Note: NAA’s Director of Audience Development Diane Hockenberry attended the We Media conference in Miami last week. She came back with a ton of notes and observations – here are some of them from the investment forum and the “soft power” forum (Jay Rosen described that as “people power and the social structures that connect them together”). Hockenberry also attended the town hall meeting, “Behold the Power of Us: A Future for Media, Democracy and Community.”

 
Diane’s e-mail address is diane.hockenberry@naa.org. She also suggested checking out MediaShift, Mark Glaser’s blog, for more on the conference (look under February 2007).  Also, Poynter's Feb. 15 Centerpiece highlighted some takeaways from the conference.

 
Investment Forum

Scott Rafer, MyBlogLog; Chris Ahearn, Reuters; Jeff Taylor, Monster and Eons; Chris Versace, Agile Equity; Brian O’Malley, Bettery Ventures

Question: Outline your thoughts on big media vs. small media

 Rafer: Yahoo bought his bloglog. There aren’t a lot of businesses for big media to buy that have ample size and traction.

Ahearn: We should all thank China.  Reuters.  We need to fundamentally rethink our technology base.  Look at Pluck; Invest in outside companies doing cool things.

Question: How do we get to a world of super syndication? How are we monetizing the audience in this shared and competitive landscape?

Taylor:  I spent $1 billion building the Monster brand. I'm looking now at  graduated baby boomers. I’m going after venture capital now for investments purposes. We came from an anchor man to a user-generated world. It’s almost like the parent / teenager scenario (anchor man / citizen). There needs to be a new hybrid model with a balance between both worlds.

Versace: There is a new blurring between hedge funds, private equity and venture capital. 

O’Malley: There is $500 billion in advertising spend globally. Very few brand advertisers have made this jump.  People today understand different types of user interactions.  

Question: How do you get there with your own funds?

 Rafer: Everything is an order of magnitude.  As you grow your audience you start to make decisions on the dollars.  Look at Google AdSense. There is a running opinion that profiles are the right inventory for that next new ad network.

 
Question: Are we paying the people that do the creation, e.g. writers?

Taylor: Monster pays $300 a story. But what we’ve found is that the audience on the site doesn’t even read those stories.  More are coming to the site for the tools and the community, not the news content.

Question: What smaller firms have been successful?

Rafer:  Advertising on the Internet shows a continued shift in risk from the advertiser to the publishers. I believe a cost per acquisition network is where we’ll end up.

Taylor: Loooking at a 50+ aged marketplace, it is harder to attract without using viral. We jumped from 75k to 125k to 225k to 315k to 560k viewers all through viral marketing. Page views jumped from 0-12 million. It has the germ of a viral site.   Six advertisers gave me $5 million before I even had the first visitor on the site.

Pledgebank.com – gets 10 people together to clean up a neighborhood. Pledged x amount of dollars for x amount of time if the city government would do something about it. Others signed on. Created a foundation of a digital rights group.

Fast Company is trying to figure out the economics of social innovation. For example, how do I provide a service in exchange for money?
 

Question: Predict the future in 6 months to 1 year.

 O’Malley:  Instead of a large venture firm, you’ll have venture pools that invest their own pools of capital.  Angels and hedge funds.

 Versace: I think you’ll see it turning into a mobile world.

 Taylor: Incredibly difficult to get captial. Need fortitude. In 1907 there was an article about an automobile encountering a horse. The auto stopped to wait for the horse to walk by. If it didn’t walk by, the auto would guide the horse by then it would restart the auto and continue on. I think that says it all about what the industry is facing. 

Ahearn: I’m not an early stage investor. If big business gets in there too early we just muck it all up if we take them on too soon.

Rafer: Getting into another bubble. Venture capital will dry up as will the angels. If you have users and they keep coming back then you can build a big business on your own.

Soft Power Forum

Gaby Bruna, Media for Change Project; Val Prieto, Babalu Blog; Sanjeev Chattenjee, documentary filmmaker and vice dean; David Sasaki, Global Voices; Chuck DeFeo, Salem Communications and Town Hall; Jay Rosen, Press Think and NewsAssignment.net

Question: What is soft power?

Rosen: People power and the social structures that connect them together. Arrangement of people of get things done. The cost for sharing and collaborating is going down.
 

Sasaki: Ten years ago only a select few could make themselves heard; now anyone can. We’re aggregating the best blog content. Realize while it’s leveling off, it is not fair and completely prolific yet. Not every voice is heard; there is still some censorship.

Preito: We are publishing stories from independent journalists in Cuba.

DeFeo:  Power of talk radio and power of grassroots voices are being heard.  You now have a platform on Town Hall.   3,000 actively blogging or offering comments.

Question: Are you supplanting or adding to daily papers?

DeFeo: Town Hall is adding.  Looks like a traditional media center. Multiple doors for people to come in through.  

Prieto: Audience participates, that’s how we add.

Sasaki: We see Digg and Del.ici.ous come up on the top 10 lists.  Ends up being gossip lists. I miss those editors who help me disseminate. We try and get editors in that region/topic/language to help make those selections.

Rosen: 1999 – original software for blogging emerged

DeFeo: World in politics before where voter participation was key.  Voter participation then was on decline because candidates were talking at people, not with people which was a reason for the decline. Now the Internet has brought people back into the conversation. They care again instead of being apathetic.

Prieto: It is the echochamber affect.

Sasaki: Against echochamber. We really want dialogue. I see the future of the article being a global piece with many contributors. The future of the audience will be a collaborative process.

Question: Why isn’t dig being seen as a tool?

DeFeo: Yahoo! Most popular. Edtors know where the audience wants to go.  Anna Nicole Smith’s obit is at the top of CNN.com

Question: Is social networking just a way to spam? 

Rosen: Wikipedia works. People who are part of the community come with a vision in their heads on why it is valuable.  That makes the tools valuable. They already know what an encyclopedia is.

Sasaki: Google (search engines) and authority have made Global Voices successful. Reuters also supports them.

Old media will not die. Both of these systems will operate at the same time.

C0mment from an audience member, Alan Rosenthall: We need to use the Internet to empower people, to show them how to take action and how to connect with others who share their values.

Town Hall: Behold the Power of Us: A Future for Media, Democracy and Community

Donna Shalala, President, University of Miami; Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist; Sheryl Tucker, Executive Editor, Time. Inc.; Jason Pontin, Editor, MIT Technology Review; Cristi Hegranes, Presss Institute for Women in the Developing World; John Zogby. President and CEO. Zogby international; Alberto Ibarquen. President and CEO. Knight Foundation

 
Shalala: Need to be nimble enough to filter unfiltered information. Multiple sources are helpful. Transforming education. Students are more comfortable asking questions via the Internet. Need to use multiple sources or I’ll make mistakes. Young people will need more history and methodology.

 Ibarquen: About investing, the way in which foundations look at the world and approach social problems. They’re moving away from giving money as charity and viewing it more as a business opportunityu.  Knight’s charge is to build community and journalism.  We’re giving $25 million over the next 5 years ($5 million per year). Our only rule is 1)it has to be electronic media intersecting with the community. It’s called the 21st century challenge. Our response was over 1,600 applications for the grant money.

 Question: How can we keep the good values of old media in the ditial world which welcomes bad values and good alike?

 
Zogby – Development of a new global citizen.  18-28 year olds are not the smartest but somewhat aware, more than we think they are at least. In middle of self-centered life cycle. They no longer have to go to meetings. 

Shalala: This is the 1st presidential campaign that may be shaped by a younger generation.  

Pontin:  Problem is sometimes “we” don’t know what we want which means they rely on our staff skills and editors to make those decision on what is important.  

Newmark:  Having pro fact checkers is important. Function of a free press.

Tucker: Maintain the line between reporting and opinion.  

Zogby: Both sides are dependent on each other. People still remain dependent on the talking heads.

 
Shalala: The Univ. of Miami uses billboards on buses to get news out. I can’t stress enough the need for multiple sources, and the combination of using low-tech and hi-tech distribution.

Ibarquen: Buffet described his $32 billion donation as an investment, not as charity. Five years from now new media will be the old media.

 Hegranes: We change the way we pitch to investors. Use media as the device instead of going after media grants.

 Tucker: Don’t understand why you say “we” versus “you”. The challenge is are we doing a better job getting disenfranchised voices out?