SimonWaldman.net

Among his other talents, NowPublic’s Len Brody has a winning way with a phrase. During our panel session in Monaco, he made the point that ‘news isn’t moving to hyperlocal, but to hyperpersonal’…

It’s a point he’s made before - and not everyone agrees. To be honest, I think this is another one to file under ‘it’s not a zero sum game’ - but I really like the concept of hyperpersonal news: following the minutiae of the people and things that are nearest and dearest to you: social glue in an increasingly fragmented world.

It’s one of the reasons why I think Loic Lemur’s Seesmic - has phenomenal potential.

I have to say, on a cultural level, it doesn’t feel like it’s leading us to a better informed democracy - more to a ever more noisy goldfish bowl.

Well, of course not…frankly we’d be a rather unambitious industry if the total sum of our hopes and expectations was actually less than reality. While I contemplate the definitive epistle on the subject..

Maurice Levy of Publicis in the FT warns that there isn’t going to be enough to go round.

“It’s exactly the same situation as we saw at the end of the 1990s, when everyone thought that because he had a website he’d get the valuation. Now everyone building a Web 2.0 operation believes he will receive the advertising.”

Which echoes Steve Rubel’s words from a week or so ago: “Advertisers only you can save Web 2.0” aimed squarely at the start-up market.

However, just like Social Security won’t allow every baby born this year to retire in 2072, the harsh reality is that there will not be enough ad dollars to go around for everyone. For starters, advertisers have infinitely more choices on where and how to allocate the spend. More importantly, you’re wisely looking for ROI - scale, quality and performance. These are three qualities that many start-ups lack.

There was also a more detailed analysis of this from Reuters last month: “Ad dollars flood to the web, but will they go far enough“.

“Too much media depends on advertising as the only source of revenue. With new players from software makers to cable operators also trying to cash in, the dollars simply may not stretch far enough.

“I’m getting to the point where I feel like every answer to every business development pitch is ‘We’re going to be advertiser supported’,” said Beth Comstock, president of Integrated Media at NBC Universal.

3DSwym - also creators of TVnima. Upload your photo and it creates an avatar of you…then you can create your own virtual TV show importing all sorts of media- and then you export it as a video….mmm neat technology, but not quite convinced by that particular use of it. See more here.

Magwerk - Michael Maier demonstrates his People Magazine digital magazine. As digital magazines go..it’s very nice..feels a little more organic than Ceros Media’s solution for Monkey between that and some of their work is here

Skinkers - we know this one, don’t we? Ah..but LiveStation the result of their tie up with Microsoft. The aim is to be the equivalent of a satellite station for broadcasters..but over IP. (Read more here). Basically lets you have a broadcast stream of TV on your desktop, initial focus is on news…very, very neat..for people to keep running in the corner of their screen - works in Silverlight.

Wixi Object of some not inconsiderable Web 2.0 hype Now, I love this - just not sure how it’s going to compete with varoius other virtual desktops, photobucket, box.net etc. I think I might be too old. But I like it as a tool for showing off my wares onto social networks..See it here (still in beta)

Vpod.tv A very nice platform for ideo - seems to be having some success in selling to brands/ corporations and smaller media owners. They’ve also launched full screen online TV. Introducing Overlayz ads on their video streams. More here

Seesmic LoicLemur shows off his new venture - ‘a cnn of my friends’ - a video-twitter..which does to youtube what twitter has done to blogging..(read more here). Complete with youtube channel.

Tim Armstrong - Google VP Sales and Commerce

“We have reviewed businesses in audio and print and TV - 50% of the issue with media is mechanics, and 50% is staying up with . So we see a need for massive investment in infrastructure in all media - online and offline.”

“Google has been successful because we fore relevant connections between advertisers and consumers - and one of the things that newspapers can do, is just as important. One of the things we’re looking at in Google print is making sure that advertisers to have five different ways to contact the advertisers.”

Re: publishers

“There’s two distinct ways to look at working with Google. The first one is distribution . Two years ago - it was are you in the search index..now it’s ‘am I in feedburner’? Telling publishers to do asset maps - if you can’t write down on one sheet of paper, all the assets you have and how where you’re going to distribute them? Second thing - do I have content that can work in iGoogle”

“On the revenue side - the issue is yield management. If you were to build a media owner today, you’d have automated sales, deep integrated revenue, then have a sales force…”

“Last piece is two way conversation - every time you distribute content through a search engine, people are coming in sideways to your property..and the pages often aren’t that great…if every page is a home page what would I put on that?

Re: DoubleClick

“We’ve been talking to them for years..if you dn’t have a system that is going to connect search and display, you are going to have a bad customer experience..

Re: how far to go into publisher and agency business

“At the end of the day, Google is going to be one piece of the puzzle..if I were a publisher or ad agency, my first question would be how much information can I take out of Google that can be of use to my business…I think there’s a set of companies that are close, not just to Google..but to our competitors..and they are experiencing greater growth and success..not a detente over whether we are friends or foes..and I’d expect you to be very upset with us if we did anything to damage a publisher or agency’s business”.

Reveals - when they did the deal with AOL didn’t have enough cash or hardware to serve it..had to switch Google (I assume ads) off..

Question about China

TA: When you don’t localise enough - you tend to fall behind. Local engineering, local search - that matters a lot. We’ve been making up ground in China - a recent rule in Google - all products have to launch in all countries, which means China will move forward.

Lots of the issues for us where

DK: People make the mistake of thinking there’s on china - provinces are very different. Social networking. community based is going to work - imposing brands in the western format isn’t going t work as well.

On global accessibility

We used to think that it was about giving as many people cheap laptops as possible…but we’ve realised that mobile is going to be the main platform..Mobile and China - we woke up a couple of years ago, and realised that the world was not in teh US and thre world was not laptops..

Stresses the new global landscape: “It’s not smart for any of us to define our business within the geographic boundaries that we operate today”

Advertising: “Real people are joining communities and engaging with brands within those communities ”

“We focus on content: creative efforts in entertainment and sport - are quite different to news and information market”

“The best creative we’re doing is co-developed and co-produced with media owners”

Example: working with HBO to find the smartest person in the US. “The smart show” for Holiday Inn.

Also - Amex members doing travel videos made available through iTunes.

“In all cases advertisers clammering to co-produce rather than by space..the money is shifting to places where there is a more willing way to co-produce”

“The linear system of creative agency creates, media agency buys, from media owner - isn’t working in the blur”

Different in the news and entertainment area - example given - the American Express members project. (See video here).

“The challenge is that community and authority seem at odds - brand and community both want to have authority”

“Some community stuff has really gone off-brand…

4 generations: Silent Generation, Boomers (PC), Generation X (laptops), Millenials (mobile access).

No sense of liner media - now in a world of liquid media, people hopping from one device, medium to the next - multi-tasking time, rather than planned time.

“Plenty of options for distributing media - biggest barrier for us moving from traditional media to new media is operations. Amex has 3,500 ad units online at the moment. This all needs to be automated..This needs and operating system”

“At this point - they are focussing on MSN, Google, Yahoo - and to a lesser extent AOL. We have to think, how can we manage through this blur? I dont’ know of any way to orchestrate this many interactions.”

“Let’s set some standards to make this a more scalable environment - and let’sf ind a way to co-produce these experiences with a little input from the consumer and a steer from the media owner”

“None of us can solve it for ourselves”

Hillcrest labs : neat point, click and zoom interface for masses of digital media on a tv. Demo here
Gizmoz: So fantastically bizarre it might just be a huge hit..basically allows you to build a 3d character/ avatar of yourself, from a single photo. Or lets you superimpse your head into a video…bonkers but brilliant. See here
Newspaper direct: Sure you’re all familiar with this but interesting to see they’ve added lots of ‘blog this’ buttons..a heatmap tool so publishers can see how long things are looked at, and an ad widget that allows on-page interaction/transaction with the advertiser.

Spotzer: (aka Spotrunner that isn’t tied to the US cable network). Andy Klein, chief exec - tells us they made 200 ads in 10 days in Kiev, recently. Their new media planning tool - using a mix of TV, web and narrowcasting depending on marketing needs is very neat indeed - but perhaps a little scary for smaller advertisers. Target audience is for clients spending E20,000 - E2m. See here.

YourTrumanShow: The core bit of their business - letting people tell their own video stories seems rather YouTube-esqe..but their VideoMap tool which allows you to discover video through a graphically mapped social network is very fine.