Live Coverage

Here are a few of the questions we can expect speakers to be asked tonight:
    * What can newsrooms learn from tech start-ups? Should media outlets take a more entrepreneurial approach in their day-to-day operations?
    * What can tech start-ups learn from traditional and mainstream media?
    * How are social media, new technology and apps changing media organizations?
    * What technologies, new ideas and business models will be successful and what is just a trend?
 
The live panel discussion is followed by a Q&A session with the audience. Digital Journal is also taking questions for panelists via Facebook and Twitter.

Ingram: I write about the internet which means sitting in my pajamas typing for 18 hours (a day) or so

Ingram: Now that we've all been optimistic, I'm going to get pessimistic. Even though we've all said content is going to win .. the business model is what pays people's salaries... there's way more content than there ever has been. The barriers to entry ... are lower than they've ever been ... Even in the traditional media so much more competition for eyeballs, for readers

Angus: People place a great value now in living vicariously. They know what they're consuming is probably not 100% true, but that doesn't bother them. They're happy to follow along. ... They know some of it may be rumour, it may turn out not to be true, but they still want to consume it.

Boutet re National Post: It served as wake up call, says Boutet, we needed to stop building workflow as building print first and online as a supplementary. "Instead we needed to flip that ... it needs to start with digital and end with print."

Moderator to Taylor re strategy: You're more than just dumping content on web. What are you doing to differentiate self from competitors?

My role is clearly a step in the right direction. We have a tv person who is focused on how to translate tv into web. We're not digital first ... but that spirit is being embraced. Less about digital dollars, but concern about what are we going to do in digital ... embracing what we've got ... how does that translate to digital space.

Ingram: When Twitter came out, I don't think anyone would have predicted newspapers would have entire staff devoted to their Twitter account.

Vey: It's still a struggle to get many journalists on Twitter ... some won't tweet and others will just tweet (something like) I wrote this column, please look at it online ... but getting them to engage with readers is exactly what Twitter is there for.

Angus re: newsrooms policies on journalists tweeting: We are really wrestling with this currently, it would be fair to say. On one hand have to encourage journalists to engage with readers, on the other hand we have to have some control over what is being published in the name of the BBC

Ingram: There are all kinds of downsides to social media ... [but] the benefit to having that feedback is that you have to respond, or you should feel like you have to respond, to readers or viewers

Taylor: My job has 100 per cent changed because of that platform. We're learning with everybody else. It's constantly evolving. So, personally, of all the examples we have, there's no, I don't feel has a tablet user that someone has cracked the nut of what a great app is (re:TV). It's like a touchscreen version of what's on the website. I can't wait to be able to say don't just watch your TV, play with your TV -- something that's bigger than what we have right now which is just kind of watching TV on your tablet. I think the opportunity it to become the device to interact with.

Moderator to Vey: I want to get your perception on mobile. A lot of people think start-ups can take advantage of mobile?

Angus: We were trying to do a lot of things with maps, so we could look at regional variances across the country ... We had our first every televised election leaders' debate. Previously they didn't do one, they never could get everybody to agree to do one. It was a huge social media event.

Moderator: Unique ways broadcasting trying to generate media?

Taylor: Short answer is there is no silver bullet. My answer is to play in as many ways as possible. I think the answer is going to be a multitude of things, which include digital sponsorship, we have sponsors we have advertisers. In the TV world you can only get so innovative, in the digital space it's nearly unlimited.

Moderator: Digital dimes and ad dollars, is that a concern in National Post. Other revenues?

Boutet: Print faces a unique conundrum. We've worked so hard to drive readers online and now the scale has tipped. ...We want to turn that into money somehow. In print, the answer that usually comes up is paywalls. I'm not a fan of paywalls. It's a very negative experience.

Moderator: Do you think there's something unique in Canada that makes us think we're entitled to free news, or is that the way of the world?

Ingram: I think most of the people that say they will pay are lying, whether in Canada or the rest of the world

Ingram: What does victory look like? Does it look like what the times did? Does it look like 200,000 people paying to read your content, or does it look like millions?