Richard Edelman on the “Conundrum of Media” at WEF 2009
Richard Edelman posted observations from the World Economic Forum 2009 on his 6 A.M. blog. They range from Climate Change, Middle East politics and recapitalizing banks without full nationalization to German PM Merkel’s suggestion for a supra-national body of finance ministers (similar to the UN Security Council) that can act quickly and in unison on economic policy.
What I found most interesting were his observations about the so-called “Conundrum of Media”:
- Distribution is the new hot area (YouTube is now the #2 search vehicle); content, which was king, now is not.
- There is expectation of free content, which may well mean more consumer-generated and aggregated material improved by democratization. Media companies must provide a “live” experience, allowing more continuous updates.
- Subscription models, such as Thomson Reuters, only work because they are aiming at professionals with inelastic demand for high-grade material at their fingertips.
- The display model for advertising is broken; the ad agencies need to find better ways to reach specific audiences through more targeted, measured advertising.
Also, here are notes from a session at the 2009 WEF titled: Organizing the Unorganizable: Social Computing and the Enterprise. The title and description sounded promising, but from the notes, it looks like the session mostly focused on external social media, not the internal (knowledge gathering, project management, etc.) uses of tools like wikis.
Photo Copyright © 2009 World Economic Forum.
