This Wednesday I'll be moderating a panel discussion for Ross Dawson's Future of Media Summit 2007 in Sydney. The topic I'll be moderating is 'User generated content meets mainstream media'. It's a topic of great interest to me, as it poses two questions that I'm very keen to see answered ...

The Future of Media Summit 2007 participant blog is now launched.

The blog on this page, which was for the Future of Media Summit 2006, will remain as a record of some of the post-event conversations from last year's event.

Last year we only launched the participant blog for the Future of Media Summit 2006 at the time when the actual event kicked off. This year we’d like to build an conversation beginning before the event, and extending far beyond, so we will continue with the same Future of Media Summit blog for Summits in subsequent years, rather than create a new blog each year.

See you on the new blog!

The Future of Media Report 2006 has certainly achieved its intention of generating discussion with dozens of posts and also good media coverage. So far there has been discussion in five languages from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Peru, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, UK, and the US (these are representative links only – in most of these countries there have been many references to the report).

Here is the full list of links to the report and Summit website (Technorati).

There were two particularly thorough and thoughtful analyses of the report, the first of the reviews from Robin Good at Master New Media, and another one from Sanjana Hottotuwa – these are both very much worth reading. I’d like to pick up on and respond to just a few of their comments.

Robin says:

The report is way too US-centric. The revolution in the making is a global one, not an American one. Do you think that if by accident the US had a sustained black out this would somehow stop? Many other local and regional realities are at work, and often with a much greater impact on society and with a faster evolutionary speed than what the US content and advertising marketplaces have done.
…
Given the highlights and the relative majority of research data focusing on the US-UK-Australia triangle only, ironically the report could have been better titled something as The Future of American and Anglo-Saxon Media.

Absolutely a fair comment Robin. The reason we limited the research focus of the report to US, UK, and Australia was primarily one of resources. While Future Exploration Network is a global organization, these are our "home" countries. In creating the report we considered whether to include other interesting media markets, which could have included China, Brazil, Scandinavia, or many others. However the report was pulled together very quickly, and we simply didn’t have the time and resources to extend beyond these three markets for the research portion of the report. The other themes and issues, such as the strategic framework, absolutely apply in all media markets, and it’s certainly been encouraging how global the response to the report has been. We would love to do a report either truly more global in scope, or addressing specific markets such as East Asia, continental Europe, or Latin America, however this would require some resources. So if any organizations are interested in sponsoring or getting involved in a report that would go further than the original one, definitely get in touch with us.

Robin says:

Global media market highlights.
32 years [for the media and entertainment industry to double its share of the global economy]? I think it will take much less time than that, and looking at the report I get no reference or URL to verify and deepen my understanding. The data reported to support this point say only: "based on 1999-2004 trends" (page 3 of the report).

Sorry, yes this is worth elaborating. In 1999-2004 the global media and entertainment industries grew by 28.5%, while global GDP increased by 18.7%. If these growth rates continue, the share of media and entertainment of the global economy will double in 32 years. Since these years include both the dot-com boom and subsequent bust, they may not be representative. I too believe that it will take less than 32 years, but it’s an interesting extrapolation. While the global economy is likely to grow at a strong pace (barring disasters), the shift to intangible value will definitely accelerate.

Robin says:
Continue reading the rest of the post...

Table 3 discussed how newsrooms around the world are embracing the concept of convergent journalism. Ifra estimates that about 500 media companies around the world are working across media. Stephen Quinn, who has published 3 books on the subject in the past year, gave an overview of the factors leading to acceptance of convergence.
Frances Green, national training adviser with the ABC, discussed what she had learned at a conference on convergence in London. Werner Vom Busch, executive director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Singapore, talked about how media companies use incentives to get journalists to work across platforms.
Phil Sandberg, publisher of BroadcastPapers.com, talked about how he had written about convergence at Al-Jazeera in the latest edition of his mgazine. Nicole Manktelow, freelance writer and film-maker, said new digital tools gave journalists new freedoms and possibilities.
Most participants agreed that the chance to have a round-table discussion with other people at the conference was an excellent idea. We exchanged ideas and business cards, and wanted more time to talk and debate a major concept. My apologies if I missed out on reporting what other people at the table said.
Stephen Quinn, facilitator for table 3.

Our audience session looked at new media business models. It was pointed out that Australia has a chance to differentiate itself in the media market with highly targetted content that can demand much higher CPM. Many new media models are based on knowing and better monetising the customer relationship. Investing in CRM and then creatively working out ways to leverage that relationship creates powerful new media models. Extend, extend, extend. Leverage users and brand to extend into as many new revenue streams as possible. Events, research, podcasts, videostreaming, etc. Media cannot dictate the medium and mode of delivery but this should be seen as an opportunity not a threat. New devices will bring them new revenue opportunities. iPods, tablets, e-paper, etc all have the potential to extend media reach.

As John Maloney blogged ^* I mentioned the use of prediction markets to inform future of media strategies at the summit.

If you don't know about prediction markets please skip over to the Wikipedia article and Chris F. Masse's industry reporting.

How can prediction markets help with media future strategy:

• Information aggregation/discovery - use the 'wisdom of crowds' to get a handle on where road trends are going or whether your specific initiative will be pan out.
• Risk management - hedging and speculation.

Public and internal corporate markets have uses. Examples:

• Contract pays if NYT daily circulation declines 2005-2006.
• Contract pays if redesign of xyz.com launches by 2006-08-22.

Both of these are pretty mundane. The second is probably an internal market used to as a check on what the redesign team is telling management.

Since nobody knows what the future of media holds, using prediction markets may give you a critical edge (until their use becomes common, in which case navigating without prediction markets will put you at a critical disadvantage).

There are now many ways to try prediction markets: public real money markets, public play money markets (you can set up your own), open source software for running internal markets and consulting outfits ready to ... consult. Chris F. Masse has a comprehensive guide to these categories and more.

I've posted about prediction markets on my personal blog several times, though usually with a policy or technology focus.

As I said at the summit I'd love to hear about how media organizations and agencies that play in the media field are using prediction markets or ideas how they might -- including ideas for claims related to Creative Commons or more broadly the impact and role of peer production and related on media and vice versa.

^* Actually John wrote "... the critical question on how information markets will be used in the creation, use and syndication of media in the future." As worded that's a separate but very interesting and more speculative topic. The implication is that PMs could be an integral part of media production and consumption at a very low level.

Technology Rewrites the Book

"The print-on-demand business is gradually moving toward the center of the marketplace"

Software from Blurb.com provides templates for various genres, like a travel book.

By PETER WAYNER -- Published: July 20, 2006

When Steve Mandel, a management trainer from Santa Cruz, Calif., wants to show his friends why he stays up late to peer through a telescope, he pulls out a copy of his latest book, “Light in the Sky,” filled with pictures he has taken of distant nebulae, star clusters and galaxies.

Skip to next paragraph

Steve Mandel, above, created his book “Light in the Sky” using software from Blurb.com; the cover image is of the Hale-Bopp comet. “I consistently get a very big ‘Wow!’ The printing of my photos was spectacular — I did not really expect them to come out so well.” he said. “This is as good as any book in a bookstore.”

Mr. Mandel, 56, put his book together himself with free software from Blurb.com. The 119-page edition is printed on coated paper, bound with a linen fabric hard cover, and then wrapped with a dust jacket. Anyone who wants one can buy it for $37.95, and Blurb will make a copy just for that buyer.

The print-on-demand business is gradually moving toward the center of the marketplace. What began as a way for publishers to reduce their inventory and stop wasting paper is becoming a tool for anyone who needs a bound document. Short-run presses can turn out books economically in small quantities or singly, and new software simplifies the process of designing a book.

Mike Linksvayer of Creative Commons kicked off the Future of Media Summit in SF by proposing the critical question on how information markets will be used in the creation, use and syndication of media in the future.

In a hyper-differentiated media market, where consumers are producers, and long-tails abound, how will crowd wisdom help in sensemaking?

Information markets or knowledge exchanges are the development, application and wide usage of market-based mechanisms for resolving questions of entertainment, science, media, journalism, technology, management, strategy, planning, public policy, etc.

Information markets are exploding worldwide. The Prediction Markets Cluster® is the open industry network for prediction and information markets.

Crowd wisdom makes an important impact to long tails and media ‘futures.’ Literally hundreds of new information markets for media are popping up everywhere.

The next triangulated deep-dive (tools, process, and theory) is Nov 2 in Vienna at the PM Summit – Europe.

Nicole Khan who attended the San Francisco side of the event offers some reflections on the Summit on her blog. The summary of her thoughts are below - check out the original post for specific reflections on what speakers had to offer at the event:

My overall thought on the event? I think it was well done! I liked the format, I can see that working again in the future, in a variety of contexts. I had hoped that more people would have added stuff to the event blog beforehand, oh well… and the framework and report (PDF) which were released before the event were helpful in developing pre-panel ideas. The collaboration was cool – I saw a definite difference in perspective (not goals or ideas) of the media world and the topics under daily discussion between Sydney and SF. This helped broadened the panel discussion and hopefully helped to close the gap between U.S. and Australian perspectives on the topic.

In the future I hope to see more collaboration, more exchanging of ideas in other countries, in ad hoc formats like videoconferences.

We are definitely considering this as a starting point. Future Exploration Network will certainly do more multi-location events, and we hope others will too.

The main points of discussion of the Implications of Australian Media Legislation participant panel were:

* The chances of Communications Minister Helen Coonan's proposed Media Reform Package getting through the Senate
* The two most difficult Senators: National's Barnaby Joyce and Steve Fielding of the Family First Party
* Difficulty with take up of Digital and the cost to the Government of simulcasting of analogue and digital on ABC and SBS
* The possible uses of the Spare Spectrum for mobile TV and digital services
* Explanation of multichannelling and the success of Freeview in the UK
* The need for separation of content and carrier for datacasting and telecommunications

Panel convened by Peter Cox: http://www.coxmedia.com.au/