Hello everyone, Lauren here liveblogging the Future of Media panel hosted and moderated by Digital Journal
Tonight's speakers are:
* Jamie Angus, acting head of news at BBC World News
* Jon Taylor, senior director of content for CTV Digital Media
* Chris Boutet, senior producer for digital media at the National Post
* Mathew Ingram, a senior writer at GigaOM. Ingram was previously a journalist with the Globe and Mail and he is co-founder of the mesh conference.
* Kathy Vey, editor-in-chief of OpenFile. Vey previously held a number of editorial positions at the Toronto Star.
Moderator: Dave Silverberg, Digital Journal
For in-depth bios of Future of Media speakers visit:
www.futureofmediaevents.com
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.
Vey: The idea of a 9-to-5 day is pretty funny for me because we're (Open File) is a start-up and that doesn't exist
Ingram: I write about the internet which means sitting in my pajamas typing for 18 hours (a day) or so
First question: Is the future of media optimistic:
Angus: The value of well-versed, well-sourced content will never die.
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
Boutet: Authoritative voice is a very subjective thing for people. Really the authoritative voice is the voice that you trust.
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.
Moderator question re: Digital first strategy, as a way for print and broadcast products to take advantage of online space: digital first, print last. What do you measure as a successful digital first strategy?
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."
Ingram: "I think the hard part with a digital first strategy is that you still have print products, legacy products, that are producing 70 - 80 per cent of your revenue."
Angus: Previously gathering social media from on-the-ground citizens all happened behind the scenes, what we're doing is now publishing it. That could never happen 2-3 years ago.
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.
Vey re: why working for smaller start-ups, such as Open File, can be better: If you have an idea you can implement it much more rapidly without several layers of corp. I wanted to start Toronto Star Facebook page and couldn't get an answer "so one day I just went rouge" and started one.
Ingram: When Twitter came out, I don't think anyone would have predicted newspapers would have entire staff devoted to their Twitter account.
Moderator: What about when Twitter and Facebook creates brands for journalists? Do you think that branding of a journalist changes how newspapers or any products have to operate, or how a journalist does their job?
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.
Boutet: Now, I think, everybody has an opportunity to be an opportunity -- even ones you might wish wouldn't be
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
Boutet: You have to give your staff some credit, you have to trust them to act professionally.
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
Moderator to Taylor: I want to switch to mobile technology. What do you think you'll be doing differently in the rise of tablets?
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.
Angus: What is the future of radio?
Ingram: We have radio, it's just called podcasts now.
Boutet: I find I definitely used to listen to a lot of podcasts, but used to.
Moderator to Vey: I want to get your perception on mobile. A lot of people think start-ups can take advantage of mobile?
Vey: Barriers to entry: I don't think there are any. Latest rendition of CBC news app has a feature where you can submit news tips ... that's the sort of thing that gives a great advantage to news gatherers. I think we'll see more of that in the future for sure.
Moderator: How does BBC approach the election a few months ago?
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.
Ingram re Twitter and election: There's bound to be dozens if not hundreds of people talking about the results before people in the east (of Canada) have voted.
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.
Taylor: Any new revenue stream -- we need to be in that business, because the only chance you have to maintain the pace is to be in as many as possible.
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.
Boutet: I'd like to see a pay what you can wall. It might be zero, but we already see a lot of zeros. At least at that point, you'd be collecting info on what sort of value your [content] has
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
Angus: The Times in London has gone behind a paywall, there is a lack of open information as to how successful they've been so far
Ingram: They've lost ... readership, now they're an expensive newsletter
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?
As a start-up, what do you see as a (revenue) model for a news start up to try and pursue in Canada?
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