Multimedia

In the context of computing, multimedia refers to any of the various systems which can manipulate data in a variety of forms, such as sound, graphics or text. Think about a website like Facebook. What different forms of content reside there? The obvious one is textual content. Facebook users write posts and comments. Often, posts are embellished with images, and these image might have been taken with phone cameras. This leads us to another format of content: video. Smartphones can also shoot footage and users can upload that too. Some musicians upload sound files containing demos of their songs.

Facebook does a pretty sophisticated job of accomplishing a very complex task: that of allowing users to write their own content, to upload files in a variety of different formats, to view (or maybe consume is a better word) those files. And think of all that space those files take up. Video can take up an enormous amount of space, and there are billions of Facebook users uploading videos of cats as we speak.

What Are The Uses Of Multimedia

For what purpose would multimedia be used? On a website, textual content might be written to seduce potential customers into buying a product. Or a tutorial might guide someone through the task of repairing a scuffed car bumper. A blogger might share with their devoted audience what they had for lunch. Images might be used to depict the product a customer wants to buy, before and after images of a repaired bumper or a photo of a plate of weird food. Video might show walk around footage of a car that's for sale, or someone repairing a car bumper or eating exotic food.

In all instances, the multimedia enhances and furthers the goals of the content they are embellishing. Those goals might be to sell a product or entertain an audience. Whatever the goal, the multimedia used should contribute to the consumer reaching that goal.

Creating Your Own Multimedia

Most people know how to write, so that's the textual content covered. It's easy to create a Facebook account and to start creating a narrative for your wonderful life. Your images could be provided by selfies taken by your smartphone, and video could also be shot on your phone. If you are in the business of creating computing tutorials you might even use screen recording software to record your on screen actions, and render a video. If you were designing a website, you might use an image editor like Adobe Illustrator to create images for use in the design.