Transcript Slide 1

The changing media landscape:
where we have to go from here
Guy Berger, KAF-SPI conference
25 May 2008
On the agenda
1. First world trends – a yawning international
digital divide: but no time to feel sleepy!
2. Changing industry, audiences in First World.
3. Media’s business model is breaking up.
4. New architecture of Information Society.
5. Web 2.0 = competition … and an opportunity.
6. Mobile – Africa’s answer?
At a conference last month in LV:
Selling Online Using Market-Specific Research
E-Commerce Revenue Solutions
Great Interactive Ideas
Social Networking - How to Build it, Grow it and Bring in
the Bucks
• Serving Readers and Advertisers through Search
Marketing
• Managing Citizen Commentary and Contributions
• 5 Things You Should Do in 2008 to Immediately
Improve Your Web Site
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Who convened it?
SUBURBAN
NEWSPAPERS OF
AMERICA
So why that online focus?
• Cf report: State of the News Media 2008:
• Newspapers in USA ended 2007 with 8.4% less
circulation daily, 11.4% less Sunday than 2001.
• Plus, print newspaper ad revenues
experienced their worst drop in more than 50
years.
• Network news programs averaged 23.1 million
viewers a night, a drop of 5%, on 2006.
Audience patterns
• In 2000, 60% of people said they had got news
online ever; 22% said they did it “yesterday”
• In late 2007, the number who got online news
ever was up to 71% and 37% said they were
online for news “yesterday.”
• Many people, especially the young, are just
shifting to the same branded news content
online produced by old media newsrooms.
Uncoupling
• Media content from specific physical formats.
= it’s all data – with scores of possible
platforms to play out on.
• And: EXPLODING of traditional horizontal
integration of processes formerly under the
control of one media house.
IT WAS: Info gathering – editing – packaging –
dissemination – loyal audience.
Disarticulated & dispersed
1. Info gathering: DISTRIBUTED
UGC; “import” via embedded links
2. Editing: DISTRIBUTED
Global outsourcing, User editing
3. Packaging: DISTRIBUTED
Multi-purposed platforms, 3rd party aggregators
4. Distribution: DISTRIBUTED
RSS, others’ platforms, get users to circulate
5. Consumption: DISTRIBUTED
Links, Search engine based; Recommendation
Dissolution of BUSINESS MODEL!
• As audiences shift, ad revenue doesn’t parallel.
• “The crisis in journalism may not strictly be loss of
audience. It may, more fundamentally, be the
decoupling of news and advertising.”
• News Web sites not growing in advertising
revenue as quickly as other kinds of Internet
destinations. And these figures do not include the
most important revenue source, search, where
news is a relatively small player.
• There is a
fundamentally
new structure
to media – Jeff
Jarvis,
buzzmachine
• Internetisation
• Mediatisation
What’s new now: Web 2.0
• From internet of documents to database
• Value-add coming from user contributions,
not just “old suspect” content producers.
• About networks surfacing content, rather than
isolated surfing and searching.
• “if the news is important, it will find me”
Us
Us
Us
Us
Us
Us
PEJ assessment:
• There is no single or finished news product
anymore. As news consumption becomes
continual, more new effort is put into
producing incremental updates…
• News is shifting from being a product —
today’s newspaper, Web site or newscast — to
becoming a service — how can you help me,
even empower me?
Us &
Them
Looking ahead: News Diamond
SPEED
• Alert (mobile, email)
• Draft (blog)
• Article/package (print,
audio, video forms)
Impact on jobs:
Multi-skilling
Interaction manager
Tag editor
DEPTH
• Context (hyperlinks,
embedded content widgets)
• Analysis/reflection
(article/package in various
formats)
• Interactivity (flash, chats,
forums, wikis)
• Customisation (rss, ratings,
social networking)
Eyeballs
• Content devalued by supply of online content
including user-generated content, a bunch of
which includes content created by people who
don't care if they get paid for its creation.
• Ease, ad supported content, free culture.
• = Information is not a scarce commodity;
we’re drowning in it. What is scarce is the
human attention needed to make sense of it.
We really live in an attention economy. (21st
century PR.)
Time in a Web 2.0 world
• 1-5 Hours per Week = Participant
• 5-10 Hours per Week = Content Provider
• 10-20 Hours per Week = Community Director
Mobile Africa
• Reuters last year: world wide mobile phone
subscriptions reached 3.3-billion users or half
the world’s population.
• Compare this to television usage (about 1,5billion users)
• … or to desktop internet usage (about 1,1billion users).
Our future…
• Hardware: Form factor hurdles overrated.
• Software: Android = an open source, Linuxbased operating system for mobile devices.
• Habits: DVB-H & 2010 will drive conversion of
cellphones from interpersonal comms to an
interactive media device.
• Mobile opens whole new market for locationbased services.
• Business model: mix: subs, ads, free, UGC.
Want more?
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12th Highway Africa
7 to 10 September
Citizen journalism or Journalism for Citizens?
Contact: [email protected]
No time for sleeping.
No time for digital dreams.
Time for digital action….