MEDIA: The Day Everything Changed - Steve Rosenbaum - MediaBizBloggers

Every now and then, if you're very fortunate, you get to witness the "changing of the guard." The shift from one way of doing things to another. From old to new.

For the past three days I watched as old media handed over the reins to new - as the basic economics of storytelling, news, entertainment and the emerging force known as social media was reborn. Perhaps I'm overstating, but after I present the evidence you can decide for yourself.

Let's start with the location - the Monaco Media Forum in Monte Carlo. Hundreds of invitation only delegates converge on this tiny principality best known for wealth, gambling, and as one of the planet's preeminent tax havens. If you're rich and want a place to go and enjoy your wealth without taxes, Monaco is ideal in every regard.

As a site to discuss the future of Media it was strangely well suited. Far enough away from the 'real world.' You could explore without the din of daily life. For East Coast Americans the six hour time delay helped. For the folks from LA and San Francisco, 9 hours. And for the Europeans and media folks from the Middle East and even China - this seemed like strangely neutral ground. American media wasn't the only game in town.

For the first time, everyone agrees that EVERYTHING is changing.

At issue - the combined forces of Google and the trend toward Aggregation. Fox's Jonathan Miller, Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington, Denuo's Rishad Tobaccowala, Axel Springer's Mathias Dopfner, and a host of others sparred, often with significant sparks - but in the end, there were some real conclusions and future-facing clarity.

Mathias began a full frontal assault on Aggregation when he casually pointed to the theft of content as an emerging trend, slyly suggesting he wasn't accusing Huffington Post of such misdeeds. But he was, and Arianna fought fiercely back.

Mathias says he wants to put his content behind a pay wall. Arianna gleefully suggested that he would simply leave more audience for her.

Earlier in the week Rupert Murdoch had floated the idea that he might pull his content out of Google's search, and so when Fox Digital's Jonathan Miller was interviewed, Rafat Ali called on him to defend Rupert's "pay for content" position. Jon wisely suggested that in a time of change, lots of models would be tested, and some content would be paid.

But Arianna, earlier in the day, had disputed the idea that any model other than free would survive. She claimed that only live sports and weird porn would work in a paid content world. No details on what she meant by 'weird.'

On a panel called "When Aggregators Attack," Matt Kelly from the Daily Mirror in the UK practically chewed up the furniture, pointing the finger at Newser.com, The Daily Beast, and other Aggregators as effectively destroying the value of news on the Web. It was not a warm and fuzzy talk.

Said Matt of the Mirror, "It's not about great stories or unusual circumstances that make a business, it's about the daily traffic. And news has been commoditized and devalued - that's the issue." He's criticizing abundance, but that seems unlikely to change.

But the folks who seem to be seeing most clearly in all this are the 'vision' guys at the large advertising groups like WPP. As Rishad Tobaccowala laid it out, media used to be about scarcity and now it's about abundance. Abundance of voices, platforms, devices, bandwidth. Abundance scatters audience, but it at least theoretically makes ads more effective if you can place and customize them to actual readers.

Perhaps most telling were two rather glaring bits of reporting published by the 'old media' during the conference.

Christine Ockrent from France's 24 network showed up to moderate a conversation between Arianna Huffington and Axel Springer chief Mathias Dopfner. But her grilling on the importance of real NEWS -- fact-based, expensive, professional -- made it clear she had little patience for Huffington Post's mix of gathered, reported and contributed content. Then, as the news of Lou Dobbs' resignation from CNN was mentioned, she responded, "Thank God." Strange presuming that everyone in the room felt as she did. So much for objectivity.

And most glaringly, after Jonathan Miller's interview, Telegraph.UK went to print with a story that said Miller had promised that Murdoch content would be off Google within 90 days. The only problem is, he didn't say that. He said a decision would be made within 90 days - but he gave no indication of what that decision might be.

Of course, the twittersphere was crackling through all this (#mmf09) and well it should be. Tweets – the latest form of free expression and real time first person journalism – is the best evidence in favor of free, multi-perspective storytelling.

In the end, it all came down to beer.

Mathias said that given the choice between free beer or paid beer, the thirsty would drink the free beer if they're both of good quality. He's brewing better beer, and wants to charge, but Arianna is giving away his brew for free.

He misses one key point - Huffington Post's distribution system doesn't need his content; there's plenty of other beer happy to stock her shelves.

So, are the big newspapers talking about a worldwide, concerted 'strike' to pull out of free Web search? Matthew from the Guardian was quick to dispel that rumor, saying that would be price-fixing or collusion.

Collusion or not, some media sources will wall off content and test the shift from paid to free. That is a certainty. And Arianna seems to think that she and the other aggregators will benefit from that - "Bring it on," she says. Jonathan Millar was more diplomatic, suggesting that they'll test lots of models as consumers look for new ways and new devices to consume news.

In the end it's clear that aggregation is both inevitability and an aggravation for old media. And sitting at the Monaco Media Forum, media makers and media distributors agree on only one thing. We're in for dramatic change in the way business is done in the months ahead.

Steven Rosenbaum is the CEO and Co-Founder of Magnify.net - a fast-growing video publishing platform that powers more than 50,000 web sites, media companies, and content entrepreneurs to aggregate and curate web video from a wide variety of web sources. Currently Magnify.net publishes over 50,000 channels of Curated-Consumer Video, and is working closely with a wide variety of media makers, communities, and publishers in evolving their content offerings to include content created by, sorted and reviewed by community members. Rosenbaum is a serial entrepreneur, Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker, and well known innovator in the field of user-generated media production. Rosenbaum Directed and Executive Produced the critically acclaimed 7 Days In September, and his MTV Series Unfiltered is widely regarding as the first commercial use of Consumer Generated Video in US mass media. Steve can be contacted at steve@magnify.net Follow Steve Rosenbaum on Twitter: www.twitter.com/magnify

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