The Future Of Media - Micro Payments?

I went to hear a discussion at the Drake hotel (Toronto) Thursday night called ”The Future Of Media.”  I love going to go to these of types of talks regardless of the topic but a discussion on the “Future of Media” could not be missed.

Without being specific on who the panel members were I will say that they represented a who’s who of Canadian media.  A top level Rogers Executive, A Senior Producer at CTV News, A Senior Editor for CBC online, a Top Blogger from Toronto and probably all of Canada and a CEO of a major Citizen Journalist company.

The talk rambled on for 2 hours and throughout the entire discussion I could not get the title of the evening out of my mind - “The FUTURE Of Media.” Citizen Journalism was discussed at length, Twitter was brought up a few times as was Facebook, but I was wondering how and when the “FUTURE” would be discussed.  

Now don’t get me wrong - the Rogers gentleman knew the key talking points about Twitter as did the CBC representative, the Toronto Blogger had a humorous response to the CTV Producer who quite assuredly insisted  people would “micro” pay to receive general news and that he would turn that into a revenue model for his company - but they all missed the mark or ignored the concept of “The Future Of Media.”  In general, the panel had no idea and no passion as to how to succeed in the ever changing world of media.

To be honest - I was shocked!   

The host of the evening brought up the fact that ad spending dollars are falling not only in the print world but also the online world - no surprise there i guess.  But what he missed, as did the panel, was a few things I started to think about:

1. According to eMarketer - mobile ad spending will increase by 50% this year and next
2. Other outlets like the Mobile Advertising Association have mobile ad spending increasing by 500% in the same 2 year time frame to what could be over a billion dollars  
3. The Apple App store is quickly approaching 2 billion downloads 
4. There are now at least 3 other major App Stores out there selling products
5. It is predicted that smart phones will be owned by almost 50% of cell phone users in North America by the end of 2010
6. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal Apps are continuously among the top downloaded applications and each of these Apps have a revenue model whether its paid content or advertising or both
7. Espn is also one of the most downloaded Apps and it too has an revenue model
8. Mobile Ad networks are booming

This is all amazing news for the “Future” of media but the panel did not discuss mobile and its huge potential for even a moment during the talk.  They were too consumed with how great it was to answer customer complaints on Twitter and how to charge $0.10 for the ability to read an article on their website - which by the way used to be free.  And please, please, please don’t get me started about the lack of time spent discussing Google Wave - which is one of the biggest releases the internet has ever seen and will change the way each and every one of us does things online in the very near future.  This panel would have fallen off the stage if I asked about their views on Wave.

I guess I left the discussion optimistic.  As a digital brand and marketing strategist it’s always re-assuring to learn that many large companies could always use a little help with understanding “The Future of Media.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts.