GoNorthJune 4th

Neil Cartwright www.MillionMedia.com

Where Next? The Future Of Digital…

This is a summary of the presentation Neil Cartwright gave at the GoNorth festival

opening keynote. The blue panels are notes added to assist the understanding if viewing the the presentation remotely. Some panels

have been edited for better viewing.

The Generation Gap

• “People couldn’t stream so had to wait for music to be played on the radio”

• “The iPod has made music portable, which means you can listen to it anywhere”

• “People stopped listening to CD’s when YouTube was invented”

• “Before Napster people had to pay for music”

Students at a college I lectured at were asks to write an

assignment at the end of term. Some of their comments highlight how a ‘younger

generation’ view change within the music industry

We constantly overestimate the impact technology will have in one year but underestimate the impact it will have in ten.- Bill Gates

“

It all started for me with the

ZX81. This PC had 1k of memory,

enough to hold 0.2 seconds of

music.

August 7th 1991The world’s first web page was

made live.

Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter etc - can all be traced

back to this one page.

http www HTML URL’s

Web browser Web server

Sir Tim Berners Lee In 1991 the ‘world wide web’ was

launched. We are now all familiar with the strange terms used in the web’s early days

Sony Music, 1997

!No email

One internet PC No iPods

“Pidgeon Holes”

Business was very different back in 1997. Even communication tools

such as email were in their infancy. And yet only 16 years later over half

of Sony’s global revenue is now generated by ‘digital’ formats.

Difference in Perception

How I See MeHow Anyone Under 20

Sees Me

We constantly overestimate the impact technology will have in one year but underestimate the impact it will have in ten.- Bill Gates

“

So, let’s remind ourselves of Bill Gates’ quote and see what has

changed in 10 years

Change in 10 years

2007

2008

2006

2006

2006

2013

We can see that although change is constant it can be almost imperceptible at the time.

Therefore, how do we predict what is going to change and why do companies find it so

difficult?

The graph shows the dramatic drop in US album sales over a 10 year period. The failure to predict change was catastrophic to the

people working for the high street retailers who closed as a result.

!

Companies are quick to adopt technologies that support their business model but are slow to adopt technologies that disrupt it. - Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovators Dilemma

“

This is Steve Sasson who in 1975 invented the world’s first digital

camera. It was 0.01 mega pixels and took 23 seconds to take a photo. But

which company did he work for?

• 1975, Invented digital camera

• 1976, 90% of photographic US film sales and 80% of cameras

• 1990’s, “Kodak Moment”

• 1996, $15.7bn revenues

• 2012, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

It was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute - but don’t tell anyone about it’. Steve Sasson, Inventor of the digital camera

“

iTunes

The “traditional” music industry gave us the choice of buying singles, albums or

compilations. The digital service most favoured by

the music industry gives us the choice of buying….

singles, albums or compilations. In other

words, the music industry has offered consumers a

‘solution’ that is most like the one that went before.

iTunes has dominated the paid music market since its launch. This is often cited as proof that the music industry “gets” digital and has offered consumers an alternative to

piracy.

However, as a percentage of all the music traded, shared and streamed, iTunes represents a

tiny fraction. It’s clear that consumers have rejected the download model favoured by the industry and want a more convenient and cost effective way of accessing music with

their multitude of devices.

The drop in global music sales has been huge, yet

people’s appetite for music is higher than ever.

Clearly the market demand for music is not being fulfilled due to the

industry’s general reluctance to embrace a ‘disruptive’ model such

as streaming or P2P

If something is going to happen in the end, you may as well do it in the beginning.- Henry Kissinger

“Consumer trends, such as streaming and mobile phones should be seen and acted

upon. Too often companies look to the past and say, “Well, that has worked well for us” rather

than in to the future and make the changes that may be necessary to their business.

The total number of streams (UK) in 2013 (3.7bn) is more than the total number of singles sold in 60 years.

26% of all entertainment revenue is now access to content

Millions of consumers are showing entertainment industries the way they want to consume their products by signing up with

‘on-demand’ services.

90% of all the world’s data was created in the last 2 years The staggering amount of data created is

growing exponentially each year and is an indication of how important our browsing,

purchasing, sharing and social media habits will become to companies.

NFC

Biggest revolution is yet to come…..?

50% of all marketing will be spent on

SoMoLo

Gerd Leonard

I believe NFC will have as great an impact on

our lives as any previous technology. The ability to tap on

virtually any object with our phones, allied with the ability to purchase through an app or use our mobiles to pay will

profoundly alter the way companies do business.

Feeling overloaded?

Our constant need to feel connected is a cause of anxiety, stress & sleep

disorders. Furthermore, could children be affected by the constant stimulus? Many

people can feel overwhelmed by new technology.

We look far less to the mainstream for our influences. Online communities, niches, tribes, personal networks, social media, digital natives. Fashion, music, films and television will change dramatically but content worth less and less. !!

PewDiePie is the most subscribed YouTuber in the world (27m subscribers) and so probably has more influence over his audience than any mainstream

media. And yet the photo of him was only recognised by a handful of the younger members in

the audience at GoNorth.

Are we becoming more disconnected as we become more connected?

We are feeling a growing disconnect with politicians, corporations, banks, media, security services and ‘those in power’, resulting in

seismic, life changing events such as Scottish independence vote, Arab Spring, Ukraine, UKIP, etc. And yet simultaneously we are more connected to our friends, family, communities and personal

networks. The impact of the Internet is huge and will affect enormous social change and upheaval that is very difficult to

predict.

Bladerunner

An illustration of how difficult to future can be to predict. In 1984 Ridley Scott’s

masterpiece, “Bladerunner”, featured hover cars, space travel and androids so

humanlike they didn’t even know they were androids. And yet, which future year was

Bladrunner set in?