Futuretainment Mike Walsh

23 insights

the cliff effect status quo new growth state change

Despite what company executives might like to think, revolutions in media are rarely based on linear improvements in technology - they are ignited when people start to behave differently. Radical change is a break away from previous forms of behaviour. At ﬁrst, it can sometimes look like a step backwards, but it is simply a step in a different direction.

1. revolution in media There is a revolution taking place, and it has little to do with technology. People are changing the way they discover, share and consume media - and that will turn every aspect of the traditional content business upside down. The new generation understands this intuitively. They have grown up surrounded by the web, and have never known a world where entertainment is not instantly available; anywhere, anytime on any device. For them, digital media is not something new, it is entirely natural.

2 . factory Think of the production of traditional media in the shape of a factory. Content was made by professionals, marketed by experts and distributed through authorized channels. Everyone was happy with the arrangement. Suddenly, audiences were no longer content to simply watch, listen and read what they were given. Consumers had taken control of the media moguls.

* mediajacking using digital sampling technology to liberate content from the restrictions of its original medium, or Digital Rights Management restrictions, so that it can be distributed, modiﬁed and consumed on any digital-capable device.

paradox ! information wants to be expensive because it is valuable information wants to be free because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time.

3 . mediajack There is no point in trying to ﬁght the future. Formats, rights, and playback limitations aside, consumers will always ﬁnd a way to get the content they want, even if that means transferring content across media platforms. Yet mediajacking is not about breaking the rules. It is just a symptom of a media regime yet to adjust to changes in consumer behaviour.

4 . network The audience network holds the power in the digital age. In the traditional broadcast era, beaming out your content through transmission towers was enough to secure audience attention. Now that audiences themselves are organised like a network, your only hope of distribution is ensuring that consumers are motivated enough to do it for you.

There once was a concept of ‘logging on’ and ‘logging off’. Now there is a ubiquitous network; there is no switch off. Any content, on any device, at any time and in any place

professional stored in huge server farms no local storage content consumer authentication (ﬁnger or voiceprint)l devices content manipulation (control, capture, annotate) communicate audience presence managementl network social networks screens take control of whichever screen nearby

5 . ubiquity When the web is everywhere, the way we think about content and how we access it will change. Linked by our personal devices to global server farms, we will have continuous access to personalized worlds of online entertainment and social updates from our friends. Forget prime time - media consumption will become a more perpetual experience.

* the geoweb once simply divided by longitude and latitude, the world is now becoming a three dimensional grid of linked data

6 . where All of our devices - our mobile phones, cameras, toys and media players - will become increasingly aware of where we are. Soon geographical location, rather than broadcast schedules, will triger entertainment experiences. Content will be tagged to places, and these will alert you to the proximity of your friends and people of similar interests.

7. crowd Consumer behaviour on the web is a complex adaptive system. A task that might be impossible for any one individual becomes a reality through the linked behaviour of online crowds. But cascading feedback also has a dark side : crowds can just as easily become mobs.

* to friend to friend someone is to create a connection with them and to bring them in your social graph sometimes you may know them personally, but often it is purely based on someone’s photograph, user name, interests or the style in which they have created their proﬁle page

8. social Being social online means more than just socializing. On the web, being someone’s friend no longer necessarily implies a tie of familiarity or affection. Social networks have evolved from a simple tool of staying in touch to a more complex infrastructure for sharing status updates, common interests and media content.

9. discovery Traditional programming is at an end. In the future, the most valuable source of recommendations about movies, TV shows, music, books and games will not come from programme directors, channel managers or magazine editors, but from people in our social network.

10. viral Content, like a contagion, spreads through audience networks by harnessing the links between people. The more random the connections between social clusters, the better the chance that a piece of media will achieve super distribution. However, the underlying logic of virality is very different to traditional marketing. It is not enough to merely persuade someone to pay attention. They have to be motivated enough to risk their own personal brand by becoming your advocate.

- kurt vonnegut we are what we pretend to be

11. avatar The more we live, work and play online, the more important it will be that we invest in the way we represent ourselves online. Avatars are not just virtual characters - they are our digital doppelgängers. In the same way that well-equiped online game characters can be worth thousands of dollars in resale, our online identities can have serious consequences for our own perceived value - whether in our professional or personal lives.

12. lifecast The future of reality television is actual reality. Armed with persistent recording devices, access to wireless broadband and global distribution through personal social networks - tomorrow’s celebrities will make their lives available 24/7 by directly broadcasting to their fans.

13. pulse On the web, nothing stands still. Like ants or bees, millions of online users interact within a dynamic system that is driven by feedback. The more we watch, the more we see others. The more we create, the more we connect with others. The pulse of the digital revolution is change.

* authenticity Authenticity is an important quality in the connected world because it resonates so strongly with audiences. When people believe in a story, they are more likely to engage with it, discuss it and share it with their friends.

14. authentic In an era of digital manipulation, reality is a ﬂuid concept. When anything can be faked, nothing is presumed to be real. So what makes something authentic in the new world is not how it looks, but rather how connected it is to the underlying social fabric. In the broadcast era, actors talked to you from the screen. In the network era you can talk back to them.

15. tag A tag is not just a description, it is a homing beacon. Tags allow anything - whether it be a photograph, video, movie, song or even a real object - to be classiﬁed, discovered and aggregated for mass consumption. Best of all, creating tags does not require an army of librarians. Users do all the work for you.

16. shift In the future, entertainment platforms will have a memory. Whether we are watching a movie or reading an eBook - our devices will record and learn from our actions, allowing us to easily shift our media consumption to whatever screens are available at the time.

17. mash The age of shrink-wrap is over. Content is no longer hermetically sealed but open to being remixed, reissued and then re-distributed. But the new mashup culture is not just limited to entertainment. The most powerful web platforms of tomorrow will be those that open their data and applications for integration into a myriad of other online services, in the hope of becoming the new industry standard.

18. immerse Games have evolved from simple tests of skill, to complex simulations. They offer an interface that attracts millions of other players around the world. The next stop is total integration - when gaming platforms begin to incorporate our personal information and co-opt devices from the real world. Soon we will stop playing with the games. They will start playing with us.

19. meta More valuable than content is the stuff that surrounds it. Reviews, recommendations and ratings are not only a by-product of consumption, they also make media more visible and, in doing so, increase its underlying market demand.

20. slice In a world where you can get any piece of content for free, media companies will no longer be able to rely on walled gardens for survival. Instead aggregators of the future will create value by understanding the individual preferences of customers and creating personalized slices of entertainment for them.

21. platform The next step for entertainment brand goes beyond mere merchandise. Box ofﬁce revenues will eventually pale in camparison with the commercial opportunities offered by sophisticated online platforms. These platforms will allow fans to engage and participate in engineered worlds that more closely resemble multiplayer games than traditional movies or TV shows.

22. engage The future of advertising does not lie in big, complex online campaigns. The web is a powerful medium for telling stories. The challenge for marketers will be to manipulate digital platforms to create and sustain their brand mythologies. As consumers become smarter at eluding marketing, it will not be sufﬁcient merely to invent better looking advertisements around content. Advertising will need to become the content.

23. disrupt Sometimes the best way to win the game is to question why you are even playing it. The rules that govern industries are rarely made in advance - they evolve in periods of rapid change until eventually they themselves become the restraints on innovation. But there is one thing you can be sure of : when consumer behaviour changes, sooner or later business must follow. As to where things go next, the answers lie in front of you. The future is already here, you just need to know where to look.

• 1. REVOLUTION : change always appears incremental until it’s too late. • 2. FACTORY : mass produced media must make way for media produced by the masses. • 3. MEDIAJACK : you can’t stop the music. • 4. NETWORK : everyone is connected. • 5. UBIQUITY : anywhere, anything, anytime.

• 6. WHERE : where is the new when. • 7. CROWD : we are smarter together. • 8. SOCIAL : who you know is what you know. • 9. DISCOVERY : we will watch what others will see. • 10.VIRAL : one becomes many.

• 11. AVATAR : we are what we want others to see. • 12. LIFECAST : we desire to live each others live. • 13. PULSE : life = change. • 14. AUTHENTIC : we want to believe. • 15. TAG : to name is to ﬁnd.

• 16. SHIFT : fun must follow. • 17. MASH : creation is combination. • 18. IMMERSE : fact is a function of ﬁction. • 19. META : the package is more precious than the prize. • 20. SLICE : pay per skew.

• 21. PLATFORM : more is more. • 22. ENGAGE : tales told true. • 23. DISRUPT : to win the game is to change it.

Futurtainment, Mike Walsh, Phaidon, 2009 http://www.mike-walsh.com/ Keynote summary by Jean Philip De Tender http://card.ly/jeanphilip

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Futuretainment Mike Walsh

by Jean Philip De Tender on Jan 01, 2010

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Futuretainment Mike Walsh — Presentation Transcript