Future of Media Summit Blog

I have long believed that location-based mobile social networking is central to how technology will connect us. The advent of next generation phones including the iPhone combined with people’s familiarity and engagement with social networks means that the space is – finally – ready to take off. Here is a very quick review of the past, present, and future of the space.

The Past
The original location-based social networking application was proximity dating, which I wrote about in chapter 2 of my book Living Networks in 2002, in describing some of the many ways that networks bring people together:

In mobile-mad Japan, "proximity dating" has had a big success. As in Internet dating, you complete a profile of both yourself and your desired partner. Instead of suggesting people to exchange e-mails with, the service rings you on your cell phone to let you know that someone with a matching profile is within a few hundred yards of you, and allows you to arrange to meet them. Since high bandwidth mobile technology is now available in Japan, the system can also allow you to see each other on your mobile videophone before you meet.
[Download Chapter 2 of Living Networks]

People were very interested in the idea, and I got a lot of media coverage at the time for my thoughts on where this was going. There were a variety of technologies and platforms available for location-based social networking in the early days, however the major constraint was that very few phones had GPS, so the location of each phone had to be determined by cell tower triangulation, giving an accuracy often not better than one kilometre. One early example of location-based social networking at the time was from Swisscom, in which people could engage in anonymous chat, with indicators of both the numbers of degrees of separation from their counterpart in their phone books, and the approximate distance between them (from low to high).

The Guardian is now providing full-text RSS feeds.

Let’s dig into why this is important, and an indicator of one of the broadest shifts happening in the information landscape.

Over the last few years RSS has shifted from a geek-thing that required explanation, to the point where most people have an RSS reader of some type on their desktops. As people go to more and more information sources, it becomes highly inefficient to visit to them separately, while an RSS readers allows all of your selected information sources to be found in the one place.

Currently virtually every professional publisher provides partial feeds, meaning that if you subscribe to their news feeds in an RSS reader you only get an excerpt or the beginning of the article, and you have to click through to the publishers’ website to read the article. For some years there has been a vigorous debate on whether publishers should provide full or partial feeds. Professional publishers have almost always chosen to direct readers back to their sites, where they can ply them with advertising and make money.

The Guardian is in fact the first major newspaper in the world to provide full-text feeds, according to the Google Reader team.

Hitwise has just released statistics on Twitter usage in Australia, showing that Twitter usage is up over 500% over the last year. More interestingly, Australia’s share of Twittering globally has more than tripled in that time. It should also be noted that people increasingly use mobiles and Twitter clients such as Twhirl, so Hitwise would not be seeing this traffic, suggesting that the increase in usage is probably significantly greater than the figures they’re reporting.

Of particular interest is that Twitter’s peak of usage in Australia was at the time of the Future of Media Summit 2008, on July 15. This isn’t that surprising given the very strong use of Twitter at and beyond the Summit (see Twitter posts tagged #fom08), and the many people who commenced Twittering at the event.

Certainly other more recent events in Australia (for example today’s Web Directions South #wds08) are likely to have more Twitter usage than the Future of Media Summit, however that is on the back of a significant increase in the local Twitter population since then. It’s certainly great to see that the Future of Media Summit got such great Twitter uptake, especially since the event covered the entire media landscape, not just social media, and many attendees were from traditional media and unlikely to ever Twitter.

Thanks for the reference from the blog of social media strategist and Twitterer extraordinaire Laurel Papworth!

Also see the original release from Hitwise for more interesting insights, such as the fact that Twitter delivers 10x more traffic to financial institution websites than it did a year ago, suggesting that Twitterers are saying either nice or bad things about banks.

Photon Group, in their annual results presentation today (Revenue up 94% to A$376m, Net Profit up 33% to A$21.7m - go to ASX to download FY2008 Annual Results) used three quotes to support their “media neutral, consumer driven “ strategy:

“The current agency model, producing marketing programs built around 30 second television ads, is no longer relevant for today’s business environment” Tony Palmer, Chief Marketing Officer for Kimberly Clark

“Today almost every business and social activity is a form of media. An increasing proportion of our social interactions happen across media channels”
Ross Dawson, Chairman of Future Exploration Network

“We will spend our marketing funds where the consumer will be and that is changing rapidly”
Craig Herbison, General Manager, Brand and Communication for Vodafone Australia

The quote from me is taken from the introduction to our Future of Media Report 2008, which has been getting a fantastic amount of attention globally since its launch in July.

I have spoken and written before about how media is beginning to encompass almost everything in the economy (for example in my speech on Enterprise 2.0 at KMWorld in Silicon Valley last year). I think it’s worth reviewing the first paragraph of the Future of Media Report 2008 below. I believe this view is central to how media, business, and society will unfold over coming years.

We are entering the media economy. The traditional boundaries of the media and entertainment industry have become meaningless. Today almost every business and social activity is a form of media. An increasing proportion of our social interactions happen across media channels. Every organization is now a media entity, engaged in creating and disseminating messages among its staff, customers, and partners to achieve business objectives. As the physical economy becomes marginalized and economic value becomes centered on the virtual, media encompasses almost everything.

One of the issues that I am increasingly shifting my attention to is how smaller developed economies compete in an intensely connected global economy. For example, in different sectors Ireland, Finland, Israel, and Singapore have had significant success in shifting their economic structure. While the large economies of US, Japan, and Western Europe as well as the emerging BRIC giants face their own issues, there are a particular set of challenges for smaller countries or regions. In addition to the general drivers of economic success in a hyper-connected world, there are a range of specific issues within industries, particularly in the media and technology sectors.

The Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development in the Australian state of Victoria recently commissioned an independent review of the screen industry in the state, which goes through to a proposed vision for the future of the industry in the state. Beyond this specific initiatives will be established. The review was performed by consulting firm Nous Group, and I was an ‘Expert Advisor’ on the review. The Screen Industy value chain (as below) on page 14 of the report was developed based on some of my thinking, including my Future of Media Strategic Framework.

The Victorian Screen Industry Review can be downloaded, and makes for some very interesting reading.

Below is a summary of the key trends identified in the report across sectors, followed by five key issues raised by the report.

I have said for many years that the best way to understand Google is as an advertising aggregator (I would argue that even with its diversification over the last few years). Building on its successful search engine, it has sold ads that are served both on its search results, and also on a broad array of non-Google sites, initially through its AdSense program. It has for some years also sold advertising for delivery on radio, television, and newspapers. This was described in our Future of Media Strategic Framework which appeared in the Future of Media Report 2006.

Back in March I was interviewed by the ABC's Media Report program about Google and Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! at the time. While some of the interview topics are a bit dated now, much of it is still relevant, including my description of Google's role in the media landscape. I'll expand on this in another post soon.

You can read the transcript on the ABC site and below (note that there are some errors in the transcript).

Antony Funnell: Now let's stay with search engines for a little bit longer, and look at the business manoeuvrings of some of the big players. Google last week announced it's beefing up its presence in Australia with a new headquarters, and it's seeking to grow in a whole range of areas. It's also announced that it's successfully acquired internet advertising firm DoubleClick.

Meanwhile, in another online universe, Microsoft appears to be still actively stalking the second-tier search engine company Yahoo. What's it all about? Well let's ask Ross Dawson. Ross is a communication strategy consultant and chairman of the Future Exploration Network.

Ross Dawson: It's important to understand that Google is not just a search engine, and that it is in fact, more than anything else, an aggregator of advertising. What it does is it goes to advertisers and says, 'We can present information about you, not just on our own search engine, but also on many, many other websites'.

Media Trends+Strategy magazine (click on the link to access the magazine in interactive format) includes a piece titled Media: The State of Play - Expert Analysis which features edited interviews with a variety of participants in the media space, including John Sintras, CEO of Starcom, Belinda Rowe, CEO of ZenithOptimedia, Collin Segelov, Executive Director of the Australian Association of National Advertisers, and myself.

My interview is below. You can also read it and the other interviews by going to the magazine from the link above - my interview is on page 30.

Further context on some of my comments is available from the Seven Driving Forces of Media and Creating the Future of Advertising.

What does the ongoing consolidation In the industry mean for marketers?

The first thing to understand is that the most powerful broad trend in media is fragmentation and while mass media remains, it is becoming a smaller and smaller proportion of the overall media landscape. So within that context, what we see is that there is consolidation within particular segments and in some of the larger players. We have seen more and more cross media ownership as regulation has eased. One of the implications for marketers is that they are increasingly being offered media packages across different segments from the same owner. This is obviously not a new trend, but as we get more and more cross media ownership, more and more marketers are being presented with these offers to access an audience through a multiplicity of different channels. From a marketers or media buyer perspective , these can only be judged on their individual merits. It really needs to be driven by the media buyer as to what is the appropriate set of media channels to reach their audience with the right message, and that may or may not tally with what is being offered by some of the larger media owners.

Firstly, let me say congratulations again to Ross for a great conference. I was asked to moderate one of the Roundtable discussions held during the day - namely one of the three on the topic: 'Media and Social Networks', although we probably discussed 'Social Media' more broadly than we did the specific topic.

Participants in this conversation were:

Some of the discussion around the table follows ...

Definition of Social Media

NFP and Community Social Networks

Hope that gives you some insight into some of the thoughts that were discussed by a table-full of passionate and interested observers and participants in this very interesting time we find ourselves in!

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.

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

Media and Social networks.

Moderated by Jim McNamara.
We were asked to think about the word “social” with regards to social networks – since the networks were used for many more things than just social interaction.
What about calling them community networks for instance? A group like Advance, meant to link the Australian diaspora around the world used it as a means of business, while Financial institutions used the networks for business interaction.

Also, since there are so many uses for social networks, should they be classified under the generic term of ‘media”?

One of the key points about the networks was that they used ‘trust’ and word of mouth, based on the user being empowered. Rather like an Irish pub, said someone, an example of a social and communications network and also a place for distribution of material.

There was discussion about misterminology about the words social networks – since after all they were mediated – so were they not just another form of media?

Or have social networks morphed into another and different form of media altogether?
Depends on your point of view, said one participant: it’s a generational thing. Older people would use them to push agendas, whereas younger people used them more for communications and social purposed.

The definition is irrelevant, said another: whatever you want to call it – you are a target audience to the advertiser. Not so, was the reply, since the advantage of Web 2.0 was the ability to talk back and interact. It gives participants a voice.

There was talk about traditional media being ‘closed media’, in the sense the audience was told what to look at, whereas social networks were ‘open media’.

Should we therefore, said the moderator, be thinking about a term such as ‘emergent’ media as it was still developing.

The conversation moved on to the issue of the audience as content generators and the day of the citizen journalist .

We agreed on the core concepts of social media as being: Open/interactive/participatory

We then turned to history and reviewed the fact that there used to be the marketplace and the forum in a village society, which allowed for participatory contact and interaction. Mass media had in fact taken away from people the ability to talk to one another. “We’re back to the global town hall meeting and the world as a village”.

Final Key points to consider:

Information vs communication
Enabling
Interative
Peer to peer influences at work
Social for engagement rather than just to be cosial

And so, does this now make social media a mainstream concept?

* Donald McBain, Head of Brand Marketing, MLC
* Alena Jang, MLC
* Nicholas Wong, Manager, Corporate Strategy, SBS
* Stephen Hollings, CEO, News Digital Careers
* Chris Bishop, BizNet
* Caesar Wong, Web Managing Editor, IBM
* Craig Blair, Netus
* Roger Kermode, Prime Digital Works
* (sorry, didn't catch her name)?, Yahoo
* Michael Broadhead, Folk
* Kara Sullivan, Folk

Marketers changing focus on CPC, wanting more action.
Underlying metrics: Different publishers have different spins. Some
emphasise engagement, UB's, PI's, CPM, etc.
Yahoo! Gateway - performance display, connection between offline and
online. On back of TV commercial - "Search on Yahoo for XYZ"
Much greater fragmentation, unbundling. Takes longer to buy media.
Instead of 5 calls, now it takes dozens.
Agency commission gone in the last 10 years for most, but agencies
starting to charge "consulting fee" to claw this back.
Online consolidating to representation (e.g., "networks")
Clients saying they want to do innovation for sake of innovation ("I
want to do an online ad", vs focussing on the message and target)
Agencies often having independent "strategy units" to tie together
different media types
Media agencies currently unskilled at doing the cross-media planning.
Many set up a "new media" division. Clients don't want that, they
want a media plan.
Influx of hedge fund skills into media buying. Think of them as asset
managers vs agencies.
Demand for data and analytics increasing rapidly.
Can we design our sites for larger screen sizes? Are those people in
a more valuable demographic?
"Free will win, but it will come at a cost" - Nicholas Wong, SBS

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.

New Media

- Is consumer a dead word? It implies that they are passive
- Does the same content player work for all audiences?
- Participants drive
o Content
o Format
o Delivery
- Segmentation – not age but levels of interaction / media usage
- Content
o What you want, when you want it
- Progression of people
o Media literacy/interfaces
o Demanding short attention spans of people
- As quality increases peoples standards go up
- Production quality not important on a 2x2 screen
o Versus relevance quality
- Advertising – selling a product through need or desire
-
- Content
o Interaction vs experience
o Peer recognition
o Sharing value with others
- Technology
o MID – Mobile Internet Device
- Cheaper – increases penetration
• Fundamental change in internet demographics
- Variable content by device
o Quality of the idea
o People are not necessarily looking for production quality (time, relevance immediacy)

- Funding notes
o Selling product vs trafficking
o Traditional model – aggregate – very little mass appeal content
- We can’t make all of the good stuff free – public sponsorship
- Wider distraction channels
o Audience distribution / greater reach
o What is the measure of sources and how can discussion be monetise / the value recognised

Notes from the group discussion...

Consumer
Generational difference
"Consumer" is a dead word (implies passive) > changed to participants, but not every participant is active
Does the same content player work for all audiences?
Participants drive: content, format, delivery
- Differences for different cultures
- Participants drive the creation of niches
Segmentation: Not age but levels of interaction/media usage; how much time do they have
Progression of people - how does it change the formats people are looking for
- demanding short attention spans
- media literacy/simplification of interfaces
- unleash untapped potential in audiences
- transferred knowledge
Segment by need vs product segment

Content
what you want, when you want it, how you want it, how you will make it
- production quality vs. relevance quality
As quality goes up, peoples standards go up
Production quality not important @ 2x2 screen. Therefore, free/grass roots content acceptable
Need content - what is it people really want?
- information vs. experience
- peer recognition
Variable content by device
- Quality of the idea
- People are not necessarily looking for production quality but time, relevance, immediacy (e.g. happy to view grainy footage of the Gulf War that has basically been filmed on a mobile phone)

Funding models
Selling product vs trading traffic
Traditional model - aggregate eyeballs
- BUT very little mass appeal content (hard to create content that appeals to everybody)
How do you fund content?
Community supported content models (e.g. Wikipedia) - make value judgement about what's important then voluntarily contribute to support it
Reality is we can't make all the good stuff free (Australian film industry) > public sponsorship
- Implications for creating a "user choice" model
Wider distribution channels
- audience distribution/greater reach
- leverage this idea to divide content up and sell it in different ways
What is the measure of success and how can success be monetised/the value recognised
- Multiple forms

Technology
MID - Mobile Internet Device
Cheaper - increases penetration, fundamental in changing internet demographics (i.e. currently the most people on the internet are English-speaking Westerners, but predictions are that this will change)

Top Australian media executives discuss the findings of the prediction markets, and offer their own insights into directions for the media industry.

Belinda Rowe (Zenith Optimedia)
- Optimist at heart
- Get tired of discussion around whether mainstream media will survive - most of the big media companies have moved into the digital space and are using this to enhance their customer relationships

Angelos Frangopoulos (Australian News Channel)
- Don't see any option other than to grow
- A case of embracing as many opportunities as you can
- Digital since 1996
- Fanastic future for mainstream media because we are all diversifying - those who don't embrace change will suffer

Wendy Hogan (CNET)
- CBS integration
- Contrary to last session, CNET employee a significant number of just for web journalists, who are allowed to blog if they like!
- Different payment models for how you recognise the contribution of people
- Inviting the audience to participate is a method people are using to bring their production costs down
- Give bloggers the opportunity to be seen by audiences

Mark Scott (ABC)
- Positive picture for ABC - recognise they are a good content creator
- Deliver content to audience at a time they want in a format they want
- Advantages for ABC: has a lot of content and don't need to execute that in a model that makes money
- Business model relies on getting a big cheque from the Commonwealth Government, by showing they deliver unique content to Australians

Australian media landscape is distinctive
- Urbanisation, distribution of population
What will make Australian media landscape distinctive in the future?
- Global boundaries that have already been strong are broken down - Aus consumer can engage with content from all around the world
- It will be harder for media companies than when there were far fewer content providers. Who will be able to financially deliver content created in local communities and delivered to local communities?
- Access to 24 hour content from countries all around the world - challenge for mainstream media is about being more and more relevant to local markets. What is unique about us compared with operator overseas?
- Australia has successfully exported content overseas (e.g Neighbours, Home & Away). Opportunity for Australia to produce more content to export, technology can pave the way - need investment in broadband for this to happen efficiently and easily
- CNET: add content with a local context to a site that already exists (e.g. Game Spot - need to tweek Grand Theft Auto for Australian players). Deliver contextually relevant ads too. It's all about putting decisions back in audience's hands regarding content and where they want to read/view it
- ABC: how to find a program that is intrinsically Australian? The real challenge for Aus program makers not that the global market is open to Aus content, but that the global market is available for audience here to see, but you still have to make your money back from the audience here as well - i.e. it's not about selling Australian content overseas.
- No doubt that online will be a big distribution mechanism - more and more people will watch traditional TV content online. How do you monetise it? No one wants to buy/watch pre-rolls? CNET says there's a big drop off from pre-roll to video content, especially for 30 sec pre-rolls

Media channels will be increasing age fragmented
- Teenage audiences using social networking to share content experiences (e.g. MySpace page for Jamie from Summer Heights High)
- Younger audiences are more personalised and selective about what content they consume, they are more content loyal rather than channel loyal (i.e. content is channel agnostic)
- Advent of data

Clearly the iPhone is changing the way that the Australian audience thinks about consuming products via their mobile devices. Where arguably the technology has been available for some time, getting your head around the application of that technology - getting excited about it - that is a different matter.
We discussed the potential of mobile as both a medium for consuming media product and a tool for creating it. As Stephen Quinn from Deakin University suggested, the mobile sphere has an enormous potential to reach people, particularly younger people, like never before.
Viacorp's Ian Gardiner made the point that the Australian mobile carriers are desperately trying to maintain a kind of "walled garden", restricting access and hoping to protect their revenue accordingly, but perhaps "Carriers need o stop trying to be media companies, because they're bad at it," as was suggested by Christo Van Egmond from Stripe.
The carriers might be trying to shore up their revenue models, retain ultimate control over content (however questionable the quality), but is there a real, substantial market for the content they are fighting so fiercely to protect?
Generally the group believes there is - at least for certain content, and assuming Australian carriers loosen the leash in terms of download limits...
Diverging for a second, does anyone reading this know the details and dynamics of the deal that lead to Telstra acquiring rights to distribute the iPhone and why 3 was left out? Would love more info on that.
Anyway, returning to the point at hand, there is some debate over whether mobiles can compete with free content on larger screens over the internet.
First foremost there needs to be appropriate infrastructure in place to accommodate the desire to view any content, to make that experience enjoyable and convenient, but once that is established, really the group agreed that there should be no "for mobile" content. It should all just be content, and platform agnostic. Some sites/uses will lend themselves more heavily to mobile - Van Egmond suggests sport results and breaking news - but really if I want to shop online, if I want to view YouTube, if I want to watch a streamed TV show, I should be able to do it.
Mike Zimmerman from Technology Venture Partners suggests carriers might find some success and continued control if they begin to supplement subscription/pay-per-usage models with ad support, so offer a cut-rate cap plan in exchange for eyeballs during use time or SMS/MMS ads.
Ultimately, as wifi becomes increasingly prolific and accessible and various different enabling technologies undermine the telcos' ambitions, perhaps as Gardiner suggests "the carriers are doomed".

Newsrooms are laying off staff, print journalists are being asked to use video cameras, bloggers are going professional, and sub-editors are writing headlines for search engines. Who will the journalists be and how will they earn a living?

Gen Y don't want to read papers. But some say the newspaper is the best browser - selects the stories for you to read, rather than you going online and searching for only the stories of interest to you

Currently the revenue for media companies comes from newspapers and online is being funded - this balance will evenutually change

Newspapers are not as 'green' as online?

Is the future of journalism only in the hands of journalists?
- It will have to involve people who don't consider themselves journalists today
- Newspapers as a technology will have to adapt
- Most people won't read it front to back but will choose what they want to read
- Green nature of newspaper publishing - allowing people to purchase only the sections they want thereby customising newspapers for the audiences that read them

Skill and professionalism involved in journalism
- The more likely user generated content will come in the visual form (rather than video) because making text requires a lot more work - being a professional journalist requires a certain expertise, it's a craft.
- Blogger is a columnist, not a journalist. You can't be both.
- Need to clearly identify 'reporters' versus 'bloggers'
- But, a blog is just a tool, a piece of paper or web page - some bloggers use the tool to report. Right now I'm using this Future of Media blog to record what is being said during today's panels, rather than to simply express my opinions on the topics

Why don't journalists like bloggers and why don't bloggers like journalists?

Craze of blogging - everyone wants to have a blog
That will settle down so that only the people who really have something to say in a blog will make use of one
Need to move away from the idea of thinking that blogs are just a place for people to say 'this is what i think'

People are stretched right now in the amount of time they have and the amount of information they have to absorb (like Ronald Regan insisting that documents he had to read consisted of no more than one page)
Journalists will become more required to be sythesisers of masses of information

Fairfax Digital has employed senior, well-known journalists to write for SMH/The Age Business Day (online business site). If you have a blog that has enough credibility and funding then you could employ journalists. For now it is traditional media that are the main employers of journalists, however this will change

What is the business model for the future of journalism?
- Imcumbent of journalists to break news, but as is human nature there is also a tendency to cut corners to save time
- Surprised if we see the same continuing pressure of newspapers over the next few years and no change in the status of journalists
- Journalist at The Australian says she writes for online as well as the papers. When a story happens she has to quickly write the online story - is this the future of journalists? Reporting in a multi-media world
- As newspapers driven by revenue and costs start to shed staff (e.g. LA Times has gone down by about half in the last 5 years) the quality and quantitiy of stories go down
- Correlation b/w the number of jobs in the industry and the quality of the output

Decline in newspaper market in America
- No one has invested in them for years - no glossy liftouts like in Australia
- Pressure on revenues requires them to cut, cut, cut
- In Australia we have 3 very large print companies with huge earning bases from which to fund new ideas
- Most of the cost cutting has gone into getting rid of the salaries of people
- If we go into online, theoretically reducing paper already reduces costs
- Jobs are there for people with certain skills - movement from print to online
- Police force tends to lose people at certain ages, but then they go into similar jobs (e.g. driving instructers, security guards). This could happen for journalists too

CONTROVERSY! Bloggers don't pretend to have objectivity, journalists do
- Journalists have let us down in the last 10 years or so with the focus on Monica Lewinsky, etc
- Trying to set up a dichotomy b/w journalists and bloggers, but blogging is just a tool
- Where a journalist will go off and research people, an individual has already blogged about it
- False dichotomy to say that blogging and journlism are opposites? They are just different?

Branding - you read something in The Australian and this guarantees a certain credibility for the content. With blogging the wheat is being sorted out from the chaff gradually. Some bloggers are gaining credibility, others are good for a laugh but you wouldn't base your opinions on what they say

Would journalists be happy being paid on how many page impressions a certain article gets? i.e. paid on performance

Conversation with US panelists

Is objectivity attainable?
- Values of journalists: fairness, balance, choose stories that matter and not the stories that get the most page views (we know what stories those are already). It's okay to have some Big Macs occasionally, but if you have Big Macs too often you become one sick person
- Do we all agree about the notion of fairness?
- Importance of certain stories
- Goal for all of us is to become more educated and informed about the world around us, rather than just focusing on the stories or marketing products that we want (avoid star gazing)
- Is such thing as too much of a good thing
- Formula for reaching mass audience with the Big Macs and also providing the content that will clean their arteries of the cholestoral! Don't know how to convey the important stories with this news medium of online

Embracing change and opportunites as there is a lot of room for diversifying. Financially, it all comes from quality content. Blogs/news content - different payment models for contributors - there will be recognition for video or photo content

ABC - new ops in digital media offers more ways in more situations to communicate to Australia - advantages are from content and it isn't under a business model framed to earn money - purely quality content. Online, off-line - all consumers of ABC are access in significant numbers. No-one else is in this position to do so.

Australia is disctinctive in its media landscape - how/ what will continue this in the future?
Urbanisation
Distribution of population
Global opps

- Global boundaries have broken down around media - global newspapers etc content are now accessible. Regional and rural australia - who will be able to deliver content that is created in local communities & made for local communities?

The landscape is much different in the future.

Angelos - ANC

Access to 24 hours news content - is a threat to ANS
Being more and more relevant to each and every market - which sees them offering localised portals to various areas
As a provider of info - what is not going to be easily replicated overseas

Z.O
Australia produces high quality content and production - technology - australia has the opportunity to produce/export more.
Reliance on investment in broadband is needed for this to happen sooner and more easily

CNET - content in a local context - you need a local context for many platforms - simply to make it contextually relevant to various locations (e.g GTA - may need to be censored). Putting it into the audiences hands - show what they want and what they want to know/interact with. Sport, interest, hobbies etc.

ABC - what australian t.v product has expanded globally/domestically on it's own
Summer Heights High - BBC etc
Challenge program makers - you still have to make your money back - how do you create programming here that competes domestically with global/o.s. shows - competitively

There is a growing division in the age demographic

Advertisers opp - amount of data and knowldge that is now available