the writer as digital immigrant | patrick collings 2009
DESCRIPTION
This is a presentation that I gave to a creative writing class at the University of Cape Town. It is based on my digital trends presentation but expands to look at the impact on creative and commercial writing. Like all my presentations it really needs a talking head in front of the slides. I have added notes to better explain some of the slides.TRANSCRIPT
the writer asdigital immigrant
patrick collings25 August 2009
creative writing master class
former foreign correspondent pioneer in the south african internet partner in sagacite brand agency working both the business and creative side of branding author of the brand architect blog recipient of brand leadership award i am a digital immigrant
image by tim morgan
image by bernardo borghetti
image by trey ratcliff
the digital landscapethe digital landscapethe digital landscape
let’s set the scene
Note: Video of Digital Mad Men
Photo by Stig Nygaard
web 2web 3.0
Note: Video highlighting the growth of social media
image by jeff turner
the flow, not the contoursNote: The following slides indicate how changing applications serve similar digital needs over time
photo by glado trouchky
must understand our own landscape
1.5bn | 0.3%
Note: South Africa’s share of global internet connectivity is .3% of 1.5 billion
51m | 10%
Note: South Africa accounts for 10% of Africa’s connectivity
12m | 0.03%
Note: The number of active blogs and the percentage from South Africa
340m | 0.5%
Note: Readers of blogs and the percentage who read South African blogs
9.5% | 96%
Note: Internet connectivity in South Africa versus percentage of adults owning a cell phone
some final observations on the landscape
Photo by Trey Ratcliff
Note: Internet a combination of the big and the small
Note: Video of Faris Yakob talking about recombinant culture
photo by Oliver Wilke
crowdsourcing
Photo by Akbar Simonse
smaller, more mature
camera, actionPhoto by Wen Zhang
as a society we are becoming more visual
“video beats pictures beats text” - trendwatching.com 2008 report
what sort of numbers are we talking about
five billionvideos serves each month by youtube
44 percentof all online video consumption
in the U.S.A.
Cisco: By 2013 Video Will Be 90 Percent of All Consumer IP Traffic and 64 Percent of Mobile
a digital lubricant
today, everyone can be a director
video clip of user generated polo “commercial”
But it is notonly the directorswho are going to
what we need to consider now are the communication channels and models
available to brand managers
increasingly becoming a home to branded entertainment
but not everyoneis happy with theconcept of brandedentertainment
Photo by Darwin Bell
what about the news media
monetize it
TV Ads
“Google is not the first company to confuse a large audience with an
attractive business model”
Financial Times, 20 August 2009
user generated and premium contentwill that increasingly be the model?
stop the presses
Photo by Ed Schipul
years from now, people will look at the new media business model and say it “happened” in
the recession of 2008 / 2009
what started as a trickle
Photo by Vanessa Pike-Russell
Ad Declines in Mass Media Seen as More Than Just
Economic
Hearst Shuts Down a Seattle Paper
Rocky Mountain News Folds Amid Ad Slump
Washington Post Net Plunges
When newspapers fold
Seattle Paper Advances Plans to Turn Into Online-Only
Publication
Hearst Plans to Slash, Sell or Shut Paper in Bay Area
New York Times Will Cut Salaries; Washington Post to
Offer Buyouts
US newspaper crisis deepens
Gannett slashing dividend to preserve cash
Cincinnati Post folds
New York Sun closes aft years
Christian Science Monitor abandons print edition
Miami Herald into third restructuring
Blender Magazine to GoOnline Only
not only in the US, and not only newspapers
those abandoning print either headed to...
Photo by Kirk
not coming back
great expense in returning to traditional print model2
1 the print business model was already under long-term threat from digital
“recessionary push” will lead to changed habits and rituals3
abandoning print saves 50% costs, but ...
online advertising not enough to sustain
traditional news operations
?defining questions
“it is possible to charge for content”
©that’s my copyright
the rise of the bloggersthe rise of the bloggers
photo by D Barefoot
Photo by Jacob Botter
America’snewest profession
1,700,000
Note: Number of people in US making money from blogging
452,000
Note: Number of people in US earning their primary income from blogging
100,000 = $75,000
Note: Rule of thumb that 100,000 users translates into annual ad income of USD 75,000
$75 - $200
Note: What people are charging for writing a blog
$45,000 - $90,000
Note: What people are earning for blogging for a corporate
1% >$200,000
Note: One percent of bloggers earning more than USD 200,000
bloggers
journalists
photo by matthew bradley
Note: rise of bloggers, drop of journalists in Washington
is trust the new slingshot
photo by Jennifer Hayes
Note: People increasingly trusting blogs rather than media organizations
business model changing offline, not only online
perhapsthe internetis not sucha safe placefor traditionalprint mediaescaping therecessionphoto by Kyriakos
digital doesn’t just mean the web
Photo by Rienk Jan Schurer
the kindle isn’t alone
new business models are rapidly emerging
expect to see early adoption by higher eduction
what can history teach us
remember when cell phones phoned
before text messages
before they took pictures
before they recorded video
before the applications
do you remember before
?similar path for the e-reader
subscription models
the new textbook
colour is coming
so is video
and competitors
prices are falling
new ad models are emerging
“I find it hard to believe that the primary way of reading newspapers 10-plus years from now is going to
be on printed paper.”
our virtual reality
virtuality is increasingly our present and future
Photo by Jerry Charlotte Miller
we have been preparing for virtuality for some time
Jean Baudrillard (1929 - 2007)
in ourphilosophy
in our literature & films
our children brought virtuality homeour children brought virtuality home
we trade incurrenciesthat we neveractually hold
we immerseourselves inthe game
second lifeintroducedthe reality of virtual worlds tomany adults
video clip of sony home virtual world
video clip of sony home virtual world
virtual worlds were the next evolution of the internet
800!000
14!000!000
from september 2006 to june 2008, the number of second life members grew from 800,000 to 14,000,000
they came
10!000
80!000
from september 2006 to february 2009, the number of simultaneous second life users grew from 10,000 to 80,000
they played
in the space of 42 months the average value of transactions per month on second life went from $15m to nearly $35m
they paid
15!000!000
35!000!000
44!600
64!000
in february 2009 over 64,000 people had a positive linden dollar flow, up from 44,600 in september 2007
they profited
32 | 45average age % female
great virtual land rushphilips c|net adidas mercedes
bmw dell mazda microsoft reuters sony bmg vodafone l’oreal ibm mtv
what went wrong?
limited understanding + flawed strategy + rushed implementation is always going to end in tears
goes on
3to take out
original, evolving, crowdsourced stories
Note: Video promoting Wagner James Au’s book
virtual stories with real consequences
the rise of the avatar
some are detailed
of 26 million and counting
unique avatars and within games
Ray Winstone
John Malkovich Anthony Hopkins Angelina Jolie
avatars are child’s play
unique US visitors in Sept 07, in millions
0 1,5 3,0 4,5 6,0
6,0
4,7
4,4
3,6
2,4
1,8
1,3
0,6
0,6
0,6
0,5
barbiegirls
webkinz
clubpenguin
zwinky
neopets
imvu
second life
gaia
habbo
redlightcenter
kaneva
look east...
340m i l l i o na c c o u n t s
Photo by Chad Nicholson
virtuality is a third of transmotionvirtuality is a third of transmotion
the secondis transmedia
the third is augmented reality
Note: Augmented reality campaign in South Africa
“One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we
distinguish the digital from the real, the virtual from the real. In the future, that will
become literally impossible. The distinction between cyberspace and that which isn’t cyberspace is going to be unimaginable”
William Gibson
Patrick [email protected]+27 (0)83 616 0967