NEW YORK-The free spirits from the domain of Internet content development lamented their “don’t tread on me” approach to government, whose intervention is seen as beneficial in 20: 20 hindsight.
“One mistake the technology industry made everywhere, especially on the West Coast, was sending a message to government to stay out of the way of enterprises,” said Kevin Werbach, a panelist at a meeting entitled, “Now What?” convened by the New York New Media Association.
“For last-mile broadband access, standards for wireless phone service and interactive television, there is a role for government, but government doesn’t know that if it doesn’t hear from industry.”
Werbach edits Release 1.0: Esther Dyson’s Monthly Report, published by EDventure Holdings, and serves as strategy and technology adviser to several companies, including Unplugged Games. Formerly, he was counsel for new technology policy at the Federal Communications Commission. In that capacity, he helped devise the federal government’s approach to electronic commerce policy and Internet-related issues.
The shut-off of the financing spigot ranked at the top of concerns, as expressed by one audience participant who said: “We’re all living through what happens when the public markets shut down because the private money won’t come in either unless investors know they can get out fast in a big way through an IPO (initial public offering).”
Noting that even turkeys can fly high in tornadoes, Werbach added, “A lot of people thought that when stock analysts say buy or sell, they mean it. How quaint.
“There is a role for the government here to protect the public, but the reality is that most companies do fail. … The problem now is there’s so much negativity over the collapse of the Internet stock bubble that people think nothing happened at all, which is not the case.”
Kyle Shannon, co-founder of Agency.com, said he believes the new media content development community badly needed “a year to get our butts kicked (because) funding wasn’t at the appropriate level for the last three years when this was over-hyped.”
Shannon directs Agency.com’s Applied Concepts Lab, whose most recent product is a mobile trivia game designed for pub-goers with WAP-enabled wireless phones. Interbrew UK, which brews Heineken beer in that country, plans to make the game available at 500 taverns. Those who answer the trivia questions correctly will win a free Heineken beer.
“There is much more of the Internet today than in 1995-1996, but it’s only about 3-percent less crappy than it was then. … Broadband’s problem is that the average person is saying `no thanks’ to getting the same crap that’s out there faster. We need to focus on content,” he said.
One member of the audience faulted the content development community because he said it forgets too easily how fast fads are forgotten once their novelty wanes. Consequently, new media participants need to look for ways to piggyback onto or develop things like e-mail and faxes that become second nature and a necessity.
“AOL’s success came because it started with content that was communications, e-mail and instant messaging. While doing that, it learned what more to do with content,” said Robert Friedman, president of AOLTV, the interactive television service for the mass market.
“I think there is an opportunity to build pie for ad spending in all outlets, both new and traditional, through cross-collateral advertising, reaching people across as many media as possible.”
The mistake the new media community has made, in Friedman’s view, is to believe that each new generation of communications will replace instead of supplement or enhance that which came before.
Another key tactical error on the part of the new media sector is its smug belief that today’s participants understand fully what the new communications are, how they will be used and how to develop content for them, Shannon said.
“It will be another 10 to 20 years before we figure out what this is, far less what to do with it,” he commented.
