Sunday, May 07, 2006

Summit for the Future (2)

Digital Life Aggregator

The Media and Entertainment Knowledge stream started out with a nice interactive meeting. Marc Canter, presently the CEO of Broadband Mechanics, but better known as the founder of MacroMind in 1984, the later MacroMedia company, known by its multimedia platform Director, turning Flash, gave a Powerpoint presentation. On every slide there was a statement which provoked discussion. His opening was: No human sees the difference between PCs, game machines, TV and cell phones. They are all digital, yet everyone knows that they are different industries. So we need to connect the Living Room wit school, the office, on the road, with mobile devices and our friends, families and groups. In order to do so, we have to take risks, invest time, help others, and contribute to the community

Blogging has been instrumental in this. It has empowered millions of people to start blogging and move into blogging media (podcasts and vlogs). Canter is now working on the development of a Digital Lifestyle Aggregator, a social software product, which brings together all of the aspects of digital life, shares aspects with your friends, manage your children’s exposure and connect families together. Besides there will be a rating, commenting and linking facility in the software.

It is clear that the development of social software is only starting up. User generated content is overtaking push information of the official media. But in order to get user generated content placed and protected new software other than Blogger and Movable Type will be needed. And here I see a link with Comet, the new password controlled blog software of SixApart. This software initially intended for companies might become family software, where relatives and friends are given access to the content. But it might also become a group software, where like minded people get access to.

To me the problem with this family or group model will be the business model. But several models are being toyed with. There is the free start model for vlogging; people can start showing their movies, but will have to pay up when they are successful and have for example 1000 viewers. Another model might be the pyramid sales model: you buy access and sell on access to others. Of course there is the old advertisement model, but certainly with vlogging product placement might become another model to be used.

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Blog posting number: 372

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