Event Summary: Oxford Business & Reuters Institute Symposium on Paying for Content
Ryan
MaintainPR was lucky enough to snag an invite from new media wunderkid Joe Brilliant (@joebrilliant) to attend this sold out discussion on the future of content monetization.
Held at Oxford's only modern looking building, the Said Business School, and curated by Said Business, The Oxford Business Network (OBN), and The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), the evening was divided into short presentations from experts in news, media and technology, and then a Q&A session for attendees to address the panel.
Speakers included:
Dr. David Levy, RISJ Director (Moderating)
Mark Oliver, Chief Executive, Oliver and Ohlbaum Consulting
Professor Robert G. Picard, RISJ Director of Research
Erin Ericson, Content Manager, Developer Marketing at Vodafone
Christophe Cauvy, Digital Director, EMEA, McCann WorldGroup
We were impressed by all the data and points made, and in particular, with Robert Picard's exploration into the issue of payment systems as a hindrance to cooperation and innovation in the online media sector.
While e-money has come a long way since the introduction of PayPal over a decade ago, Picard argued that an e-commerce system without added transaction costs from banks or credit card companies will be necessary in bringing costs for online news content into the realm of realistic consumer comfort.
Mark Oliver's recent consumer polls through his consultancy served as visual reminders that data supports promiscuous consumption on the Internet. In short -- while we as consumers of news have allegiances to particular papers and columnists in the physical world of print journalism, the same is not true for overarching consumer behavior of news digestion online.
Erin Ericson's mobile app expertise, and surveys of the evenings attendees on smartphone usage highlighted the ongoing trend of content creators turning to applications and specifically the mobile and tablet OS for means to an affluent audience. But the issues of marketplace fragmentation (read: multiple app stores) and noise (50% of iOS developers have less than 1K downloads, and there are over 400K iPhone apps) will continue to be barriers for the consumer.
We are looking forward to more insightful discussions from the Oxford Business Network. Thanks again Joe!