The evolution of the digital content has grown rapidly over the past few years and the way people use digital content has also changed at an unbelievable rate.

Various types of devices, content formats (media), platforms (social media, E-Books, YouTube), consumer demographics and behavior have unequivocal impact on the design of the digital content.

For this reason, the Inaugural Professorial Lecture entitled "Keeping Up With Digital Content: Evolution, Design, Expectation of Multimedia, Polymedia, Mulsemedia and User-Generated Media" delved into pertinent issues related to digital content and its development. The lecture was delivered by Professor Dr. Norshuhada Shiratuddin.

In her lecture, Professor Dr. Norshuhada traced the evolution of digital content from multimedia up to the adoption of the latest terms such as polymedia, mulsemedia and user-generated media.

The evolution of content digitization began in the early 1990s, and it created new opportunities for the community to use, share and create digital content through the increasing number of device tools and platforms intended for use at any moment and any location.

"There is no universal definition of digital content, however the 1998 Communications and Multimedia Act defines content as "any sound, text, still pictures, motion pictures or other audiovisual performances, tactile presentations or any such combination which can be manipulated, stored, retrieved or transmitted electronically."

"Since the content is gradually being used in various platforms like mobile phones and tablets of various formats, the content creation process has also evolved digitally to meet the requirements of the diverse platforms.

She added that, the key milestones in the creation of digital content were the establishment of Amazon in 1994 (the concept of E-Books and subsequent products), Google's appearance in 1998, YouTube in 2005 and Facebook Messenger introduced in 2014 (Fitzpatrick, 2018) have further disseminated the use of digital content in mobile gadgets.

The Inaugural Professorial Lecture Series is a platform for all professors at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) to deliver a lecture on their respective fields and the lecture will be compiled and published by the university.

The Inaugural Professorial lecture was held at the Seminar Hall of the School of Multimedia Technology and Communication (SMMTC). Also present at the lecture were the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Student Affairs and Alumni), Professor Dr. Abdul Malek Abdul Karim, UUM professors, lecturers and students.