A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Time magazine, YOU and radical transparency

TIME magazine’s Person of the Year is YOU – in recognition of people being more in control of information than ever before thanks to social media sites. A consequence of the involvement of YOU is greater transparency. This is what people like about the social media sites, they have a voice and there is no gatekeeper silencing them.

Last week, before the TIME announcement, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, blogged about what radical transparency would look like at WIRED magazine. At the heart of radical transparency is YOU – readers being put at the heart of the magazine in pursuit of creating a better product. It respects the new YOU focused two-way publishing model of today compared to the one way approach of yesteryear.

I’d love to know what Australian magazine publishers make of Anderson’s post and the comments of others on his six tactics of transparent media. Newsagents ought to read it as well as they have a business model which does not connect with the era of YOU.

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Citizen Journalism

Newsagent to lose their territory? Maybe.

I’m told that a newsagent gained a temporary injunction late last week stopping a newspaper publisher from taking the newsagent’s distribution territory, and with it their business, away from them. The publisher apparently cited a clause on the newsagent agreement which gives them permission to kneecap the small business without cause. The matter is up for another hearing this week.

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Newsagency challenges

Top performing newsagents win FAST 3 AWARDS

fast3_award.JPGEach year, my software company recognises the three fastest growing newsagencies in its our community of more than 1,300. The FAST 3 AWARDS are based on same store year-on-year growth in unit sales. There is no pitch to judges and no formal entry process. It all comes down to business numbers. We use unit sales because it eliminates the impact of price fluctuations. Data from the finalists is verified to ensure it has not been manipulated an that the win is fairly earned. The winners this year are:

Mornington Newsagency (VIC)
Clifton Beach Newsagency (QLD)
Greenvale Newsagency (VIC)

Each has grown unit sales in core categories of newspapers, magazines, cards, stationery and other areas way beyond the industry average. As part of the award they will share with other Tower Newsagents how they have achieved such stellar results.

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Newsagency challenges

The assassination of newspapers, or not

Will Bunch at Attytood reckons:

The American newspaper is being assassinated by “a lone nut.”

He names Craig Newmark of Craigslist as the lone nut. Bunch writes for the Philadelphia Daily News. H’e ignorant and biased. He’s wrong to blame falling newspaper circulation in the US on Newmark and his successful Craigslist free classified ads. Newmark is saving advertisers money, allowing them to use that money elsewhere. Craigslist is, in part, a response to unreasonably high classified advertising fees which are not based on a fair margin. Newspapers have priced themselves out of the market and now, thanks to the Internet, better broadband coverage and excellent mobile devices there are models which suit consumers better. Bunch ends ridiculously with:

In the meantime, I think every journalist who’s a threatened victim of layoffs should be sure to send Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster a holiday card this year, including a family photo, and let them know how we’re doing in 2006. After all, even a “lone nut” should see who his victims are.

Journalists threatened ought to spend their time focusing their skills on new print product which is more suited to the times and to online. Journalists are as important today as yesterday – all that’s changed is the medium.

Gee newsagents face tougher trading today thanks to supermarkets and others selling magazines. Are they to blame? No. It’s competition. We live with it by becoming smarter. This is what journalists need to do rather than moaning about someone providing a useful free service.

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Newsagency challenges

O2+ Design Directory magazine fails the retail test

o2.JPGO2+ Design Directory 2006 will not sell in my shop. The distributor, NDD, would know this from the sales data they have for my business. That they have supplied six copies of this $9.95 publication and expect me to pay for the stock now and hold it for almost six months is nonsense. It’s another example of a broken magazine supply model. The other problem with the title is the size – it’s non standard packaging means it cannot fit in the traditional magazine units and therefore will be put elsewhere, away from related titles. This will further impact sales success. Publishers and distributors ought to know this stuff. That they have newsagents providing free shelf space for six months allows them the opportunity to be lazy in their execution. I’ve early returned my copies and will not pay for them in the current invoice – I didn’t order them so why should I?

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magazines

Sticky cookbook offer

aww_free.JPGACP has a great offer – buy a Women’s Weekly Cookbook and you get one of these small cookbooks free. Trouble is the promotional sticker does not come off. Customers are complaining because they want to use the small book as a gift but can’t with the sticker there.

Now that we know we have to tell them otherwise there will be grief at present wrapping time.

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Newsagency challenges

The $25 a minute charge which disrespects newsagents

20/01/07 UPDATE. The concern expressed below has been well addressed by Bill Express announcing a sales game for newsagents. More here

This blog posts starts with three questions:

Should a supplier wanting retailers to sell their new product charge for in store training?
Is $200 for 8 minutes of said training fair?
Can the training be adequate if the trainers have not been trained themselves and are given up to 20 stores to visit in a day?

Bill Express (ASX code: BXP) is charging newsagents up to $200 to train them in the sale of the new BOPO rechargeable credit card. Well, actually, they are not charging newsagents. Rather, they are cutting this month’s marketing rebate – a credit newsagents have received to their Bill Express equipment lease costs since the installation of the Bill express network in newsagencies three years ago – by up to $200 depending on the rebate a store earns. We’re told it is a cut to the rebate for this month only.

By cutting the rebate Bill Express saves up to $600,000 this month – to fund the training. In my newsagency the training visit lasted eight minutes and consisted of dropping material off and chatting briefly – there was no training – certainly nothing of value was shared, yet I’d been told by a Director of Bill Express that this training would be important for compliance. There was no aspect of compliance in the training in my newsagency.

In some newsagencies the ‘training’ has been over the phone while in most it seems to be in person and completed in 10 to 15 minutes. One newsagent said their trainer was covering 20 newsagencies that day. Another said their trainer was trained over the phone. Another said the trainer said she was getting $30.00 a site to do the training.

There have been more than 100 public complaints by newsagents about this in the last five days. It’s a problem for Bill Express and for the industry associations which have endorsed the one off reduction in newsagent marketing rebate of up to $200 to fund the training. If the $30 payment to the trainer is accurate and allowing for a 25% agency premium plus some setup costs, it is fair to claim that this national ‘training’ has cost Bill Express under $150,000, leaving a windfall profit of up to $450,000, courtesy of newsagents, to book this month. If accurate, it’s a nice bottom line bonus.

The average time being spent per store supports the $30 per outlet theory, it’s why the training is rushed. While I am hot happy with a supplier asking me to pay to be trained to sell their product, what Bill Express has delivered is disrespectful and it harms their reputation among newsagents. The training will not improve compliance or the ability of newsagents to sell the BOPO product. Newsagents have effectively been forced, without proper consultation, to fund the delivery of in store marketing materials and not much more.

Would Coles or Woolworths accept this? I suspect not.

Bill Express would be well advised to reconsider its position on not paying newsagents the marketing rebate this month. In the light of the actual costs revealed and the evidence that no real training is being delivered it is inappropriate that newsagents be charged as originally planned.

If Bill Express does not reconsider and accept that it has made a mistake in its relationship with newsagents in how it has handled the BOPO matter, it will experience mass cancellation contracts as they fall due.

Newsagents have, in their national retail network, an asset of extraordinary value. The day newsagents price access to that asset commercially is the day newsagents will demonstrate that they understand the nature of competition.

Newsagents had hoped that Bill Express would draw bill payment traffic from Post Offices. This training mess puts the competitive offering at risk as billers will not be comfortable supporting a disgruntled network or a supplier which does not respect its retail network.

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Bill Express

Newsagents, free WiFi access and citizen journalism

Since my post yesterday suggesting newsagents establish themselves as free WiFi access points two players in the comms marketplace have made contact to discuss how this could be achieved. Unfortunately, like many suppliers dealing with newsagents they grossly undervalue the national coverage newsagents offer.

Newsagents’ business model based around newspaper, magazines and lotteries is being severely disrupted by mobile technology. A free WiFi offering, while not the solution, would put back into consumers’ minds as being relevant. For the comms partner newsagents offer instant visibility since the network tracks more than 15 million visits every two weeks.

A smart comms company might bundle in an internet kiosk at no cost and call it Australia’s Listening Post or something like that – to push along our fledgling citizen journalism movement.

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Citizen Journalism

Being selfish about newspaper promotions

age_cards.JPGThe Age has a great promotion tomorrow – a park of 50 Epicure recipe cards. We received 200 packs, we’ll sell 160 copies of The Age – the 40 spares will be for home delivery customers – not just from our area but others. Being in a shopping centre we get many customers from other areas. The 40 packs will be gone by 10 am. Rather than eat into the allocation and satisfy home delivery customers we’re quarantining 160 for our retail customers. I know this will upset the folks at The Age but we have to put our direct customers first. Promotions like this, with a scale out lower than demand, damage the brand – hence our decision to be selfish and hold back enough to satisfy our customers.

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Newsagency challenges

Real estate agents to take on News and Fairfax?

The Australian yesterday reported that the Real Estate Institute of Australia is planning to launch a website to collate property sales data and, ultimately, compete with realestate.com.au, domain.com.au and the many others. It’s a move by independent real estate agents to take control back of a key traffic generator for their businesses – online advertising. While the move is likely to be too little too late, it’s the arrogance of a major competitor which caught my eye in the story:

Realestate.com.au chief executive Simon Baker said those price rises were justified because they corresponded with the much higher rises in site traffic and property listings.

Mr Baker said the group was not concerned about the prospect of an industry-led site because it was unlikely REIA would be able to obtain enough capital to adequately fund a new sales portal.

The Australian is published by News Limited which owns 53% of realestate.com.au. Baker is wrong to justify price rises of 10% a year on traffic generated by the site. The Internet is not a place where such old school justification of price rises is accepted. Online shoppers do so because online costs are less. Price rises ought to reflect real price rises experienced by the supplier and not what they think they can get away with.

By allowing online advertising sites to grow unchecked as they have, real estate agents have lost control of traffic to their doors and this makes them vulnerable. If Australia follows the US there will be a move to cut real estate agent commissions through better online functionality. Just as happened with online travel portals taking business form travel agents. Why will I be happy to love, say, $10,000 to a real estate agent when I can use an online ad portal to take care of the main work for less than 10% of that?

To compete with the power of realestate and domain, the agents need to offer new and exclusive functionality. It’s not just about price as the story in The Australian suggests – offering cheaper ads will not work. The agents need to leverage their intellectual property to their advantage.

The disruption faced by real estate agents is similar to that faced by newsagents. Both are old world bricks and mortar businesses made up of independent business people often too busy running their businesses to see the tsunami of online driven disruption which threatens to impact business as they know it. Good on the REIA for acting on this. It’s more than we are seeing from newsagents. However, their reaction will need to be faster and smarter than current reports suggest.

The challenge is that real estate agents and newsagents rely on long term big business partners who are no actively competing against them. This issue is the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about – how dare we speak ill of a supplier competing with us for fear they will go harder. The reality is that News and Fairfax are competing with real estate agents, they are a huge threat to the model real estate agents operate under. Likewise with newsagents. Fairfax and News will do what is right for their share price – meaning that newsagents and real estate agents must do only that which is right for their profitability.

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Media disruption

Virtual bumper sticker: I blog and I vote

Just as roads, water and electricity were hallmarks of a developed country last century, free wireless broadband is a key measurement this century. Access, price and speed of broadband are a barrier to the education, commerce and development of a country.

Australia risks Third World status when it comes to broadband access. Rupert Murdoch was right to blast the Government on this last month and Communications Minister Helen Coonan was wrong to criticise him. The Government sees the provision of this essential infrastructure as the responsibility of the telecommunication companies. I see the Government having a key role. This should drive the cost down and increase the roll-out speed. Like any essential infrastructure, the cost to the consumer ought to be tiny if not nothing. By leaving it up to the telcos, the Government is making our country poorer by world standards.

While Rupert Murdoch wants more ubiquitous and faster broadband for his businesses, I want it so more Australians are participating in the new world – more bloggers; better education; more competitive commerce; and, a more competitive country.

Having returned yesterday from LeWeb 3 in Paris, once again having to navigate no access or, often, poor quality wireless access, and reading more finger pointing on this I’m frustrated that the government does not get it. National broadband coverage (wireless or not) is essential. It’s not about whether a telco will make a profit or not. It’s about the citizens of the country being able to compete on the world stage – today, not in five or ten years. Today we need this coverage. We are being left behind.

For location of free WiFi hubs the government could look no further than newsagents. There are 4,600 retail locations across the country. They are already hubs in their communities for other services. I am certain newsagents would gladly play a role in free WiFi access and help the government take Australia out of third world broadband access status.

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Blogging

UK newsagents seek competition review

The UK National Federation of Retail Newsagents this week made an unexpected formal application to Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for a full review of the newspaper and magazine supply chain. The newspaper and magazine supply model has been subject to OFT consideration over the last two years with OFT positions being advisory. The review sought by newsagents, if granted, could result in changes being imposed on the channel by the OFT.

The distribution of newspapers and magazines in Australia was deregulated by the Federal Government in 1999. No review on the impact of this deregulation has been conducted. Many newsagents contend that deregulation has seen them severely disadvantaged in that new competitors to newsagents get to choose the magazines they stock and only take the top 50 or so titles – leaving newsagents, who have little control over what they stock, to carry more than 2,000 less-popular titles which account for less than 25% of retail sales.

Given the Federal Government’s involvement in driving the deregulation in 1999 I would have thought that a Productivity Commission Inquiry would be an appropriate forum in which to assess the impact on the community, small business newsagents and small publishers of the government policy change.

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magazines

FHM closes in the US

Emap has closed the US edition of FHM magazine as a result of falling sales. The Mediaweek report has this telling quote:

“With conditions in the U.S. worsening, we have decided to focus our resources elsewhere on faster growth platforms,” said statement, Emap Consumer Media CEO Paul Keenan.

Sales in the ‘lads mags’ category is okay from the newsagent data I see but not strong. Lads mags suffer from second rate location in many newsagencies because of content. They also suffer because their target readers can find equivalent free content online.

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magazines

More abuse of newspaper mastheads by Fairfax

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Advertising people at The Age continue to treat the masthead as if it’s a web page with pop-up like post-it ads. Customers hate these. Editors and designers who put their heart into creating the front page must hate them too. What does it say about the publisher’s view of their product that it is desecrated like happened on Tuesday this week (above).

afr4.JPGWhile the advertising folks at the Financial Review don’t get to cover the masthead, they do get to cover front page stories as this photo from Tuesday’s AFR shows.

These post-it ads must be worth it otherwise Fairfax would not un them. I wonder if their increased use reflect lesser respect within Fairfax for their printed product. Would the editors and publishers of, say, twenty or ten years ago have agreed to these ads? I suspect not.

Am I alone in thinking this?

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Uncategorized

Is Fairfax about to launch online news dailies in three states?

Crikey published this story today (sourced back to The Australian) – suggesting that Fairfax is about to do in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth what News did earlier this year in Perth with it’s online Perth Now news site. Such a move by Fairfax into capital cities where it does not publish today makes sense, unfortunately for newsagents.

We have been insulated from the print media disruption seen in the US and Europe because of our strong home delivery position. This play by Fairfax and the earlier by News will take the shackles off and speed up disruption.

It all comes down to monetisation. The publishers can see the income stream. Fairfax Editor in Chief of Online Mike van Niekerk said as much in his presentation entitled Cashing in on Digital Success at the Beyond the Printed Word conference I attended in Vienna last month. Fairfax has optimised its sites for financial return. They know what they will make with local editions in these new states.

News will respond to the Fairfax move into these new markets. The more the publishers compete online the less they will focus offline. They’d disagree with this if you ask them but it’s true – you only have to see what has played out overseas to see what will happen here.

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Media disruption

Coke muscles in on Christmas card business

Webpronews reports that Coke and YouTube are collaborating on a Christmas greeting card play. The second paragraph of the article stabs at greeting card retailers and publishers:

Sure paper Christmas cards look nice sitting on a mantle, but what else do they do? While they are thoughtful, they cannot actually convey emotion the way that spoken words can. What better way to say Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, or Kwanzaa than with a customized holiday video card from Coke and YouTube?

Welcome to disruption on the greeting card space. MediaPost has more on the store here.

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Greeting Cards

Reflecting on LeWeb 3 in Paris: blogging, newsagents and our businesses

leweb_4.JPG

LeWeb 3 has come to an end in Paris. It’s been an interesting and worthwhile conference. Here are my headline take-aways in my key areas of interest:

OVERALL
The world is flat.

Borders are not as important as they used to be.

Intellectual property developed in online start-ups could be more valuable to an economy than its natural resources. In Australia we’re not doing enough in this area – we’re too busy worrying about finite resources to understand that better policies can create value out of innovation.

BLOGGING AND BLOGGERS
We are behind in Australia. We need a more visible and robust fifth estate. Bloggers of Australia ought to unite and encourage more people to blog. No one else will talk up blogging if we don’t.

There is a vibrant, vocal and effective fifth estate in Europe and, to a lesser extent, the US. We have not found it yet in Australia. Here in Europe there are more bloggers per capita and they are fierce in blogging. They are using blogging to navigate to a more transparent democracy with more voices heard. In Australia we’re barely started on that journey.

Bloggers are constituency to politicians and garner respect – well during a campaign at least.

Blogging is not for geeks. Well, they do it, but so many others do and on all manner of topics. We’re not hearing these voices in Australia.

NEWSAGENTS AND THE MEDIA
The world as we know it has been disrupted. Our (newsagents) dominant traffic generator, newspapers, are not what they used to be. News is being delivered and consumed anywhere and at anytime. There is a movement to reduce filters, like mainstream media companies, and to provide more direct and diverse access to news and opinion.

Newsagents need to find relevance in this new world and find it fast. We need traffic and from that sustainable revenue.

The Internet is a supply chain game. Newsagencies were created by publishers to be a supply chain game. They need us for the next few years so they can access profits while people transition from over the counter to online access of news and information. My feeling is that there will be a tipping point, for newspapers sooner than later, where our model is no longer viable. We should see that before our suppliers.

FIND IT, 3LOVES AND OUR NEW ONLINE BUSINESSES
I won’t list all take-aways here because it suits me commercially not to.

In this conference on 1,000 delegates I heard about more than 150 Internet start-ups and I didn’t network that much. The start-up world is noisy, companies and countries are scrambling to build IP which will be the natural resource of the next generation. There is some very exciting innovation.

Web 2.0 is about social interaction. Games, virtual worlds and many other traction-gaining innovative online businesses are more about social contact than anything else. Social connection is the game in town.

The customers in control, genuinely in control. If you do not allow this they will not support your business.

Traffic must be two-way including in news and information models.

Free is the price point target if you’re building an online business.

My final take-away was not presented by anyone but it’s one which has grown with me over the last few months and hearing people talk so much about monetization over the last few days it became more important to me:

Our mission is more important than profit.

Our mission is to help individuals and businesses spend less on more effective advertising so that they can pass on the savings to consumers who can in turn use the savings to create a better world.

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Blogging

Oranges and lemons and poor wifi access

Orange provided the WiFi coverage at the LeWeb conference and turned what should have been a triumph into a mess. With more than 600 of the participants fighting for bandwidth, the network infrastructure was always going to be challenged. Based on the frustration expressed by some, I bet the folks at Orange wish they’d never agreed to provide WiFi coverage to LeWeb. Still, it’s better than WiFi access I see back in Australia. I’ve trued the Telstra PCMCIA card and gave up on that. Then I switched to the Optus PCMCIA card and it’s no better. In a world where we’re more and more needing to be always on wireless access has to be addressed – it’s a business requirement if Australian businesses are to remain competitive.

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Uncategorized

Second Life? I’m having enough challenges with this life!

second_life.JPGI’ve heard about Second Life and even checked it out but I never really got it. I mean, why spend hours every week creating a virtual life, which can never become real, when that investment in your real life could be more rewarding? What was I missing? Plenty it seems. Glenn Fisher CEO of Second Life dished our some amazing stats about the Second Life business at LeWeb 3 this afternoon:

1.6 million current registered residents. To reach 2 million in the next couple of weeks.

500,000 active residents.

10 million objects in the virtual world.

900 events each day.

900,000 unique items traded or sold in October this year alone

The top ten businesses transact a real US$25,000 a month.

The next 100 businesses transact, on average, US$6,300 monthly.

Half of the time in Second life is spent by females, average age is 32.

55% of the residents live outside the US.

Most important of all was the realization that Second Life, for many inhabitants, is like a local café or pub or club. People go there to meet other people. It’s social. Sure it’s commercial for some, but for most, it’s social. The commercial operators are there to support those there for the interaction.

This new way to soclialise is a challenge for those of us with businesses involving social interaction and which rely solely on the bricks and mortar world. Fisher’s presentation today had some important takeaways for me and the Find It and related social media sites we’re developing but I’ll save those for a more private place. In the meantime, if you’ve never been to Second Life, go and see what close to 2 million residents see in this new world.

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Newsagency challenges

Politicians talk up the Internet at LeWeb 3 – because bloggers and their readers vote?

sarkozy.JPG

Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative candidate for the presidency and Minister for the Interior addressed LeWeb this afternoon. While I’m not sure about his politics, his comments about the Internet and the need for France, and any country for that matter, to foster online innovation made sense. He called for easier access, better tools, better education and government support for R&D.

What was important about Sarkozy and other politicians coming the LeWeb today is their understanding of the importance of the blogosphere and the risk to countries which do not innovate.

Back in Australia I am reminded of the debate about who pays for faster broadband and the lack of government support for web 2.0 and related start ups. All Australian Governments ought to be eliminating barriers to online access, they ought to be aggressively funding startup Web 2.0 innovators and they ought to foster a culture of genuine intellectual property development. This is the next natural resource and our Governments, State and federal, seem to engage in all buy lip service.

IP in Web 2.0 and beyond businesses could be our next export and we’re not even having a national public conversation about it. Not seriously. In Australia we need faster, better and cheaper access. We need to foster innovation. We need better tax breaks for this innovation. And, we need politicians who understand the flat earth, open and people driven of the Internet.

Here is Paris we’ve heard from two presidential candidates today who consider the matter so serious that they come and speak to 1,000 bloggers from 37 countries. That says something beyond the fact that there is an election next year. These two had passion and a grasp of what is happening online. They engaged beyond platitudes.

All that said, others were not happy that politicians got time at the conference. Dieter Rappold has some views worth reading as does Tom Morris and Tom Raftery and plenty of others. Do a Google search and you’ll see the blogosphere alight in anger at what many label as the conference being hijacked by the politicians.

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Uncategorized

LeWeb 3, politics and revolution

François Bayrou, a presidential candidate for UDF in the elections to be held here in France next year was welcomed to the stage with some delegates yelling out their displeasure at a political candidate interrupting the advertised program. I was inclined to agree but he soon won me over. Here was a candidate saying that mainstream media is not taking much notice of him and that blogs offered to drive democracy through greater transparency. He cited the Howard Dean campaign for US President in 2004. Maybe he should connect with Joe Trippi – the architect of the Dean online campaign. Of course at a bloggers conference this was what we wanted to hear – that blogs matter, that they are essential to democracy and that the filtering by some mainstream media organisations of news and opinion is unhealthy. The detractors seemed happy by the end of Bayrou’s conversation.

In this an other presentation I am asking myself: where are newsagents in this? Nowhere, not in the online world or the blogosphere. The world is in the middle of huge change in how we access and share information. Newsagents used to be at the hub of that. They (we) need to find a new traffic generator hub.

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Citizen Journalism

LeWeb 3: Shimon Peres calls us to blog for democracy

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Former Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres spoke for an hour at LeWeb 3 this morning. 1,000 tech geeks and bloggers sat in silence as he shared his views about the world and, more specifically the Internet. He graciously answered questions from the audience.

I didn’t come to LeWeb 3 expecting to encounter a world leader like Peres and was surprised to hear yesterday that he would attend. Walking up to the venue today the consequences of his attendance were evident with police and security in strong attendance and a bag search before entry – yesterday there was none of this.

peres_2.JPGPeres surprised me. He was passionate, engaging and well informed. He came across as honest in his comments and answers – maybe they are traits of a politician out of office. He sees the blogosphere as vital for democracy and breaking down borders. He sees it as crucial to transparency and essential to a more peaceful world.

Peres called on bloggers to blog for democracy. I took some of his comments as a criticism of mainstream media and the control they exert on what we know and what we ought to think.

Here are some quotes I found compelling from Shimon Peres speaking this morning:

Our task is to imagine and create, not so much to remember.

Young people have stopped reading the newspaper and stopped watching TV.

States, countries, borders and governments are no longer too important. They were important when we lived off the land. When science and technology took over and became the source of wealth why do we need borders? You can’t conquer wisdom.

You are so crazy to be popular that you forget why you became popular.

I cannot see a political solution to the Middle east. I can see an economic solution wich will drive a political solution.

We cannot live under one flag or one opinion.

Democracy is the right to be different, the right to make mistakes and the obligation to correct them.

If we spent what the war in Iraq costs in one month, US$30 billion, and spent that on commerce in Iraq, the outcome would be better.

Israel is going solar. It is better to hang on the sun than Saudi Arabia. The sun is more democratic.

Don’t look at the past, it’s a waste of time.

I have not taken much notice of Peres in the past except watching the occasional news report. The Middle East is a long way from Australia and, well, I tend to focus more on local stories and stories which directly affect me. I felt ignorant listening to him today. Ignorant that I had not taken more notice. I suspect others in the audience felt this as well.

peres_3.JPGAt the end of his time at LeWeb, Peres was delivered a spontaneous and long standing ovation. Delegates were honored to have him speak and moved by his words. His presence at a blogging conference adds to the credibility and importance of the blogosphere. He sees blogs as a legitimate – and two-way- communication channel.

Peres’ presence is like a hand of encouragement at the black of all 60 million bloggers around the world.

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Citizen Journalism

LeWeb 3: Is TV dead?

This panel was more direct. Yes, it’s dead – certainly for Gen. Y. They prefer less filtering and don’t like the restrictions of aggregators. Away from the panel, in the networking area, I was surprised at the number of startups in the IPTV online video space. This is powerful for program makers. Hitherto expensive and insurmountable barriers to getting documentary and fictional content to an audience are being eliminated. In Australia we’re not seeing much activity yet. Check out Bonjour America for a good French example of this new type of IPTV content. Check out xolo for a video blogging company which is making money from user generated content Euro500K since July.

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Media disruption

LeWeb 3: Is old media dead?

This roundtable discussion at LeWeb this morning was fascinating. I thought everyone on the panel would say yes with a cheer – it’s a bloggers conference after all. They said no, a resounding no. Bloggers and new media players are more respectful of old media than mainstream media executives are of bloggers. In Sydney at the Media Congress a few weeks ago folks from Fairfax and the new newspaper marketing group made fun of and disregarded the impact of blogging. Here in Paris, leading bloggers and online media startups see a merged world with blog and more traditional media content.

While one could argue that the new kids on the block (bloggers) would want to attach to old media to gain credibility. It’s not coming across from them that way. There is genuine respect for old media. Blogs and old media coverage of any issue combine to provide better coverage on all issues.

There is a consensus that old media is smart enough to morph to the new online world. What that means is that old (over the counter) as we know it is in decay. If the question was is old media as we have known it for the last 50 or so years dead?, the answer would be – maybe not yet but it’s dying.

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Newsagency challenges
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