The news and information industry is constantly debating and redefining the delivery of content in the digital age. In doing so, the moguls and the experts would be wise to consider an 18-year-old African-American kid from Philadelphia who goes by the name of Yofray Ray.
Yofray Ray, and a second person he describes as a “business partner,” created “I’m Schmacked.” Yofray travels to college campuses, shooting video of students engaged in serious partying. He edits down the video, sets it to music and posts it on the Internet.
Yofray’s video on and near the WVU campus on St. Patrick’s Day was an immediate Internet hit. In just five days, over 204,000 people had watched WVU students partying hard.
By comparison, WVU’s video tour of the new basketball facility posted last February on YouTube, had just over 22,000 views. The University-produced video of WVU’s Distinguished Alumni had 940 YouTube visitors.
Also for comparrison, the Metronews story about the video, which featured an interview with Yofray, had just over 17,000 hits.
I don’t know how many hits other traditional media had on the story, but it’s hard to imagine any news outlet topping the kid from Philly with a video camera, a laptop and an idea of what people might want to watch.
No, it’s not journalism, but it is content that managed to cut through the clutter, reaching almost a quarter of a million viewers in less than a week… and more by the second. He did it without utilizing, at least initially, any traditional media.
Yofray didn’t have to send his video to CNN or Metronews or the Dominion Post newspaper. Shoot, he didn’t even have to post it on his business website. In fact, it doesn’t appear that “I’m Schmacked” even has a website.
Instead, Yofray could go right to his Facebook page and YouTube, where the video was trending within minutes on Twitter. Traditional media were on the story pretty quickly, but we were catching up. Yofray had set the news agenda, and had completely bypassed conventional media in the process.
None of this means that traditional news outlets are going away. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism finds in its latest study that consumers still want traditional news brands, and mobile devices are strengthening that lure.
One significant change, however, is that technology companies are moving more into content delivery by partnering with traditional news organizations. For example, YouTube is paying Reuters to produce original news shows and Yahoo is teaming up with ABC News for video.
That means talented content providers like Yofray Ray may just end up working for the latest incarnation of the mega-news companies. Even trendy entrepreneurs may want a regular paycheck and health insurance at some point.
Or maybe not.
It’s possible that the current and emerging technologies are so powerful that the digital age will be dominated by waves of independents like Yofray Ray, who can carry all they need in a backpack and post to a connected world sans a conventional outlet.