Category Archives: Future of Media

Go Read This | David Worlock | Developing digital strategies for the information marketplace | Supporting the migration of information providers and content players into the networked services world of the future.

Posted by —

0

David is so often on the money, and he nails it here, but crucially the first quote I’ve pulled is only part of the story:

In consumer publishing it is really hard to find examples of players once great in print who are now able to operate in network terms with a similar facility .

There’s much more more:

I also feel that the portfolio days of B2B have drawn to a close. Investing in disparate service elements in niche markets no longer adds sufficient value to be justified , and if the future really is around workflow emulation, as this column has been suggesting, then the niche positions do not cut it without a great deal more content and software.

via David Worlock | Developing digital strategies for the information marketplace | Supporting the migration of information providers and content players into the networked services world of the future..

Quick Link | How Apple Just Disrupted the Cable Guys | Epicenter | Wired.com

Posted by —

0

Interesting view. Personally, I’m not sold. Maybe it’s the non-US based thing.

In the Apple TV ecosystem, the phone is not just an iOS controller, it is the hub of a new personal mobile media center. Don’t get distracted by Apple’s video rental service. It sucks, for now, and won’t get people to cut the cable. But they will buy the Apple TV box, because it is cheap and they have iPhones and iPods and iPads, and they see the inexorable logic of closing the loop between their Macs and their phones and their mobile media devices and their TVs.

This loop will make it really easy for people to start consuming new kinds of content on their TVs. I bet they’ll start to use it. A lot. This is what is disruptive about the new Apple TV, not the $99 price or the rental service. Apple TV is a paradigm shift, because you always have your phone but no one lets you integrate your phone into the media center.

via How Apple Just Disrupted the Cable Guys | Epicenter | Wired.com.

Go Read This | Delusions, Illusions, and the True Costs of Digital Publishing « The Scholarly Kitchen

Posted by —

0

Clever stiff this. Kent is on the money when he points to the payment for access to information rising rapidly but the people collecting it aint the creators.

I was struck by this today when reading of HBO’s 5-Year £150 Million deal with BSkyB. When will an access provider see fit to buy guaranteed rights to quality content online? And when they do will it herald the end of the open web as we have known it?

Instead, we’re entering a realm of high fixed costs that have to be spread over a longer timeframe, which must be recouped while new charges are accumulating from maintenance and enhancement activities. And as editorial and management costs migrate from a hybrid print/online budget (in many organizations, costs are still presumptively print), the fixed costs for digital will only increase.

Then, publishers, authors, and retailers will have to absorb the reality of a digital-dominant model. My guess is that pricing will increase dramatically across the board as the fixed costs, talent costs, and full-on business expenses have to be met by digital business.

via Delusions, Illusions, and the True Costs of Digital Publishing « The Scholarly Kitchen.

Go Read This: Pirates’ wages

Posted by —

0

A very fine post by Brian O’Leary over at Magellan Media Partners:

The story broke pretty fast, and various news organizations struggled with how to “cover” a story for which the content was effectively unavailable.  Time.com and Politico decided the story was the story, and so “fair use” could justify copying an entire article and posting it on their sites.

via Pirates’ wages.

A Quick Note On Media 2020

Posted by —

3

qrcode Others have written decent summaries on what happened at Media 2020, a conference on the future of media in Ireland that was run by Media Contact in Croke Park Conference Centre yesterday. Blathnaid Healy has a blog summary using Twitter hastags [clever methinks] and Fin O’Reilly has an interesting round-up too. I wanted to add some thoughts on three things, one that struck me while I was listening to speakers and the others that became obvious as I digested the event.

we are behind our competitors
The first thought is that we are quite a ways behind our competitors. This became obvious when BBC Backstage producer Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) spoke. He had tried just about everything Irish media companies were thinking of or had just launched.

This came to a comical head when one of the mythic future techs mentioned, QR Codes, came up for discussion on a panel. He mentioned an experiment that the BBC had done in a zoo using, QR Codes, and almost casually mentioned that it was three years ago. I had a good laugh at that. Matt Locke (@mattlock) from Channel Four hit some similar notes too as did Jonathon Moore (@moorej) from Guardian Media.

The import of this was obvious to me. Ireland is behind other countries in digital change. As the world becomes more digital, our competitors become more global. Irish media companies need to start experimenting quickly and following the lessons learned elsewhere. They have an opportunity to jump ahead but I’d caution them to wait just a moment before they do.

no-one seems to have a coherent strategy
It was something of a relief coming from a seemingly rudderless publishing industry, to see that pretty much all content and media firms are as clueless about the future as publishers are. They are all distracted by the shiny toys, all entranced by the lure of easy profits in apps and downloads and all besotted with copyright protection and forcing the reader or the advertiser to adapt to their advantage.

The BBC, if I read their thinking correctly, at least seemed content to let innovation find a way forward but were not pushing for that to happen any time soon, The Guardian’s vaunted digital plan is at least clear, but I’m not certain it offers much more than a hope that their gamble on openness will be rewarded. They at least have not flip-flopped from tactic to tactics in the hope of stumbling upon a strategy by accident as others have.

It seems to me that following the trend is not the way forward. So experimentation is definitely a good idea, but with clear purpose and forceful reasoning.

where was book publishing?
There was not one speaker from book publishing and looking down the list of attendees, the closest one gets to a book publisher was me, Eason who had a representative and one or two PR Agencies that have been known to handle book publicity.

On the one hand it is a shame that the book publishers did not see the need to attend and on the other it says a lot about the perception of book publishing in Ireland that the organisers felt no need to include someone to speak to that market.

While much of the day did not specifically mention or reference books, there was so much potential on display for creators of quality content and new ways of thinking about content that not attending seems to me to have been a poor choice for book publishers.

final thoughts
I enjoyed the conference enormously and came away feeling refreshed and happy that there were people thinking deeply about digital change in Ireland, surprised that so many people hadn’t read The Cluetrain Manifesto and impressed by the openness to social media at the Abbey Theatre (@abbeytheatre) as traditional an icon of Ireland as they come.

Disclosure: I was given a free ticket for the conference by Media Contact after I retweeted a promotional tweet.