fairfax media

The good folks at X|Media|Lab have posted my Media '08 slide deck online.

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Kevin Anderson blogged my session - his commentary will provide some context for some of the more visual slides.

You can also find the other great presentations from Media '08 here.

Inspired by Robin Hammond's Digital News Affair feed of feeds, I've whipped up a quick aggregation of blog posts and Flickr photos from the Media '08 conference.

You can check it out here.

It's based on Technorati tags so if you're not pinging Technorati drop me a note and I'll add your blog feed in directly.

What can we learn from the business experiences of digital/tech companies trying to introduce their product in new markets? Well in China there was a pattern of failure amongst Web Companies (Ebay, Yahoo...). Even Google has gone from being a market leader to having just a fraction of the share of Baidu.com (now has 80%)

What mistakes have these companies made? Largely design issues it seems. Chinese sites have blinking lights, bright colours and lots of navigation and an incredible amount of information. If the page looks bare ("simple") people will think there isn't anything on it and move on. People are happy to click through but not happy to type.

The big problems though are :

• localisation/partnerships
• top executives are entrepreneurs
• Western companies just can't bend the rules like domestic companies can.

Having better technology isn't the only thing since if you come into China someone will figure out how to replicate and even do it better. Jonathon showed a screenshot of a site that looks exactly like Facebook but was in Chinese...

Money quote :"If you're thinking of coming to China, don't. There are much more fun ways to lose money"

Off the bat Kevin wins the award for the largest presentation ever - nearly 6 gigabytes!

He kicks it off saying it's about community, the medium and tools. He says that if you aren't actually playing in this new media space you can't create content for it. Kevin runs a quick pop quiz asking

1. Who owns a game console?
2. Who has a personal profile?
3. Who has a blog?
4. Who subscribes to an RSS feed or Twitters?
5. Created video and uploaded to YouTube?

His point? We all know how to surf the web and get e-mail and given that you're equipped to live in the digital world. If you're not able to create digital content then you're not equipped to be working in this digital world...

Vicky started the session with two videos highlighting user-submitted media that the BBC made use of in an interesting way:

• Burma Crisis: Citizen journalists were writing an "alternative Narrative" to official propaganda in Burma.
• Floods in the UK in 2007 were the biggest story that BBC Interactive Covered. Received thousands of photos and hundreds of video. This was showcased on a Google Map were coverage was embedded.

  Her interactive team consists of 13 journalists who work 24/7 and are dedicated to multiple BBC channels and platforms. They receive pictures/videos and then sift, verify and authenticate them against established journalistic standards. They then decide if these pictures could be used on the BBC platform. To ensure quality you need to invest - this isn't a way to cut costs.

  She refers to interesting research that was done for the BBC on trust and authority regarding user-contributed content. Around 1000 people were asked what they thought of user-generated content. The findings?

  • The public is in favour of it but are in favour of it being vetted first from someone.

  • A large number of people understood user-generated content and participation - but many didn't know how to participate.
  • 1/5 people polled have contributed to a news event in a fairly traditional manner - e-mail or phone in.

  Those are pretty encouraging statistics...

Kevin Anderson kicks it off his presentation discussing how to build a direct connection with the audience and begins with some of the Faux Pax that Mass Media commits when trying to use social media:

• Mass Media is focused on celebrity not engagement
• Mass Media doesn't know the difference between "provocative" and "through provoking"
• Mass Media focuses on building a network of free labour instead of relationships

He uses a some great Jon Stewart clips to finely illustrate the point...

He has a couple great slides on the Guardian's thinking around the user engagement cycle:

Casual (just stopping by) -> Connected (signing up and engage in light interaction -> Committed (signing in for personal benefit) -> Catalyst (blog, e-mail, etc) -->

and what they're doing "beyond social networking" :

Casual (bookmarking, tagging, adding to group, attention data)
Connected (commenting rating, voting, endorsing)
Committed (UGC, tools for content and users, profiles)
Catalyst (networked journalism)

He makes a point that I strongly agree with : you can do a ton with existing tools outside - it is just the creativity and willingness to change.

He illustrates this with a really cool thing where he asked a question about US Elections on Seesmic and asked if people would want to be embedded on the Guardian Blogs. He got a ton of responses saying how great the Guardian was and then from a whole lot of Americans discussing there issues for the elections. This resulted in over 40 video responses...

This perfectly illustrates the power of some creativity and the use of consumer focused internet tools - he thought this up on the way to work and it was executed a couple of hours later.

The biggest challenge isn't technological but social and cultural.

Note to self : Playing Daily Show Clips is always a winner with the audience!

David Kirk, the CEO of the Fairfax Media group is up and it wouldn't be a stretch to describe him as a bit of an overachiever.He captained an All Black Rugby World Cup victory, Rhodes Scholar, Medical Doctor and now CEO of one of Australia's largest media group.

Fairfax runs some of the biggest daily broadsheets in Australia and are sponsoring Media '08.

His approach from a "metro publisher to leading multi-media company" seems like a fairly standard online distribution play. The core elements is focused around content :

• Unrivaled capability in Digital content origination and aggregation
• Powerful multimedia brands extending audience reach
• Distributing and promoting content across multiple platforms
• Proven new media revenue models

Interesting he hasn't spoken about the "former audience" and changing engagement models. The good news is that they are chasing the audience down the "rabbit warrens" into whatever platforms they choose. It remains to be seen what sort of engagement models they'll choose. One of the bullet points is ensuring effective "audience" connection and management.

Strongly focused on display, classified and transaction markets. Subscription is another model that they're keen on and David Kirk mentions that he's relieved that the Wall Street Journal has stuck to the subscription model and that they will too.