As new media technologies continue to experience rapid growth, the number of new media jobs on both the development side and the user side is increasing to meet the demand. New media jobs include both employment opportunities within a new media company, as well as self-employment opportunities for individuals who conduct their businesses using new media platforms and revenue sharing models.
One of the major types of new media companies are social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, which need to fill a wide variety of new media jobs to keep their sites operational. For the technology itself, these companies require programmers, application developers, web designers, systems administrators, and other high-tech positions to maintain optimal functionality. As well, social networking sites employ customer service representatives to answer user queries, salespeople to sell ad space, tech writers to write site copy, and executives to oversee all operations of the site.
Individuals who use new media technologies can also create their own new media jobs and self-employment opportunities. For example, a blogger who generates a high volume of web traffic can set up advertising opportunities with targeted advertisers who wish to expose their ads to the same demographic that reaches the blog. The blogger can then generate revenue from the advertiser through either a cost-per-click arrangement or cost-per-page view. YouTube allows its members a similar opportunity to earn money from advertisers via a revenue-sharing Partnership program. If a YouTube user is accepted into the Partnership program after submitting an application via the site, the user’s videos will begin featuring targeted ads from which the user can earn revenue.
Another example of entrepreneurial new media jobs is to become a vendor on buy and sell sites such as eBay and Etsy. Of the new media services which allow members to buy and sell items, eBay and Etsy are the ones most commonly used as a means of ongoing self-employment, allowing their members to set up online “shops” and sell products on a regular basis. Free classified sites such as Craigslist and Kijiji also allow users the opportunity to post ads for the purpose of selling items; however, they don’t offer the same assistance in terms of shipping and e-commerce.
