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This item produced November 1996

Interactive Publishing - putting it all into perspective

Closing speech of Interactive Publishing ´96. The conference hosted 230 delegates from 32 countries (by Norbert Specker/18.11.96)

At the end of these intensive three days let me try to put some perspective into the New Media development by reviewing the conference history of INTERACTIVE PUBLISHING.

1994

The reason to attend the ´94 conference for most participants was curiosity and a bit of fear. New Media meant Audiotex, Fax-on-Demand, CD-Rom and increasingly Online. The legal issues discussed centered around CD-Rom production. Internet, that was something American and something quite exotic. The killer application some thought might be e-mail.

1995

Came 1995. The motivation behind last year´s attendance at the conference was a lck of experience, the need to catch up with the strategic implications of the digital development - and fear (Luc Sala told me I was in the "fear business").
New Media meant something different. It wasn´t Audiotex anymore. Nor Fax. And CD-Rom fought what looked to be a last battle.
Mark Sherwood-Edwards urged you - on legal issues - to take the initiative in dealing with your journalists about copyrights and intellectual property rights. But many of you on this issue just sat and waited. The Internet still was something very American but not quite as exotic anymore. The killer application some stated to be e-mail.

1996

Just one year later most of you have made your first steps in cyberspace. By now you have been long enough involved in this new media that you could take the first hype out of it. Your question is - what next? What is beyond that first launch of your site? New Media 1996 has meant first and foremost Internet and the WorldWide Web. The legal issue that newly arose is the question of the right to hyperlink, a question that touches on the core quality of the online medium. Copyright in most European countries is not solved but you start to find yourself ever more in a situation where you react and the initiative lies not with you anymore.
The Internet finally has become also a European thing. Many countries in the old continent have a higher density in internet accesses than the U.S. but can not rely on the same economy of scale.
It has become clear that the Internet does not cannibalize the paper circulation but rather hightens the awareness of the brand.
The two-way capacities - inherent to the system - are increasingly exploited (push vs. pull products).
Still the single most used application on the Net is e-mail.

1997

For successful marketing strategies and applications next year you will discover that looking around Europe - rather than being fixed on North America only - can solve many of your problems. Naturally we will strive to help you in this discovery. At the moment most people in Europe know better what the Star Tribune in Minneapolis is doing than what Dagens Nhyeter, Verdens Gang or The Guardian is successfully implementing.
New Media next year will mean that you have your content in a format that allows you to distribute it through any given channel and be able to add value specific to this channel.
You as publishers will be pushed to do this:

to protect your existing franchise
to be ready to explore new revenue opportunities
because 3rd parties badly need your content

New media also will mean that you have community building skills that go much further than your existing ones. You will have to acquire them - either you can develop these skills within your company or you can acquire them through alliances. Most of you will spend a lot of time next year talking to possible partners.
On the legal issues we can expect high uncertainty concerning cross-border hyperlinking. Where you did not approach the copyright issue pro-actively, legal cases will slow the process.
The Internet 1997 in Europe will be even less American. It will become increasingly local as more and better local offers are available.
The trend that indicates there are ways to make money on the net - also for publishers - will continue but it is very clear that this will only be possible through constantly revising the goals and the budgets applied.
What will be the killer application? Let me give you an indication: a friend of mine from the audiotex industry by the end of the year will offer the following service. He will provide you with an e-mail adress. Messages to this address can be accessed through telephone and are read to you (text-to-speech). You then can reply via telephone and your message will be delivered via a voice-mail box. All of a sudden you don´t need to own a computer or a modem to be able to put an e-mail address on your business card. It becomes something very, very cheap. A commodity. You could imagine advertisers using this feature as a give-away. "For each carton of Beer we provide you with an e-mail address".
So yes, also 1997 e-mail will be the killer application.

And this in my mind makes a lot of sense. There is change. Change in the people and moreover a radical change in the way people communicate with each other - for those who want to see.
You are in a prime position to cater for many of the new and old needs and demands this revolution of communication - not so much of technology - creates in people.

I hope that we successfully catered to your needs and that many great approaches, many new ideas - food for the brain - occupy your mind now. I equally hope that you widened your network and that this network will reach out way into next year when from the 12.-14. November - in a place not yet known (we are reconsidering Zurich but are also open for other suggestions and invitations) - when next year we all meet again for the 4th Interactive Publishing Conference.

We will keep in touch and I invite you to contact me personally on anything at anytime.

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