Interactive Publishing 99 - Executive Summary

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Executive Summary

The 6th edition of this conference taking place in Zurich/Switzerland covered a wide range of topics in the Content Mind & Market Space. "Content" spreads further and further, or so it looks; we spotted Advertising Agencies, Corporate Communicators, TV Stations or Book Publishers and of course pure bred online publishers among the formerly exclusive newspaper and magazine publisher crowd. The attendance was 250 executives from 25 countries. (for a complete list check here )

The days at the 6th Interactive Publishing Conference passed by quickly. We have found new friends, many exciting new ideas, lined up a couple of very interesting cooperations, felt in touch with new media developments across Europe once more and decided to move forward to the 7th Interactive Publishing Conference.

This paper is a commented/complemented version by Organizer Norbert Specker of the sessions write-up produced by Valerie Thompson (tip oÌ the hat).

Overview
Norbert Specker, Director, Interactive Publishing Europe (CH/CAN)

The development of the online publishing space since 1994 in Europe is reflected in the key topics and the atmosphere of the Interactive Publishing conferences.
The first year was curiosity driven (what the heck is going on in this interactive space?). The year after that a certain amount of fear settled in (will we see 2000?) and Î96 saw the first really expert crowd at Interactive Publishing with everybody having set up an online publishing site and talking page views. The content development industry was among the first industries to embrace the digital world in Europe .Since then each year has brought a set of dos and donts and necessary steps.
1999 was different.

Publishers and content providers find themselves between two somewhat conflicting positions: concentration on the stock market value of the internet venture on the one hand - and quality product development on the other hand. The balance between the two positions - at this point - seems to be a prime challenge.

Never in the history of Interactive Publishing did people talk more about "venture capital" and "valuation" as this year. And many of the people who make it their main concern to develop a good content product had to take their cues from the money market - and it left many with mixed feelings.

Content ventures all over the place are struggling with the question of where to draw the line between the church and the state, between engaged/engaging content and marketing, between customer service and sharing of customer data with third parties. The indecision could be felt during the conference as it became increasingly clear that many factors such as seize, corporate culture, time frames and goals, target group and country need to be taken into consideration - and that no easy solutions offer themselves.

"US Bashing" one of the North American attendees called the first day of the conference. While speaking about the particularities of separate European markets and how to overcome them, many speakers pointed to the rather slow learning curve of North American Internet companies when dealing with those different markets within Europe.

What we experienced may just have been the break-away of European analysts from a singular way of looking at the online field. The scalability of Internet ventures across Europe at the anticipated speed/cost as laid out in business plans of US companies has met a decidedly more complicated European reality.
And as in any maturing process, kicking the prevailing view is a necessary step to becoming a grown up and equal partner. We anticipate a less antagonistic and more partner-oriented climate 10 months from now. And we expect still more alternative and enriching ways to successfully populate the online content space.

The speed and the diversity of new distribution options (Wireless Application Protocol/WAP, Dreamcast, PalmPilot) as well as the permanent refining of business models (Name-your-Price, Open Source, Agents) leaves most content providers on their toes.

Yet many of them are still dealing with the challenging task of ensuring that their corporate culture allows necessary changes.

The various and diverse ways in which content companies strive to succeed (and survive) were the one thread throughout the conference, the realization (and weariness) that this is still only the beginning, the other.

WAP, the wireless application protocol has also been important throughout the conference. Not surprisingly it was heralded by Nokias Olli-Pekka Lintula. But also content providers like David Graves of Reuters see an ever brighter future for content once the internet moves into the mobile space at force.

The customer focus approach is key not only in the B2B space (brilliantly demonstrated by Rosalien Huisman of BauNetz online), but also in the information retrieval space (as shown by Peter Kruse of TopGrid or in agent based technology). The prime question is: how does it help my customer? That this can be taken even further (how can I involve my customer to build a better content or information space) is demonstrated by the open directory as well as by the development of Linux. A story well told by Eric Raymond.

We feel that discussions on how to ensure the quality of journalistic content, on trusted reader/user relationships, on production procedures and on execution of alliances need to be addressed. The new entries into content development have leveled out old questions like differentiation, viewpoints and perspective at this stage. We feel these issues need reassurance and a prominent spot in the year 2000 program.