read more of The Viral News Cycle)

The Oxford Media Works team spent last week at BookExpo America 2006 — an eye-opening experience for more than one reason. We’ve heard rumors that approximately 25,000 people attended BEA, and if you spent any time at all trying to fight your way through crowds in the exhibition hall, you’d probably say that number is low.

There were two aspects of the conference that created a big impression on us. First, he sheer number of books being pitched to book buyers (as opposed to consumers), reviewers, and anyone who slows their pace or catches someone’s eye. Second, the rather last-century relationship the publishing industry has with new media, including, oddly, the Internet.

(Read more of Don’t Fear New Media)

If you’re like me you’ve been hearing about Convergence for so long that you’ve become understandably jaded. The dream of a convergent world with multiplying media options has been floated by all manner of visionaries and hucksters for over two decades. Not so long ago the prospect of convergence seemed a lot like flying automobiles. A classic futurist scenario that will probably never come to pass.

Remember when we were promised a world with 500 channels? If that future was so great how come they didn’t anticipate TiVo or YouTube? The vision of seemingly unlimited television programming was an extension of the old media world view - one where consumers watch passively at a pre-appointed times and wait to be told what to purchase. That world is about to become extinct. You can no longer treat your audience like lab mice.

Media has always been about engaging and communicating with your audience. The difference now is that your audience has more options than ever before. And tomorrow they’ll have even more options. Unless you proactively use new media to engage your audience you’ll lose them - permanently.

(Read more of Business As Usual Is No Longer On The Menu)