The changing media landscape: where we have to go from here

Guy Berger, KAF-SPI conference25 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

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.

1. Info gathering: DISTRIBUTEDUGC; “import” via embedded links

2. Editing: DISTRIBUTEDGlobal outsourcing, User editing

3. Packaging: DISTRIBUTEDMulti-purposed platforms, 3rd party aggregators

4. Distribution: DISTRIBUTEDRSS, others’ platforms, get users to circulate

5. Consumption: DISTRIBUTEDLinks, Search engine based; Recommendation

Disarticulated & dispersed

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)

DEPTH• Context (hyperlinks,

embedded content - widgets)

• Analysis/reflection (article/package in various formats)

• Interactivity (flash, chats, forums, wikis)

• Customisation (rss, ratings, social networking)

Impact on jobs:Multi-skilling

Interaction managerTag editor

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 1,5-billion users)

• … or to desktop internet usage (about 1,1-billion users).

Our future…

• Hardware: Form factor hurdles overrated.• Software: Android = an open source, Linux-

based 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 location-based services.

• Business model: mix: subs, ads, free, UGC.

Want more?

• 12th Highway Africa • 7 to 10 September• Citizen journalism or Journalism for Citizens?• Contact: C.Kabwato@ru.ac.za

No time for sleeping.No time for digital dreams.

Time for digital action….