Georgia Tech identifies coming media megatrends in FutureMedia Outlook 2012

These findings were announced in today's release of the FutureMediaSM Outlook 2012, a multimedia report that offers Georgia Tech's annual viewpoint on the future of media and its impact on people, business and society over the next five to seven years.

“Georgia Tech's work in Future Media is part of our new Institute for People and Technology,” said Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson. “By partnering with business and industry on interdisciplinary research, we are able to identify trends and challenges and work to develop transformative solutions.”

According to FutureMedia Outlook 2012, six megatrends will have a pervasive impact:

Smart Data: In an increasingly noisy world, we'll have to sift, filter and be smarter about what matters.

People Platforms: Beyond “true personalization,” people will not just be consumers. They will be socially driven platforms made of algorithms from personal and associated data that they design and tailor themselves.

Content Integrity: Pervasive mobile devices, sprawling networks, clouds and multi-layered platforms have made it more difficult to detect and address our digital vulnerabilities, drawing us to trusted content sources.

Nimble Media: Media is evolving from a set of fixed commodities into an energetic, pervasive medium that allows people to navigate across platforms and through different content narratives.

6th Sense: Extraordinary innovations in mixed reality will change the way we see, hear, taste, touch, smell and make sense of the world – giving us a new and powerful 6th sense.

Collaboration: We will harness the power of many in an increasingly conversational and participatory world.

For each of the six megatrends, the Outlook 2012 presents fresh and objective insights into those technologies and business practices that will significantly impact the converging media ecosystem. In addition, the report includes demonstrative clips and video interviews with leading Georgia Tech researchers offering real-world examples of how the Institute is proactively innovating in these areas.

“Breakthrough research, innovation and collaboration with our partners have given us a rich and pragmatic basis from which to formulate this annual FutureMedia Outlook,” said Renu Kulkarni, founder and executive director of FutureMedia.

The FutureMedia Outlook 2012 follows FutureMedia Fest 2011, an annual event that explores the media's disruptive power on people and business. The three-day Fest, held November 15-17, featured compelling keynote addresses, panel discussions, dynamic start-up and research demos, and workshops with top executives, investors, innovators, entrepreneurs, academics and researchers. Panelists and speakers included leaders from Twitter, Mashable, Turner Broadcasting and CNN.

About the Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the world's premier research universities. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, the Institute enrolls more than 20,000 students within its six colleges. Georgia Tech is the nation's leading producer of engineers as well as a leading producer of female and minority engineering Ph.D. graduates. Holding more than 780 patents and receiving approximately $570 million in sponsored awards, Georgia Tech ranks among the nation's top ten universities (without a medical school) in research expenditures. Visit http://www.gatech.edu for more information.

About FutureMedia

FutureMediaSM is Georgia Tech's global collaborative initiative whose focus is to explore, enable and transform new ways of how content is created, distributed and consumed. Based on market success, the initiative has grown to be part of a larger, newly created Institute of People and Technology (IPaT). IPaT is a network of world-class academic researchers and industry innovators collaborating on groundbreaking research that is altering the fields of media, education, healthcare and humanitarian systems.