I attended the Media Futures Conference at Alexandra Palace on Friday, a one day conference organised in the runup to Mashed. It was an engaging event, although at times unsure whether it was about media or technology.
One thing that struck me was the extent to which big media appears to be frightened of the future. The layout of the hall played a part in making this clear. There were tables set up directly in ront of the podium, but also a slew of sofas with power supplies to the side. We geeks all naturally made for those, and popped our laptops open. We then had to endure snide asides about "you twitterers" from the podium.
The media folk also seemed unduly fixated on "citizen journalism", which I think is a red herring. Amateurs are not going to steal their jobs, that's not the problem.
I think the likely future shape of media looks reasonably obvious. The media will become broader, with a long tail of niche channels. This obviously creates a lot of opportunity for media producers. But - there will be less revenue overall, thanks to the deflationery nature of the internet. I can understand why big media is unhappy about this. It's not that there's no place for them in the future; it's just that their market share and revenue are likely to fall, maybe by an order of magnitude. Which will hurt...
btw, I realise this is the 3rd post in a row I've made with the word "future" in the title. Promise not to go there again for a while!
24JUN