We just finished day 1 of the Mesh Conference where today's sessions focused more on the new media and its effect on society. We arrived relatively early at the MaRS conference center despite watching the hockey game last night - meaning we're on an early streak (we arrived at the airport 2 hours early). Some of the sessions I went to include the future of media, the future of newspaper and the future of broadcasting. One of the speakers, Jian Ghomeshi from CBC, touched on how the big media players will always remain - the only difference is that the platform changes. Mack and I talked more about this on the way back to the hotel and while Mack disagrees, I think what Jian says has merit. Traditional media still adds value in ways other platforms can't. Take for example the newspaper. Newspaper provide a good overview of topics with all the major points covered in a way that anyone can understand. Blogs and podcasts, in summation, may provide a clearer picture but not everyone wants to spend the time to have find, aggregate and filter out all the content. It's similar to Om's reason of why TIVO/DVD-R services for TV hasn't really affected the way we watch television. People like the fact that channel surfing is mindless - they don't have to decide what to watch (yes, deciding is sometimes too much work). In the same way, newspaper allows for mindless reading. If we expand traditional media to include recording labels and movie studios, there are even more reasons. The cost of creating audio and video content may now be in the reach of the average person but there are still certain venues of distribution like music ringtones on cellphones that requires a little more sophistication. Traditional media will continue to stay not only because the creators are the "cream of the crop" but also because it allows for mindless consumption. However, traditional media will somehow need to aggregate all these other platforms that will still allow for mindless consumption in order to retain and grow the number of readers or viewers.
Tomorrow's sessions will focus more on business and marketing topics so will probably be a more relevant to our company. Now we're just waiting for Ashish to get off work and we're going to head out for dinner!
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