User blog comment:Brandon Rhea/Why Fandom Evolves: A Look Ahead in 2017/@comment-3359255-20170111185656/@comment-20644-20170112201933

@Simsilikesims - There's an old metaphor about a company that goes out into the public and proclaims, "We've made the best horse carriages the world has ever seen!" Meanwhile, people are out there driving motor vehicles.

That's an extreme example in this case&mdash;textual content won't ever become obsolete, barring some breakthrough new technology in the future&mdash;but it's a good example of how companies and web platforms have to adapt to changing trends. You can stick to the mindset of "but this is how things are supposed to be," but, in doing so, it's very easy to overlook or dismiss how things actually are.

Having original video content is a perfect example of that. We can stick to "this is what a wiki is supposed to be," or we can continue to be a place that has great textual content in addition to more visual and video content for people who want to have that sort of content. If we have more than one kind of content, audiences will stay here. If we fall behind, odds are another company will end up filling that void. We can evolve, or we can be left behind. That's a key point we'll continue discussing with the community, because we want to make sure that our communities are bringing in great audiences for their own success as well.

@Egwene of the Malazan Empire - Of course, a topic like a major movie franchise will have more opportunities for video content than a book series, but that doesn't mean that a book series community has no opportunities for videos either. There could be brief video summaries of a book, or a character, or something else related to the story. There could be video-based discussions about the book. And more. There are plenty of opportunities there to engage your readers in new ways, as well as to bring in new audiences for your community.

But to address what I think is your most important point, we will of course balance that with text. Text will always be the primary thing that a reader sees on a wiki page. We just don't think it needs to be the only type of content, and we want to address those changing audience trends.