"Change began ten years ago with companies like Yahoo!, which gave us access to huge quantities of content. After that, we all began to use e-mail, instant messaging, and products like Skype," said Google Israel regional director Meir Brand said on the "Life in the New Media" session at the "Globes" Israel Business Conference 2010 yesterday. "In the past five years, we've seen the change in which consumers are creating content, and power has shifted to the consumer."
New telecommunications tools are replacing tools that just recently were considered state-of-the-art. The concept "new media" is also undergoing constant renewal, reflecting the changing technologies and uses.
"Wired" contributing editor Spencer Reiss said, "In the new media, the consumer can choose what content he wants to consume. As an editor, you can know on the Internet how many people are reading your content, for how long, and get responses. This is truly amazing."
Bezeq International Ltd. CEO Isaac Benbenisti said that, for him, the new media was mass intelligence. "Mass intelligence helps people on the Internet to communicate with each other, and help each other with technical support. The same mass intelligence in the new media is what forced Gap to change its logo back to its original logo, which the public liked.
"Companies that don’t understand mass intelligence will vanish within a few years. Companies will be punished immediately for things they do, because of people's ability to rapidly communicate and talk. On the other hand, companies will get positive feedback when they do successful things."
McCann Erickson Israel CEO Iris Beck said, "As an ad agency, technological responses change the relationship between brands and consumers. If we take the concept 'digital marketing', it basically describes an interim period between marketing we did in the past and the marketing that we must do now."
One of the key issues that the session participants discussed was mobile communications, which in recent years has become increasingly accessible to the new media, especially with the introduction of smartphones and the vast improvement in operating systems and Internet access capability.
Reiss said, "Since the launch of Windows for PCs, operating systems have looked the same. If you take someone and give him a computer from a couple of decades ago, he'll manage fine, because it looks the same. The situation is different with cellular. Competition in the mobile operating systems field will lead to innovation. There are now devices emerging with new configurations and various capabilities that resemble gadgets from James Bond movies."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 14, 2010
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