Future of Media Summit Blog

One of the problems with trends - and trend lists in particular - is that they often obscure the fact that the writer has absolutely no idea what is going on. Instead they are lists of things that have recently happened which the writer supposes might continue to happen into the future. Media trends are no exception. According to lists of media trends (including my own) we are entering year two of a revolution whereby user created content (from 'citizen journalists' and 'citizen reviewers') is radically altering the media landscape.Moreover, the speed at which the media are converging is intensifying and the separation between 'traditional' and 'new' or 'social'
media is becoming increasingly meaningless. In the midst of all this, hard-copy newspapers will continue to experience falls in circulation whilst network television will start to look increasingly anachronistic as information and multi-media entertainment moves online and goes mobile.
Indeed, the phrase 'the media' will itself become almost meaningless because everyone (and every company) will become a part producer and part-consumer of media. Or at least that's the theory.One immediate problem is that consumers now expect all Internet content to be free, which creates something of an issue for anyone wanting to create revenue or heaven forbid profit from digital content. As any budding economist will tell you, value is a by-product of scarcity so to create revenue content must be made scarce. This may actually happen. One trend that hasn't received much attention is the flight to quality.In short there is too much mediocrity and rubbish online so people are seeking out - and paying for - quality information and entertainment. One implication of this could be a flight to trusted brands - and journalists- for no reason other than consumers want their news from a trusted source and want reviews from people that are actually expert in their field. This is not to say that user generated content has no value and no future but it is hyped and we are all losing our sense of proportion. Equally the importance of personalisation and aggregation is, in my view, over-played. Sure we sometimes like things 'our way' but at the same time we don't want lowest common denominator aggregation or personalisation, especially if it takes up too much of our time to get it or it means that we miss the bigger picture. As the writer JG Ballard once said, "If enough people predict something, it won't happen"