WeMedia08: Sound Bites from Traditional Media in Transformation

As usual, an eclectic mix of media, bloggers, marketers and business people came together at MALBA in Buenos Aires to talk about how media is changing at WeMediaBuenas Aires. There is a fair amount of tension between the traditional media folks onstage and the social media natives in the audience. For every newspapaer journalist who comments from the stage about their discovery of blogging, there is a Tweet about their "newness" to the medium. This tension is not unusual. I am with the Twitterers on this one. many of the journalists are going through the motions but have not really embraced social media.

My Theory: the traditional media companies feel confident in their leadership position due to the 'reach'they command at the head of the tail. When they look at social media, they see technology. they adopt technology and expect they have changed. Change is more constant. media companies did not just temporarily lose their monolithic status in our society. Those days are gone forever. 

Newspapers Transform Everywhere
Roberto Roja (sp?) from Clarin.com (large media company in Argentina) launched the conference by sharing about the violent disruption for print media (their foundation is built on their newspaper but they own TV, internet connectivity and more). Five years ago, they introduced color to the disbelief of the newspaper purists.

They added an online "version" of the paper to reach new audiences. He feels very bullish not just about newspaper readership but also about the leadership of newspaper Web sites. Users of their sites have doubled since 2003. The big questions are how to grow print readership and increase online revenues. 

He certainly seems like a man who sees the writing on the wall while dragging a traditional print-based media company to its obvious future. I wonder if he is more optimistic about the future of the print paper than is warranted. 

Eduardo Hauser CEO of Dailyme.com - His 6 Trends
Dailyme.com offers personalized news in a crowded market.

1. Fragmentation: Records (aka "albums") vs. iTunes
2. Atemporal (time-shifted): cable box vs. TIVO - growth of new advertising models including a 3:00 segment
3. Form of Payment: micropayment a la the $1.99 song on iTunes
4. User Participation: Election 08 Twitter feed
5. Distributed Experiences: he uses an example of DailyMe which aggregates content from everywhere including Clarin.
6. More Devices: iPhones and Blackberries and Kindles, Oh My! The Kindle is a platform that you pay a regular fee (subscription) - this represents a new business model.

Mariano Martino: Blogger vs. Journalist vs. Both
Blogging since 2001, Mariano and I spoke before the conference. He is outspoken and spends his time bridging traditional media and advertisers with social media. He is running a panel of journalist bloggers incuding

• Leandro Zanoni from tercerclick.com is giving a simple overview of social media including Facebook, wikipedia and the slide with all of the Web2.0 logos. He is teeing up the premise that I will cover tomorrow when I speak about my version of "perpetual beta" - test, try and train and allow for failure.
• Ernesto Tenembaum, journalist and blogger
• Daniel Fernandez Caneda, journliast and editor

Working with Blogs

Lilian Beriro, Development Manager for Telecom portals - Brands create stories so that they remember us and choose us. She is championing "listening" - we listen to how consumers "react." She shared three examples of ad agency created video programs - funny, fake videos. The question remains is embracing the  vocabulary of social media as powerful as actually engaging with social media (and the people amidst it)?

Esteban Panzeri/Lenovo - Esteban worked with us on the Lenovo Olympics. He is a smart guy and is actually sharing something of substance. He talks about the needs and wants of the consumer. First time today that we are talking about what the consumer needs vs. what journalists need or what advertisers need.

Comments

[Pablo Goldman]

Hi here is one of the teenagers of we media , im just writing to say that i like your presentacion and the idea of it.