July 2008 Archives

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced new guidelines (available in the next week or two) that will recognize the role of blogs in disclosing investor-sensitive information to the public.

Back in 2005 I wrote an update on the situation at the time on investor relations and blogging, and in 2006 I delivered the keynote at the Australian Investor Relations Association on the Future of Investor Relations, and wrote about SUN Microsystem’s CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s initiatives for blogging to be a recognized form of investor disclosure.

The SEC appears to be moving ahead at a swift pace, despite cries from some, particularly in the news release business, that the old system shouldn’t be changed. In fact the comments below from SEC Chairman Christopher Cox come from a podcast, transcribed by IRWebReport:

I’ve been trying to get the time to do reviews of the key panels at the Future of Media Summit, but it’s been tough to get. Here I will kick off with a quick review of the Global Media Strategies panel. The fantastic cast of speakers that I moderated was:
Loic Le Meur, CEO, Seesmic
Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix
Willie Pang, Head of Yahoo! Search Marketing Australia/ New Zealand
Craig Blair, Executive Director, netus

Global media strategies is the one topic that is covered every single year at the Future of Media Summit. One of the main reasons we run an event across two locations simultaneously – in the Bay Area and Sydney – is to gain insights into the differences between media markets. On each side of the event, by comparing experiences across variations in market size, media ownership structure, regulation, culture, broadband and mobile data access etc., we can think usefully about what it takes to build and implement global media strategies.

In the very popular Future of Media Report 2008 that accompanied our event, we included insights such as the expected growth in advertising revenue 2007 – 2010 in both dollar and percentage terms, illustrated below. While the largest absolute growth will be in the US, emerging nations are where the bulk of new value will come from.

Here are just a few of the insights from the panel discussion that remain from my notes and scattered brain cells.

After the news of the deal between LinkedIn and New York Times I wrote about a couple of days ago, LinkedIn has just announced new deals with LexisNexis and Outlook plug-in Xobni.

The LexisNexis deal is particularly intriguing. Back in 2003 a number of corporate social networking applications were launched, notably Spoke, VisiblePath, and Contact Network Corporation. I knew all the players well, and Spoke was in fact the Gold Sponsor of the Living Networks Forum I ran in New York in December 2003. At the time there was one other significant player which was in a similar space, which was InterAction CRM software, owned by Interface. The CRM software was primarily sold to legal firms, where it had a strong presence. Its functionality included a “who knows whom” function, so that lawyers could find out who in their firm knew people at client or prospect firms. As with all the other corporate social networking applications, this included a high degree of user choice on what personal contact information was made available.

In December 2004 LexisNexis, the largest provider of legal information, acquired Interface, making InterAction CRM part of its suite of offerings. Since then LexisNexis has very actively acquired software companies, notably VisualFiles in case management, Juris in pratice management, and Axxia in backoffice legal solutions, repositioning itself far beyond being an information provider.

It is inevitable that news dissemination will become a largely social function. By whatever means, we will be provided with extremely low touch ways of sharing content we think would be interesting to specific people we know. This will then be filtered in various ways by the recipients, however most will value being recommended articles and sites on an individual basis.

Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, and other tools allow us to recommend content to the world at large. But recommendations are far more valuable if they are specific to the person and context. The best way to disseminate these recommendations is through our social networks, if we happen to spend time there. So social networks can become a platform for the collaborative filtering of content, giving individuals the benefit of their network’s judgment and access to information.

In this context, the announcement today by New York Times and LinkedIn of a way of providing custom content and recommendations to their network is a landmark. Over the next few years this integration of social networks and content will rapidly evolve to be a very important part of the landscape.

Michael Arrington of Techcrunch has just announced that they are trying to create the specifications to build a tablet computer primarily for web browsing for $200. The intention is to design it, then open source the design and software so anyone can build it, thus making an inexpensive web tablet available to many. More background from Nik Cubrilovic.

This directly addresses one of the key points in our Future of the Media Lifecycle framework, illustrated below (full explanation at the link).

The development of mobile media requires rich media devices. These come in two forms: handheld and portable. The iPhone and its emerging competitors have finally created a handheld interface which is a true media device that will encourage people to engage in a wide range of media consumption and creation activities. However there is still an important role for portable devices, that can’t be put in a pocket. While I’m a strong believer in the role of video glasses and similar interfaces that allow a handheld device to provide a wide visual screen, the reality is that in most cases people will want a normal flat screen. Before long rollable and foldable screens will fulfil this role. In the meantime a flat screen is both available, and will long have a cost advantage over e-paper-based screens. Laptops have a place, but have long boot times and are over-specified. eBooks will also be important, though are currently fairly application specific. A web tablet as described by Arrington would neatly fill an important space in having an inexpensive, flexible portable media device that will facilitate accessing the personal cloud that will be at the center of our lives.

On another level, this is a great example of open source innovation, in which consumers define what they want, create the model, and by making the design open source, ensure the product is commoditized and low cost. The highest value part of the process is performed by the customers, not the vendors.

I visited several venture capital firms in Silicon Valley this week and also met the CEOs of a number of VC-funded companies. Not surprisingly, much of the talk was about the climate and outlook for venture capital, which is the spigot from which much of Silicon Valley drinks.

The MoneyTree Survey of venture capital, summarized in GigaOm , shows that total VC investments in the second quarter were basically flat over the last year or so, however with a slight continuing decline in early-stage investments. One of the key features is that late-stage investments are accumulating as exits become more difficult. IPOs had already dried up before the more recent stockmarket downturn, and now the tighter constraints on capital across the economy mean that trade exits are also falling off.

Source: MoneyTree via GigaOm

Sorry I’ve been slow to follow up on the Future of Media Summit – it’s been a very busy time since the event, including some long flights :-)

To start off here are some of the most interesting blog posts on the Summit. There are some fantastic ideas and insights in these, so well worth a read. In no particular order :

Stephen Collins: What will the future of media look like?, including the ‘artificial split’ between journalism and new media

Chris Bishops: Monetising future content: business models as traditional content models break down.

JD Lasica: Takeaways from Future of Media Summit, including the ‘Great Decoupling’ and media as ‘Distraction Machine’

Phil Morle: A Future for TV: The Collaborative Crowd - the future is (crudely) present

Seth Yates: Comprehensive Future of Media Summary including notes on all the panels

Jay Cross: review of Future of Media Summit, including the US future of journalism panel

Stilgherrian: Note to “old media: journalists: adapt or stfu!
(Same post at Crikey with different comment stream)

Jonathan Este: Bloggers: the biggest whingers since journalists (Response to Stilgherrian, originally posted on Crikey and reposted on Stilgherrian's blog with comments)

Brad Howarth: Live from Future of Media Summit Part 1, Live from Future of Media Summit Part 2, Live from Future of Media Summit Part 3 - detailed insights and commentary

Craig Wilson: review of the Future of Media Summit, including discussion of the Twitter backchannel at the event

Gavin Heaton: review of future of Media Summit: the future of media is PARTICIPATION

Alex Gibson: compilation of ideas and annotations from the event Twitter stream

Kathy Drasky: live blogging and commentary from the Future of Media Summit in Silicon Valley

Gordon Whitehead: Future of Media: Opportunity or Train Wreck – believing in opportunities

Also be sure to see the initial review of social media commentary on the Future of Media Summit. Since then, additional posts on the Future of Media Summit blog include two additional summaries of discussions on Participant Roundtables on the Sydney side:

Media and social networks Roundtable
Shifts in the advertising industry Roundtable

[UPDATE:] More great blog posts
Hugh Martin: More thoughts on the Summit and Future of Journalism panel

Trevor Cook: Future of media: how relevant is social media? (Trevor coulddn't attend but responded to the blog conversation)

Ben Barren: Recap of hesaid-shesaid Australia's own Sarah Lacy moment (Ben also didn't attend but adds thoughts to the debate.

Francis Pisani (Le Monde blog):
Blogalaxie: "future des medias" et "rumeurs" - Francis's comments on the future of journalisms blog discussion stemming from the event.

I'll be weighing in on the future of journalism debate (including notes from the outstanding Silicon Valley panel discussion) as soon as I get a chance...

I’ll do some more detailed reflections on the Future of Media Summit tomorrow. I’m just about to fall over after a very long day, but thought I’d post a few important social media references and commentary on the event.

First stopping point has to be the Future of Media Summit Blog, where participants have been busily posting all day, notably:

Participant roundtables in Sydney:
Mobile Media and Content
Future of Media and Television

Flow Economy/ Media Strategy Workshop in Silicon Valley:
Yahoo!
CBS

Reviews of panel discussions:
Global Media Strategies – 1
Global Media Strategies – 2
CEO Panel – 1
CEO Panel – 2
Future of TV and video – by Mark Pesce 1
Future of TV and video – by Mark Pesce 2
Future of Privacy and Targeted Advertising
Future of Journalism (Sydney)

Unconference sessions:
New Media – 1
New Media – 2

Twitter comments:
See the Summize search for Twitters with the #fom08 tag – literally hundreds of Twitters from attendees at the Future of Media Summit (which included a Twitter 101 session during the Unconference session in Sydney).

Live video:
The Ustream video from Phil Morle

All this will give you a good feel for the event from the perspective of participants. I'll provide some of my thoughts soon.

In previous years the Summit blog has continued to be active for quite a while after the event as discussions continue online - hopefully this will be the case this year too! Subscribe to the blog to keep up with the conversation.

Rand Leeb-du-Toit, the indefatigable entrepreneur and social media evangelist, is very consistently producing interesting insights on the emerging tech landscape at his blog Metarand – well worth a look or subscribe!

Last week Rand interviewed me for a podcast – go to the post to listen to the interview. We primarily discussed my thoughts leading into the Future of Media Summit, looking at the broad landscape of what’s happening in the media landscape.

What I like most about being interviewed is that I often learn from my own answers. Rand wrote:

The biggest takeout: he uses frameworks to synthesize his pattern recognition and as a communication tool for exploring trends and the potential paths we will follow in the future.

I am very frequently asked how I keep on top of so much information and make sense of it. It was only when Rand asked the question of how I go about ‘pattern recognition’ that I realized how central is the role of the frameworks I create, which are as much for myself as for others. Of the collection of frameworks in the Future of Media Report 2008, released last week, unquestionably my favorite is the Future of the Media Lifecycle framework, which pulled together many of the loose thoughts floating around in my head.

After the Future of Media Summit in Sydney tomorrow speakers and participants will be gathering at the Firehouse in North Sydney from 5:30pm for drinks and general post-event conviviality. We’ve simply named it as a spot for all to gather to grab a drink, so anyone is welcome to turn up, irrespective of whether they’ve attended the Summit or not.

Venue details and directions are here.

I will be in Silicon Valley for the US side of the event and long since in bed after a long day, so will miss out on all the fun, but the Future of Media Summit Sydney Chair, Jenny Williams of Ideagarden, and Jessica Hough and Julian Hill from Future Exploration Network will be there to welcome you and say hi. Pass on word to whoever you wish. Have a great time if you make it along! I’ll hear all about it afterwards…

The third key framework from Future of Media Report 2008 (after Future of the Media Lifecycle and 7 Driving Forces Shaping Media) is the Future of Media: Strategy Tools framework.

This lays out three of the most valuable tools for building strategy in the media and adjacent industries. The high-level overviews are intended to provide some useful introductions to relevant strategy tools for those engaged in the front-line of creating and implementing strategies in an extraordinarily dynamic environment.

Flow Economy Framework
The central framework used here is the Flow Economy framework that I first described in Chapter 7 of Living Networks (free download of chapter 7 here).

The chart gives an overview of the process of using the Flow Economy framework for media strategy, illustrated by brief examples of the strategies adopted by Apple, BSkyB, and NTT DoCoMo.

Scenario Planning for Media
A high-level example of the scenario planning process is described as applied to media, together with a scenario framework that is particularly relevant in the current environment.

Game Theory: Strategies for Openness
Traditional approaches to strategy are having to change as the industry landscape moves at a rapid pace to openness. One of the most powerful tools available to address these issues is game theory.

Every event we do, we run a blog for all speakers and participants. Since Future of Media Summit 2007 we’ve maintained the Future of Media blog on an ongoing basis, including my blogging activity on the future of media.

As we approach the Future of Media Summit 2008, the Future of Media Summit blog is taking off as a forum for fantastic contributions and ideas on the future of media. Summit speakers and participants are now posting, and we can expect some fantastic conversations on the event blog up to, during, and after the Summit next week.

Some recent highlighted posts with brief excerpts:

Mark Pesce on iPhail: A fantastic, detailed post on what is wrong with Australia’s iPhone plans.

Never in my five years in Australia have I seen such a complete failure in marketing. Three Australian telcos - Optus, Telstra and Vodafone - have the device. All of them have completely failed to recognize the pent-up demand for the device, and the way it will change network usage. This was revealed - beyond all doubts - in the way they released their pricing plans, and the specifics of those plans.

...

We could name our MVNO the Future AUstralian Carrier, or FAUC.

Don't like your plan from Telstra, or Vodafone, or Optus? Well, get FAUC.

Yes, we'd still have to deal with Apple, we'd still have to promise them 10% of the operating revenues from iPhone, if we wanted to retail it on FAUC, but we could at least be completely transparent about our costs. Customers (that is, us) would understand where every dollar spent on FAUC went. That, in itself, would likely engender tremendous loyalty from the base of users - which would bring more users in, a slow tidal wave, as people abandoned the big-name carriers for a crazy mob of Australians who decided to do it themselves.

So... who's in?

Mark Pesce (again) on Another Planet, Utterly Unlike Our Own.

This is the risk Disney takes when it uses old-fashioned business models in a thoroughly modern world. They may squeak by this time, and perhaps the next, but one day - and for the rest of time - that tactic will fail them. They'll lose their market window, because they misunderstood the audience.

Tom Abate on Take me to your leader. Reflections from a life in journalism on where it’s going.

Our Future of Media Report 2008 is now launched! (See also our extremely popular Future of Media Report 2007 and Future of Media Report 2006).

This will be given to attendees at the Future of Media Summit 2008 next week in beautiful glossy print format to take home. If for some reason you are NOT attending the Summit, you’ll have to settle for a digital version with small print-outs of the spreads (unless you happen to have a large-format printer handy…) :-)

This year we’ve taken a slightly different approach, moving away from providing statistics, and focusing on developing three frameworks to help people think about the future of media and engage in constructive conversations at the Summit. We’ve always found we get a fantastic response to our frameworks, so we focused on this as a way to create value with the report.

Future of Media Report 2008 (pdf 1MB)

A quick overview of the report contents:

WELCOME
An introduction to the report. The full text is at the bottom of this post.

MEDIA: A GROWTH MARKET
Contains our prediction that the global media and entertainment market will grow from US$1.7 trillion this year to US$5.7 trillion in 2024 (in 2008 dollars) - released in this report - as well as information on current growth trends in advertising.

[UPDATE:] The complete Future of Media Report 2008 is now available.

We are releasing our new framework: Seven Driving Forces Shaping Media.

This is the second framework we are releasing in the lead-up to the Future of Media Summit 2008, which will be held next week simultaneously in Silicon Valley and Sydney. This and other content will be used to provide a starting point for discussion and conversation.

The first was the Future of the Media Lifecycle, which has already attracted substantial links and commentary. In the next days another framework on strategic tools will be released, as well as the complete Future of Media Report 2008, including all three frameworks and additional content.

Seven Driving Forces Shaping Media (pdf 700KB):

Adding to my last post on the fabulous list of new confirmed speakers at Future of Media Summit 2008 …

See the full line-up of media leaders speaking at the event.

Others recently confirmed for the event include:

Belinda Rowe, CEO Australia of Zenith Optimedia, one of the top few media buying groups globally, with very detailed insights into media industry structure.
Stephen Hollings, CEO, News Digital Careers, who has probably the broadest understanding of the classifieds market in Australia.
Jane Schulze, Media Editor, The Australian. The Media & Marketing section of The Australian is the most widely read media publication in the country.
Bruce Meagher, Director Strategy at SBS, Australia’s multicultural public broadcaster, which has adopted a variety of new initiatives.
Willie Pang, Head of Yahoo! Search Marketing, previously worked on Yahoo!’s Panama project and has very international perspectives.
Jim Waltz, President, Traffic Marketplace, one of the leading advertising networks.
Brian Lott, SAP Global Client Leader, Burson-Marsteller, one of the leading PR firms globally.

Check out our Future of the Media Lifecycle framework, just released. More research and analysis posted here soon.

Hope to see you at the Summit!

Trying very hard to keep up on this blog with developments on Future of the Media Summit, which is falling into place as an amazing event.

Check out the Future of Media Summit 2008 website for full details on the latest speakers – it’s been described to me as a “stellar line-up” and that’s about right…

Just a couple of words in a few of the latest confirmed speakers:

Phil Bronstein, long-term editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and all-round media star, now editor-at-large at Hearst.
Mark Antonitis, President and GM of KRON-TV, which is one of the most interesting metropolitan TV stations in the US, with some very interesting practices.
Robert Scoble, MD Fast Company TV, formerly the lead blogger at Microsoft and at the very heart of the social media revolution.
Tom Abate, MiniMediaGuy, a blogger, journalist, and explorer of the future of journalism
Angelos Frangopoulos, CEO, Australian News Channel, which operates Sky News and also distributes content over multiple online and mobile platforms.
Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix, a Valley veteran running a leading US and international hyperlocal news site.
Chris Warren, General Secretary, Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (Australia’s journalism and content union), who is deeply engaged in the transformation of journalism.
Mark Goldman, COO, Current TV, which is still one of the most exciting and interesting media business models since it was founded by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt in 2005.

More fantastic new confirmed speakers in my next post - see the full list of speakers.

We tested the high-definition video link between Sydney and Silicon Valley today, courtesy of our event Strategic Partner Tandberg. Looks fantastic. As last year, people will be commenting that they can’t distinguish between the local and cross-Pacific panellists.

Also be sure to see our Future of the Media Lifecycle framework, just released specifically for the Summit. More frameworks and other content out over the next few days.

It will be a great event – hope to see you there!

[UPDATE:] The complete Future of Media Report 2008 is now available.

Another Future of Media Summit, another framework! We are today proudly launching the Future of the Media Lifecycle framework. This is the central framework of our Future of Media Report 2008. (See also the Future of Media Strategic Framework from 2006 and Key Elements of Media Business Models from 2007).

Over the next few days two additional frameworks as well as the full Future of Media Report 2008 will be released - check back soon!

Media_Lifecyle_Framework.pdf

While I’d like to think that the Future of Media Lifecycle framework is self-evident, it probably helps to explain it a bit :-), so here goes:

QR code for this blog

The Sydney Morning Herald has recently had big features in its Saturday edition on QR codes, the 2-dimensional bar codes that act as visual URLs for mobile phones, taking them automatically to the linked online content. QR codes are massive in Japan, appearing in magazines, billboards, business cards, shop windows, T-shirts, and more, by dint of NTT DoCoMo’s promotion of the codes. One Japanese magazine consists entirely of free things you can download with QR codes. Now Australia’s Telstra is trying to do the same thing in Australia, shipping all of its NextG phones with the necessary software, and making it freely available to anyone else.

It is very interesting to see a newspaper so actively promote a mobile technology. The Sydney Morning Herald is introduced daily QR codes on page 2 from this Monday, providing a link to the five most popular stories in the paper and other content. This means that you can engage with the media cycle even while reading a print newspaper. I wrote over two years ago about how each story on the online version of the Washington Post was showing links to blog posts about that article. Now this kind of immediate reflection of social media views is available in the print world.

So far in the US there have just been tests of QR codes in San Francisco, providing links to Citysearch reviews of local restaurants and merchants.

While there are a number of competing standards for codes that will link mobiles to online content, QR codes are substantially in the lead, and look set to become an international standard. There is a good chance these could become commonplace globally within the next 1-2 years. What is most interesting is the innovative ways they are used, particularly within mainstream media (which can include television).

This is cool. Renai LeMay, a tech journalist for the Australian Financial Review (just now returning to CNET Australia as News Editor) attended our Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications event the other week. While he was there, he sent a message on Twitter asking if any companies had a good story to tell. Richard Slatter of Plugger, one of the companies showcased at the event, twittered Renai back. Renai found it a worthy story, and it appeared in the Australian Financial Review, the major business daily in the country, this morning as Plug in to keep tabs on directors’ board links. (See Renai's telling of the story on his blog.)

This harks back to what I was talking about a couple of years ago on the ‘symbiosis of traditional and social media’, as illustrated in the Future of Media Strategic Framework we released then (as below). While many have compared social media to parasites on mainstream media by feeding on it, increasingly mainstream media finds its sources and stories in social media. Things happen and are seen in social media before they are discovered and disseminated more broadly in traditional media. Each has their role, and they feed off each other in a highly complementary symbiosis.

This will be a theme on the future of journalism panel at the Future of Media Summit 2008.

One of the key themes at our Future of Media Summit 2008 (Silicon Valley July 14 simultaneous with Sydney July 15) will be the future of privacy and targeted advertising. The panel run across the locations will include top executives from Traffic Marketplace, Dataportability.org, Acxiom, and Electronic Frontier Foundation (see event site for details).

This topic is at the heart of the future of media. In a world awash with advertising, shown to a fragmented and increasingly cynical audience keen to avoid it, the value (and thus the price) of advertising is falling. Media proprietors are finding it harder to pay for content production, and in many cases media properties are getting smaller.

Source: eMarketer

What could entirely change the equation is targeted advertising, in which people are shown advertisements that are relevant to their interests, profile, and forthcoming purchases. Often the best way to understand people is to study their behaviors, thus the current emphasis on ‘behavioral targeting’. This would make the advertising far more valuable to advertisers, media companies would make more money, and media consumers should be happy because they get relevant and interesting advertisements.