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In The City Interactive with NMK

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By: NMK Created on: July 4th, 2005
Bookmark this article with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon

On 7 June digital players in the music, film, TV, online publishing and games industries came together in response to the question: 'are you content?' They explored consumer, technology and business perspectives on content in the covergent era. Read the report & listen to MP3s...

In The City Interactive @ the ICA, London, June 7th 2005

** an NMK / In The City co-production **

Report by Deirdre Molloy
(with assistance from Nick Watt and Helen White)

MP3 audio of In The City Interactive!
Visit this wiki page on Perfect Path to listen to MP3s of the event (with thanks to Lloyd Davis, who podcasted the event)

[Register and post your own comments on this event below...]


WELCOME - Tony Wilson, ITC co-founder

In welcoming the inaugural London conference in association with NMK, Tony Wilson mentioned that a Bossa Nova version of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ had taken him 30 seconds to discover through iTunes after he heard about it. For him, this micro-experience embodied the distance we’ve come in making music accessible through digital media, and set the tone for the day’s exploration of content in the digital era.

KEYNOTES:

Danny Van Emden – Digital Media Director, EMI Music UK

Danny began with the observation that “New Media isn’t new anymore.” She launched The Raft, Virgin Music’s digital music website 10 years ago, and explained how, at the time, anything that was getting consumers closer to the music was tempting enough to lure her away from a big, well-resourced marketing department into the tiny new media team.

Ten years ago music was called units, now it’s called content, assets or even just “data” but Danny stressed the importance, more than ever, of preserving music’s unique value. She described early music sites as design and gizmo-led, and as far as news went – music fans had to wait for it. You were in the loop or out of it, i.e. outside the music industry power clique. With 24-hour TV and web news, artist and fan sites, blogs, IM, and mobile that’s all gone now.

Another key change Danny flagged up was that we can no longer rely on demographics. In the digital age there’s infinite choice of music and the stores are always open. That’s why she’s so optimistic. But the huge multiplicity of demands on consumers wallets today’s compared to 10 years ago must also be borne in mind, with DVDs, mobiles and sundry gadgets all vying for attention.

Danny described modern consumers as nimble multi-taskers who expect to be able to pull content rather than just have it shoved at them. She also noted that a result of blogging and RSS it’s much harder to control PR. Demands on artists have also increased.

Music marketing teams must be much more varied and nimble today, needing video editors and programmers on board. She said that “iTunes stroke us through the procedure of downloading” making it incredibly simple. Less active music consumers still need guidance through editorial, she added. In terms of consumer relationship marketing (CRM), Danny insisted that consumers shouldn’t have to put up with marketing messages that aren’t completely useful and relevant. CRM will help drive sales in the context of communities, she believes. Sponsorships will have more real value for consumers, and will help brands engage with people for longer, which is vitally important as more consumers have the ability or propensity to skip ads.

In turn, music is the glue for fun, engaging experiences across the board, and in that sense it is unique and in a good position. More media owners and brands are working together, which will help expand the market and draw middle-England in, she said.

Will music labels become retailers, will brands become record companies (eg myCokeMusic, O2), and will retailers become record companies? These questions are still unanswered Danny said. But what is needed, she concluded, is for all these parties to be transparent in their offerings, and in the deals created between artists and managers, and in the broader relationships between record labels and artist. She spoke finally of record companies using CRM “like a networked view”, wherein the whole will be more than the sum of the parts.

Simon Gunning – Head Of Interactive Media, Celador

TV has gradually been becoming a different medium from that which we grew up with. Now audiences expect control, choice and access to stuff. There are so may “points of presence” that multi-platform monsters are clogging up the touch points between brands and consumers. TV was once a passive channel but now it's a storage machine, shopping basket and general data access point. The ubiquity of return paths creates viewer demand and interactive expectation.

Simon highlighted the emergence of transactional viewing and snacking. The huge brands that Celador creates justify the massive amounts spent on them, he reasoned. Sit forward and sit back models of media consumption are now outdated and everything is becoming more amorphous. Consumers now and in the future won't distinguish between buying from a TV or a shop or a website.

Content forms merge, Simon continued, ringtones outsell singles; viewers pay to play games on TV; consumers don’t distinguish between digital and analogue, virtual and physical.

Customers’ media and purchasing habits largely dictate the content, and will make platforms succeed or fail, he insisted. People are asking - Why can’t I buy the rights to watch a DVD on my mobile later? We are seeing huge jumps in consumer expectations. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’s interactivity success allows ITV to offer / fund the prizes and how they distribute their brand is fundamental in driving take-up.

As pressure on advertisers grows, advertiser-funded/branded content becomes ever more important. Eg. Brain Teaser on C5 is funded entirely by its sponsors. Channel 4 is now an “entertainment company”. How do we stand out in the digital smog? One, by being agile with content and brands. Secondly, by engaging our viewers deeply to encourage affinity. Thirdly, we must anticipate and drive platform development and finally, make sure that we protect our rights.

Nigel Pocklington – Global Director Of Online Publishing, Financial Times

Nigel outlined what convergence means for the FT. He pointed out that they have a relatively limited number of channels and producers to deal with compared to the music industry. In managing the transition to digital ubiquity they are faced with several issues one being device proliferation eg Blackberries. Moreover we are in the middle of a generational shift, to a generation grown up not reading newspapers or mainly reading free papers, so the FT has to reposition themselves for this new generation of executives, and balance free and paid-for content.

Journalists are now themselves “content” Nigel said, illustrating this by pointing out that journalists now have to tag / metatag their stories. We have also seen the end of the daily/weekly news cycle, eg. The FT’s Lex column team is now producing round the clock news and analysis. In terms of advertising, the cost per thousand in the digital market is still a lot lower than £90,000 per page.

The Web Editor now advises the FT editor on the top 10 relevant stories pushing through the global news agenda. Now with 24-hour media – which began with the fax machine – there are 9 editions of the paper a night, and the FT.com homepage still needs to reflect the most important current story. Unless FT can add value to a plain “results” story why would people subscribe to it? The FT also comes out in PDF format in the evening, he explained, downloadable to subscribers through the site. He also stressed the tiny marginal costs incurred today of processing a new digital subscriber.

The customer rather than the editor is in control, Nigel said. New delivery channels were also important – their RSS traffic doubles on a monthly basis at the moment. Push data has its issues: managing the subscriber base, managing customer churn, losing people as much through credit card processing failure as anything else. In terms of future trends he highlighted more bundling of content and services. Search is also key for the publishing industry as you have to offer fast, flexible access to the archive. It will become a more mobile world, he said, and the FT still need to offer more materials into mobiles and the blogosphere and convert more of the digital audience to the paper. They must allow the readers to join the conversation. The mistake in the past was to offer too broad a discussions topic in their message boards, its better with tightly-focused discussions, editors moderating and journalists contributing in real time. In closing he remarked, “it kind of feels like the world has gone blog mad.”

Sean Dromgoole – Director, Game Vision & Some Research

Sean started with a poll of the audience – around 50% of whom had a game bought by them or for them in the last 6 months. He spoke of the current epoch as one of constant carnage and change. Many consoles like Atari – gone; a long list of companies - disappeared. He and a friend reached 120 gaming casualties in their calculation as they walked up a mountain recently. Platforms all die, he insisted, and gamers constantly fade away.

The central element of games is “game play” – the core language hasn’t changed or grown much. The thrill of gaming is still slightly different and there’s no great way of using above-the-line advertising to communicate the experience.

Sean outlined the gaming development cycle, characterised by a long, predictable curve of development when the majority spend is. This contrasted with the film and TV industry where development cost is very low but costs rocket during the brief production period, then die off for while and surge again when the film / programme is coming up for release. Looking at gender, while many girls game, he underlined the particularly high percentage for 10-15 year old boys, 75% of whom are gamers.

He posited a “3rd Age of gaming – Enter The Brands” This phase of gaming culture, from the point of view of the producers, will hinge on the attitudinal segmentation of games. He identified 6 archetypes: “action heroics” (jumping into serious stuff); masters (who love being experts); adrenaline junkies (who want to be “on it”); designers (“strategy heads”); discoverers (love opening doors); and funsters. He described the gaming environment as a fun, uncynical space, and spoke of the potential power of “emo-tising”, of presenting messages to someone when you know exactly how that person is feeling.

KNOW THY NEIGHBOUR: HOW MUCH TO WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT CONSUMERS IN THE CONVERGENT WORLD?

Paul Jackson – Senior Analyst, Forrester Research

Consumers don’t buy complex solutions to simple problems, Paul reasoned. Take the interoperability challenge... (1) Get an Apple Airport, (2) plug your lap top into the hi-fi or (3) try another set up. Such home networking is not a compelling option. As for the Playstation Portable – it’s great for games and movies, pretty rubbish for music and their own videos. The beginnings of simple solutions that work is exemplified in iTunes – you can buy and download on one device.

Paul stated that we will see channel and content convergence but not device convergence. Take the Nokia C90 – good for all the other stuff but not for making calls. Most things won’t converge – we’ll still carry around 2/3/4 devices in 5 years time.

Sharing and communication are vital to development of the market. Kids and teenagers are the biggest market for mobile and Instant Messaging (IM). Then there’s the older market “the net generation”, who all use Word, Office and mostly PCs. Finally you have the 50+ market and the “sharing” model (ie sharing pictures, video, etc) is what will draw them in.

Alan Moore – CEO, SMLXL

Alan painted a picture of the advertising and marketing landscape where companies are from Mars and customers are from Venus. The adversarial nature of being bombarded with messages is expected, and disliked, by consumers today, and they are filtering and switching off. What they do want are valuable or fun experiences, services and authenticity. Interruptive marketing rides roughshod over that. Alan believes brands should be in the business of supporting people. Consumers are connecting well enough with each other through mobile, blogs, online communities and services like Flickr – but are companies prepared to engage?

Addressing engagement through blogs, Alan highlighted Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystem’s blog as an example of how some corporations no longer see blogging as a “useful appendage”. Rather, along with the likes of the GM Fastlane Blog, this approach of getting positive and negative feedback direct from customers is now seen as key. This is an open and transparent conversation.

We should set the controls for what he termed “the heart of the 4 C’s” (Commerce, Culture, Community and Connectivity). Finally, Alan stressed the growth and potential for co-created content and experiences in this new digital era as the best way to engage people at an experiential level. In this scenario, the brand becomes the facilitator of other people’s creativity, expression or lifestyle. In this new media continuum, brands reaching and engaging the alpha connectors is key.

Jessica Sandin – Principal Analyst (Mobile), Informa Telecoms & Media

Jessica outlined the current state of affairs from a mobile perspective. The mobile industry is voice-centric; mobile operators exist alongside larger telecoms companies; mobile consumers shop primarily for cool handsets and good voice and SMS plans above all else. Vodaphone still makes most of its revenues from calls and SMS. Even in Japan, ringtones and wallpapers still dominate, even on DotCoMo.

The first key trend she pinpointed was consolidation to build global presence; aquiring placement with operators was another, as was selling direct-to-consumer for the major brands; and the development of channels of content rather than content formats. The operator still holds the balance of power, she said, and the major challenge for content producers is the issue of multiple handsets to design for and deliver on.

PANEL DISCUSSION:

Opening the panel discussion, David Docherty, Chief Executive (until 10 June 2005) of YooMedia noted they didn’t even have audience research at the beginning of his career (in television). Today the key for content producers and owners is brand extension or “pulse” across as many channels and platforms as possible. But in TV, he cautioned, there is no such thing as convergence.

Moderating the session, Tim Grimsditch of FRUKT Music raised the question whether non-interoperability was limiting the market for digital content to early adopters who own convergent devices or can graft between platforms. Paul Bennun of Somethin’ Else pointed out that his company makes a product - Hit 40 UK – that is for radio, TV, has a website and is an award-winning programme. He also flagged up Test The Nation where the public are interacting via SMS, and asked “are they interacting over TV or mobile?” In some senses, he reckoned, convergence is never going to happen, while in other senses it is already here.

David Docherty said the Emap case was an interesting one, because when you have such a range of devices to serve as they do, you do tend to have a scattergun approach. Inevitably, you’ll have a lot of trial and error resulting from this. Jessica raised the problem for consumers of having to pay multiple times for the same content for different channels and devices.

“niche becomes mass medium much quicker nowadays with blogs and podcasting” Paul Bennun - Somethin' Else
Gary McClarnan of Sparkle Street and Vice Chair of the Music Managers Association said that artists don’t care about convergence as long their relationship with their fans can be maintained, grown and encouraged. Their primary concern was artistic growth.

Moving onto content aggregation, Paul Bennun argued that as RSS feeds are mediated by alpha bloggers, producers will have to take notice of this as a channel through which to build advocacy. For example, with music, linking out to blogs could be a very simple but important process. In this way, niche becomes mass medium much quicker nowadays with blogs and podcasting - if it’s built into the hardware people have they will use it. In this regard he commended Apple’s latest Safari browser for its great RSS subscribe tool.

Gary McClarnan described how communities are migrating across platforms which are not “mass” as such. What’s missing here is the technology to support the taste makers, he reckoned. The music industry has done this for years with street teams and suchlike. Now we need to allow people to migrate around their blogs and communities. Alan Moore concurred that you need to give everyone space to form their communities and brands really need to support or enhance consumer’s lives.

Looking at the broader audience for digital content, Paul Bennun said that technology manufacturers have challenges to server older people. Jessica stressed that it’s about being able to access your content, and that to do this we need wholesale rates. Staying with the bigger picture David Docherty said that the fight between the US telco and the US cable companies will cause a transformation of the industry there and elsewhere. Tribalism will be a defining feature of consumer activity, he continued. But these tribes will be porous and move around. We’ll also see the rise and rise of a peer-to-peer culture with decent DRM. Gary McClarnan said he wanted to see ubiquitous content, but, he wondered, do we also create our own exclusive communities?

CHANNEL NEUTRAL – A GUIDE TO CONVERGENT TECHNOLOGIES AND THE ISSUES THAT SURROUND THEM

Mark Rogers - CEO, Market Sentinel

Mark looked at RSS and how to get the news out. He noted that with the spread of RSS, those who monitor blogs and RSS feeds will be able to tell people what is being said about them as it happens. The news cycle will change and is emblematic of the overall change in media distribution he explained. In this new terrain, many big brands are being outmarketed by their detractors.

RSS enable you to have a more direct relationship between consumers and brands, Mark continued, and it cuts away all the crap so you just get relevant content delivery and display. Travel companies in the US are waking up to this. RSS is also suited to one-to-one communications, and is a contender to replace email, he added.

You could go to a future media provider and set up podcasting. The possibilities of new technologies seems endless. In Mark’s opinion, the extent and freedom of self-publishing has a punk type potential and he mentioned the commercial blogs of Azeem Azhar’s Mink Media as exemplifying this new publishing era.

So what do media owners do? Le Monde and other French papers have set up a “safe blog” community. You can also put advertising in that doesn’t get in the way of the message or the content. He quoted Sabrina Dent, Managing Editor of Mink Media who says that advertisers love RSS but they don’t yet understand how it works. Another possibility Mark flagged up is adverts interspersed with content, citing Pheedo in the US. As RSS is an open standard, he underlined in closing, it will need advertising and business models to support and fund it.

Graham Hansell – MD, Sitelynx

Graham began by outlining the distinctions of Directory and Search. Directory is subject or time-based; it’s subjectively ordered by editors and is good for standardised information. Search is keyword based, generated from original text content and can manage both standardized and freeform text.

Today, the search results page is the brands homepage, Graham stressed. People look at that more than the brand’s homepage, and he reinforced this point saying that the Google results page is a very important branding and distribution environment. In terms of the benefits of search, it offers choice over hundreds of pieces of content and over channels. It’s specific: keyword search allows usage of greater knowledge than editors can.

Search is also key for filtering, where we navigate between hubs and authorities (peer filtering) in our search for and selection of content, Graham explained. We can also go by other users' recommendations via collaborative filtering, a self-filtering mechanism. Collaborative filtering is best used when driven by search. Another channel was listing auctions, and Graham commented that paid search was also important.

In terms of page relevance in the results, he asked, who are we to trust? The author? That was the case until along came the authors who stuffed their metatdata with keywords to skew results. Then came Google in 1998. They saw that keywords were often misleading and thought that peer’s links were a good measurement. Enter the readers and personalised search with Amazon’s A9.com and an updated Google – now you have to write a better webpage.

Paula Le Dieu – Creative Commons International

According to Paula there used to be “convergent talk” amongst people who were gatekeepers of content, but instead, people have claimed the digital space and decided what they want delivered to them. Convergence is embodied in the individual.

Creative Commons, as she described it, is the grease that keeps everything moving through different channels. It provides three “layers”: the lawyer-readable, robust, legal document that keeps the lawyers happy; a human-readable version and a machine-readable version which translates the choices you can make about how you chose to distribute / publish your content. The machine-readable version is important as it allows content, or the expression of the rights you have, to move between platforms.

PANEL DISCUSSION:

Anthony Lilley of Magic Lantern Productions mentioned how the new Channel 4 broadband channel 4Docs that is launching next month and that his company are involved in, is using Creative Commons licences for their entire content. But to get a film on to 4Docs, it does have to be decent. He described how ideas jump across platforms, for example Spooks is a TV programme on TV, but on mobile it’s an interesting set of ideas.

Lincoln Wallen of Electronic Arts said that convergence stems from connectivity. Taking the example of The Sims, what connectivity means for that brand will be different for other brands. Deborah Tonroe from Orange UK told of how they had launched TV over mobile the week before the conference, but she acknowledged that the mobile channel doesn’t work for all forms of content.

Caspar Melville, editor of New Humanist, flagged up the difference between the market of the New Humanist, principally a print magazine with a counterpart website, and that of online-only openDemocracy.net, where he was previously executive editor. Do you – and what should you – exaggerate about the brand? Take the Bloomsbury image of the New Humanist – should you project that more to the website’s global audience?

Mark Rogers commented that the last few years shows that the digital media was conservative, now that people are creating their own content and menus. Graham Hansell noted that spam will only decrease when personalised search makes no two sets of SERPS (search engine results pages) the same. Paula Le Dieu said that we should use technology to bring out the best in all of us. Lincoln Wallen suggested that converged rights management will give the consumer the right to fully ‘experience’ content. Deborah said that there is a perfect device coming to us. And Caspar said that, as in music, we are always behind the people, and that we should listen to the users.


BUSINESS MODELS – Mike Butcher, Editor Netimperative.com & blogger

Mike first considered the recently proffered ‘Long Tail’ theory, which is in fact an old term derived from statistics and power law distributions. Amazon is a clear example, one third of its sales come from outside its top sellers. Google was another case in point – it makes a lot of money from obscure keyword ads. The greater the catalogue, the more lucrative the obscure item becomes. In this scenario, users are likely to use more and consumers to consume more. Collaborative filtering is also likely to increase sales, he added. In a sense it destroys marketing – you just shove it all up there.

Bit Torrent was next up. It uses a decentralised architecture to serve up hits. But on this basis, Mike reasoned, an unpopular file probably wont be available as speed increase is proportionate to the level of downloads unless or until Bit Torrent has recommendation built in!
“The last 25 years has seen the atomisation of the media. Now we need to create affinities” Mike Butcher - Netimperative

Mike skated past “tryvertising” and onto Consumer Generated Content (or User Generated Content) as a business model. Three out of ten links on a search page are now generated from blogs, message boards and personal websites, he noted, and wondered if blog media was the harbinger of a tools revolution. Superdistribution is another proposed model – but early DRM has failed and the .net Passport has a serious user-perception problem. Who gains from DRM P2P services anyway, he asked. People avoid it because it makes more sense to stay aloof.

How about “branded media” then? Mike noted how the last 25 years has seen the atomisation of the media. Now we need to create affinities. In this scenario, according to the new marketers, the consumers own the brands, not the channel. Take Playjam.com – every game is branded and people are playing with the brand. The Orange playlist on ITV is based on downloads, and you have MyCokeMusic. Current regulations on advertising may be changed to make branded content more ubiquitous.

Finally he touched on the subscription model. This suits voracious music users but, Mike wondered, will people tire of paying the subscription? Subscription services that really work are ones that can’t be replaced with a “once only” model, for example cable TV. But subscription and purchase can be mixed by consumers anyway.

PAYMENT SYSTEMS – David Taylor, Simpay

There are ever more new entrants to market, David noted, like EasyMobile, OneTel, and Tesco Mobile. The reason that mobile commerce is back at the centre of activity is because it’s the way such companies are going to grow their business and now 3G services do allow you to download at an acceptable speed.

Premium rate SMS was the content deliverer and the billing mechanism rolled into one, then portals and operators started to do the walled garden offering. But the garden wall is coming down in the 3G era as customers are happier to download. Orange reported that over 50% of their traffic is now off-portal and people re going direct to the brand sites.

David charted the evolution of m-commerce, which started with closed portals. This was analoagous to the early model of the commercial internet where AOL/MSN/Compuserve decided what we could see and buy. We’re now seeing new international and loads of other local brands advertising and selling their services direct-to-consumer. We’re starting to see loads of brands finding their way to mobile eg. Levis and Anne Summers. So how does the content provider get paid? Spontaneous purchase dominates on mobile and payment methods that can cater to this tendancy will be important catalysts for growth. Simpay was set up and is owned by Amena, Orange, Proximis, Telefonica, T Mobile and Vodaphone as a trusted payment brand. Consumers get access to every single portal selling services not just the one their network prefers or controls. They’re launching soon in the UK. [Editor’s note: the subsequent withdrawal of T-Mobile has halted Simpay’s plans – please see their website for details]

LEGISLATURE – Alexander Ross, Wiggin & Co

Alexander took a broad overview of copyright law and the new media space. Common law copyright law is the most useful, he claimed. The author owns the copyright when they create it. This covers literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. As grey area example, he cited the recent Hyperion Records (June 2005) case which turned on whether musical notation on the stave was musical or literary work as it was written down.

Other rights include: sound recording rights (which reside with the producer), broadcasts (with the broadcaster) and the typographical arrangement of the published work (with the publisher). A literary work includes tables, compilations, computer programmes, databases (ie. anything that has been written) – they are original. Film can mean any recording or medium for which a moving image is made.

The Copyright, Designs & Patents Act (1988) covered the acts of copying (including uploading), physical distribution to the public, and renting / lending to the public. No-one has tried to argue that the Napster subscription mode is really just rental. To perform, show or play in public, ie to communicate the work to the public used to mean broadcasting. Now it means any communication that isn’t one-to-one. Broadcast is based on linear delivery but if you’re making work available through interactive delivery then you have to specify which platform or medium you have the right or intention to communicate via, and to what platforms you are delivering.

He turned to protection for technological measures: the technological measure (TM) must be effective to have “protection”. There is civil liability for those knowingly circulating TMs. The copyright owner and exclusive licencees, as well as the technology owner, can sue. So as a consumer, if you crack DRM systems, you’re breaking the law.

Other relevant legislation includes: The Disability Discrimination Act 1995; Fair Use; Privacy And Electronic Communications Directive 2003; Gambling Act 2005; The Enforcement Directive; Payment Card Industry Data Security; the OFCOM broadcasting code; and new regulations are being drafted that give more rights to performers.

Finally Alexander addressed the Creative Commons initiative, and their flexible approach of “some rights reserved”. The CC options offer specified permissions such as work that can be copied but must be attributed, work that can be copied but from which no derivative works can be made, commercial use only which prohibits copying, and the share alike option. He argued that this is not going to be mainstream but will be an interesting way of engaging consumers, citing the remix culture phenomenon of Jay-Z’s Black Album which was remixed with the Beatles’ White Album by Danger Mouse to become the Grey Album. He also noted that Creative Commons have created a code that makes all CC content searchable.

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS: CONSUMER WORKSHOP

Jim Harrison - ETV Commissioner, Sky Networks
Neil McIntosh - Assistant Editor, Guardian Unlimited
Ant Cauchi - Founder, Outside Line
Howard Ricklow - Partner, Collyer-Bristow
Giuseppe Troisi (moderator) - Head of Interactive, GCap Media (merger of Capital Radio Group & GWR)

Blogging
Leading on from the general question posed by In The City Interactive 2005- ‘Are you content?’ – the workshop considered that the primary focus of any business is ‘do you have consumers?’ As millions of pounds every year are spent on building up a brand, how does the recent wave of blogging (direct online discussions between staff and customers of a company) affect brands? Although such an open line of communication from staff to the outside world could be construed as dangerous to a company if unmoderated, it was pointed out by Giuseppe Troisi, Head Of Interactive at GCap Media, that any fears businesses have over this must mean there are problems with the staff or the company that they would rather keep under wraps. If a brand identity is not fully established or staff are not happy with the company, then those that choose to honestly express this in blogs may well have a negative effect.

Neil McIntosh, assistant editor of Guardian Unlimited, explained how his company have started their own blogs, where staff and customers have been sharing interests or concerns, and listening to each other readily. They are very happy with how the system works so far, viewing it as a new and valid form of journalism. Neil took the view that consumers are effectively experts, and when asked for opinions, can actually provide insight that will enhance a product, and in turn increase consumption.

Legal issues
Legal Issues arise from the blogging culture and the question floated was: is blogging not just an easy route to a lawsuit for defamation? Howard Ricklow from Collyer-Bristow said that these concerns are nothing new. Since chat rooms and message boards have been in existence, the issue of exactly how these can be covered by law has been under scrutiny. What is new is the sudden availability of information normally kept within a company to anyone wishing to read it online. Editing is possible, although compared to journalism it is fairly limited, and leaves a lot open to abuse.

Who owns the copyright of text in a blog? If indeed there is any copyright at all. If consumers are contributing text to a businesses website, does this then become the responsibility of that business as a ‘publisher’? If so, anything said illegally, even by a member of the public, would also be the responsibility of the company. The Internet has less regulation than any other means of public information, it has no captive audience, people must choose to visit certain sites and find what they are looking for, but it is a developing broadcast medium, and will need policing in future.

User Generated Content
User-Generated Content was then discussed. The Internet is an interactive tool, used by consumers to add their own content. Sites like Google make it easy to bypass brands completely, but brands as legal entities still have the upper hand of quality control, even on user-generated content. Howard Ricklow said lawyers may not yet have to be too concerned with UGC, but brands with an image and defined views may worry that UGC opens the door for pirate companies to potentially damage their identity. Their current way of maintaining their brand image is to use moderators in chat rooms, on message boards and blogs, to limit where the content topics can actually go. Here, the Creative Commons law would not apply. All panel members agreed that UGC will indeed become a much bigger issue, we already have a lot of UGC on our phones and televisions, in the form of MMS texting to shows like Cosmetic Surgery Live, home video shows, and text messages that are shown on live shows like Big Brother. Media brands must facilitate UGC to allow the best content to rise to the top, perhaps unearthing new talent in film making or television concepts, and it would be positive to see more structure put in place to allow this. A percentage of UGC will still remain as a niche market, but there will undoubtedly be a boom in Internet UGC, as people can get better equipment to generate it at home, and the Internet becomes easier to publish to.

Brands & communities
The danger for media brands is the constant splitting of the attention span of their public, who have more and more ways to use their time, in any niche they want. There has to be a limit to how much a consumer can take. Giuseppe Troisi pointed out that for a real success to be made of this boom, brands must not focus on wrapping everything around the content, but around the experience consumers have based on that content. Peers are sending each other an Internet video, or an MMS message that they respond to on some level, and then want to share the experience.

In terms of consumers and revenue generation it was asked, is UGC a self-liquidating system? Jim Harrison, ETV Commissioner for Sky Networks said that premium content cannot pay for itself yet, but massive incomes can be made in short time periods through text and brand spin-offs from UGC-related shows. The public are comfortable spending money through their mobile phones, and willing to use them to contribute and pay towards these shows without too much persuasion. It can be used as a way to find out exactly which methods of advertising work for brands, as a text response with a certain code can be counted, the text response becomes like the red button from the TV remote control. Texts are viewed as safe and foolproof, not subject to spamming, hacking or any money fraud the way that the Internet is. Record companies were caught off guard by Napster (mark one), so big media brands like Sky must negotiate rights questions with other content providers to ensure they keep the ability to make money from their content.

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS: TECHNOLOGY WORKSHOP

Panel - Richard Bron - CEO, Blueprint
Lincoln Wallen – Electronic Arts
Algy Williams - MD, Babel Media
Steven Hass - Managing Partner, weapon7
Alex Chapman - Partner, Briffa
Steve Mayall – Mobile & Wireless Analyst, Music Ally
NTK's Dave Green (moderator)

Dave Green of NTK asked the panel for a quick round-up of what they do and how their industry has been impacted by convergence. Steven Hass of Weapon 7 mentioned that the broadcast versus interactive model of content delivery looked at earlier in the day was interesting, and he stressed how, for weapon7, the technology empowers that content. Algy Williams of Babel Media said the issue for games producers was twofold – the proliferation of platforms and territories and the complicated production processes that accompany that. Richard Bron of Blueprint explained how they work with music retailers and others, advising them on how to protect their brands, eg. a band or artist’s right to control and use their image. Alex Chapman of IP legal experts Briffa commented that convergence is often about leveraging IP into new areas, while Steve Mayall of Music Ally outlined how they have written a lot of mobile music reports.

Red button versus ipTV
Steven Hass was adamant that red button has a future through digital TV broadcasts via cable, Freeview and digital satellite. All this information will continue to transmit at a high quality level for the forseeable future level, he said. When new innovations like Xbox, Media Centre and PSP 3 become more ubiquitous, he continued, then the power will shift from the broadcasters to the consumers.

Richard Bron said that people don’t yet understand what ipTV is – which is the end of scheduled programming as we know it. The delivery mechanism needs to be separated from the consumer experience. ipTV changes everything – TV, film and music. With the unlimited potential for people making and distributing their own TV programmes, perhaps we will be faced with too much content in the future. Blueprint are looking at a deal with a global company that will cost less then 1cent (USD) on a 20 cents transaction.

Producers & visibility in the digital space
The panel then considered the impact of convergence on brands and creators who can’t afford to market themselves or get visibility. Richard Bron noted that the main way we find out what’s on or what’s new is through friends. MSN Spaces in the US now has 300,000 artists who have posted their work in this environment. Vodaphone currently see Microsoft as a competitor, but all this will be undermined by the spread and upscaling of Wifi.

Algy Williams said that in terms of generating revenue, the great majority of films are blockbusters and sequels, and he argued that the importance of brands is increasing. Steven Hass said that technology enables us to see that there is a lot of crap, but good stuff still bubbles to the surface. From the audience Tom Coates pointed out that there is a lot of stuff between the "crap" and the "corporate wonders" and that this is also the most interesting area. There’s a democratisation of creativity happening and a growing market for free stuff and this signifies a culture shift, he said.

The 90/10 model was explained – 90% of mobile business is currently on-portal and 10% off-portal. Alex Chapman asserted that those who have control over the deliverables and the brands will control what content people have. There will be 900 channels but channels with legitimacy will be the ones with advertising and brand-support.

Future trends
In terms of key future trends in technology, Algy Williams stated that handheld is going to be the channel of the future – it will leapfrog the PC. Richard Bron said the iPod will be finished in a few years and mobiles will rule. Brands will have to go back to selling things without music to support the message, and the creators of the music will be its owners as well. Alex Chapman flagged up the dichotomy or dilemma of trying to get your content out there and then, once it’s out there, controlling it and how to promote it. Steve from Music Ally said that in the age of multiple tools, formats, platforms and devices, marketing will rule.

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS: BUSINESS WORKSHOP

Scott Cohen - Founder & VP International, The Orchard
Ian Baverstock - Business Development Director, Kuju
Saul Klein - CEO & Founder, Video Island
Jeremy Silver - CEO, Sibelius
Alexandra White - Director of AOP & Head of PPAi
Jemima Gibbons (moderator) - Interactive KnowHow

Jemima asked the panel what were the key factors in creating a successful content business. Saul Klein outlined Video Island’s business model. The business is an online DVD rental business. They have five brands on the platform, running white label and partnerships as well as their own brand Screen Select. They offer 32,000 DVD’s for rental, far more than any traditional high street retailer could ever hope to stock. They currently have over 100, 000 subscribers, renting 45-50,000 DVD’s a day, the equivalent of 130 traditional rental stores.

Music, games & publishing
Scott Cohen’s business The Orchard is a music digital distributor, which started as a distributor of physical product. Ian Baverstock of games developers Kuju sees their business as very different. They are still very much reliant on physical retail sales compared to other content industries, even though they are a naturally interactive industry. However, the industry is starting to move more online, with the ability to lever additional revenues from an online experience.

Jeremy Silver from Sibelius, who provide music notation software, felt that content is all going to go digital and that we are seeing a physical shift in behaviours from consumers. Alexandra White of the AOP claimed that the biggest shift for UK publishers was the dramatic increase in new content sources; from the portals such as AOL or Yahoo, to access to overseas titles previously not available in the UK, to user generated content such as blogs and the growth of syndication via RSS. She felt that publishers need to be more adaptable and not to worry about cannibalising or amortising content.

Creative Commons, DRM & copyright
Alexander Ross of Wiggin & Co. felt the biggest legal issues of late had been the tightening up of contracts that had previously been too woolly, but now involved DRM and legal protection of copyrights. He claimed that the Creative Commons was working in the US, however he felt most labels did not see it as a solution to protect copyrights. Scott Cohen took up the issue of the Creative Commons, claiming that it could be used to stop people gaining access to content that previously was available without restrictions but that not all creatives would want to use this license to distribute their work.

Distintermediation & direct-to-consumer
The discussion then turned to the role of disintermediation (i.e. the cutting out of the middle man) on the content industry, which was hailed as one of the major effects of the new digital age, turning the architecture of traditional business practice upside down. Ian Baverstock pointed out that in the games world the publishers still ruled the roost in terms of consoles, but that mobile gaming could maybe loosen the publishers control on the games developers.

Scott Cohen felt that not only would disintermediation not happen, but that we need more intermediaries to help consumers find the content they want. This will also offer up an increase in the marketing opportunities via these digital channels to push more relevant things to consumers. However, Saul Klein pointed out that in terms of broadband digital distribution for Film and TV there would be a considerable lag behind other content formats in terms of how quickly we would move towards ipTV and film on demand, with broadband speeds needing to increase dramatically for it to become a reality for the mass market.

In The City founder Tony Wilson & Steve Redmond of the BPI in conversation

Tony interrogated Steve about the BPI's policy of taking file-sharers to court. Their conversation also ranged over Tony's reflections on his management of Joy Divison and New Order, and the veracity of events at Factory Records as portrayed in the film '24 Hour Party People'. Audience questions and comments focused on the BPI's policies, the music industry's approach to the digital era and the rise of peer-to-peer culture.

Netimperative editor Mike Butcher podcasted the interview and audience Q&A session. It is available to listen to in MP3 format from the Netimperative site

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MP3 audio of In The City Interactive!
Visit this wiki page on Perfect Path to listen to MP3s of the event (with thanks to Lloyd Davis, who podcasted the event)

See the original EVENT PAGE

Visit the In The City Interactive (London) conference website to get:

• Full details of the programme
• Speaker profiles

Thanks also to:
New Media Age, Codeworks Connect, MusicTank, Digital Content Forum, NTK's Dave Green and Jemima Gibbons of InteractiveKnowHow

NMK mobile music day @ In The City, Manchester, 1 October 2005

NMK will be co-hosting the mobile day (Saturday 1st October) of In The City in Manchester, supported this year by BBC Radio 1 centred on the Midland Crowne Plaza Hotel (with live music events all around Manchester), 30 September-3 October 2005.

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