Colin CrawfordSenior Vice President, Online, International Data Group“Magazines 24/7” Chairman
Closing Remarks“Magazines 24/7” Connecting with the ConsumerFebruary 27, 2007New York, NY
This has been an exceptional day, and one I believe has more than lived up to the initial promise of being thought provoking and challenging.
– perhaps, it’s even been a little scary as we all wrestle with the implications of what we’ve heard.
Again thanks to the MPA, Howard Polskin and the production team in particular, the event sponsors for their support, to everyone for pulling together such a great event.
With the continued frenetic, pace of change and the learning we all have to undertake I’m certain that there is going to be massive demand to keep this event going and expand it.
So, please give us your feedback on how it can be improved and the issues you’d like to see included in future programs.
Special thanks to keynote speakers, David Eun, Sarah Fay and Holly Moore the panel moderators and their panelists and you the audience for your attendance and participation.
In this new world of search engines, aggregations, syndications, mash-ups, social networking – where so much content is free - what is the role for publishers going forward and where are the viable business models?
Well we got insights into these dilemmas today.
For me it is, always was and always will be about managing the relationship with those who consume and absorb our content. It’s about developing the audiences’ emotional connection with our brands. The communities around our brands – really define our brands and they need to be nurtured.
A report recently released by IBM – Navigating The Media Divide summed it up well it when it stated:
“Traditional media companies should focus fanatically on consumers and embrace new technologies and business models”.
And last week Piper Jaffray released a report entitled “The User Revolution” describing a new concept and buzz world “communitainment” - the exchange of content, ideas and entertainment within an online social context.
I encourage you to read both reports – they touch on many issues discussed today. I’ve linked to the reports on my blog and they are referenced on the conference site.
With the volume of content out there and the myriad ways it can be presented, tagged, remixed, linked, shared and recommended I believe our role as publishers is to ensure that the users we serve get the information they seek in ways that are useful to them.
On the web, on the go or on the page.
Our role has evolved greatly from just being content creators – to being facilitators.
Audiences will come to us and keep coming back if we provide the platforms, tools and environments that inform or entertain them and allow them the social connections they seek.
Much of the creation of content on our sites will be by the users of our sites. We should make it easy for them.
Active, engaged, participatory communities are our competitive advantage and of course will be highly sought after by advertisers.
It’s all rather easy to say but hard to implement well.
We all have much to learn and should look forward to the journey ahead – it won’t be boring!
So, I hope you’ve found today’s sessions interesting and informative and are ready to test out some of the recommendations.
Now, it just remains for me to thank you all for your participation and attention. Have a safe journey home.
No items were found.
