LagrangePoint - Brad Howarth

Story in development – Who holds the keys to the digital front door?

Countless words have been written about the so-called 'last mile' when it comes to delivering high-speed data services to Australian homes. But comparatively little time has been devoted to discussing the very end of that mile - the last ten metres from the front door into the home itself. Ultimately whoever controls that final connection and the box it empties into will have a huge say over how we consume media in the future, including the television we watch and the music we purchase. The BigPond/Foxtel combination seems to be the frontrunner for what the model of a future integrated infrastructure/content company will look like, in terms of its ability to 'un-meter' digital content on its own network, but it is not alone out there. The games console makers Sony and Microsoft also want to see themselves well represented, and it is doubtful that any ISP or media company with an eye to the future will want to sit by idly.

If anyone wants to contribute their two cents to a story for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald regarding who and what will influence home media consumption in the future, please drop me a comment below or contact me by email.

Earth Hour 2008 ... watch it now on YouTube

I've been spending a lot of the last year looking at the rise of internet video (and have upcoming stories on IPTV and self-broadcasting coming up for Digital Media and SmartCompany respectively). It has been fascinating to watch how new media forms such as YouTube have come to be considered mainstream channels for an increasing number of organisations. Hence when Sydney-based creative director Chris Simon (who has also been working with the Malaysian games developer Macera to create the first global-warming awareness-raising game, (Bracket Girl e-Mission) wrote to tell me about his latest video clip in support of Earth Hour (8.00pm, March 29), it shouldn't be surprising to see that other groups including the World Wildlife Fund are also using YouTube to spread the word. Chris' original note in support of Earth Hour is pasted below, and you can check out his clip here, or browse the many others that are also posted here.

"What Leo Burnett, the WWF and all their Earth Hour team associates achieved last year was pretty phenomenal and we have steadfastly supported their efforts since late 2006. I think what always differentiated what they originated was that it wasn't a commercial project, but planned to become a massive global event being run with limited resources. The goal was always so simple and single minded, and that was to get as many people as possible to participate in Earth Hour, to show people how powerful they can be when they all act together. It's not about the politics and the business of it, (or clambering to win advertising awards).It's about simply showing that everyone can make a difference. Some people didn't think that from the beginning, but look at it now!"

Next - Widgets winner on the web

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace do something more than just provide tools for consumers to publish content and keep in touch. They provide a platform for a whole new class of software applications. While many of them are frivolous, widgets have become big business, having created a way for individuals and companies to monetise software development itself through advertising. Niall Kennedy runs the annual Widget Summit in the US, and I spoke to him while he was in Australia recently for the Media '08 conference run by Fairfax Digital and X Media Lab. You can check out that story in Next by clicking here.

Next - A host of problems

Few areas of computing seem to generate the same number of complaints as web hosting. So it was interesting to delve into this segment of the market to find out a little more about why it is so maligned. The upshot - it seems you get what you pay for. You can check out the story in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald tech section Next by clicking here.

Australian Anthill - Why do Australians suck at pitching?

The latest newsletter from Australian Anthill magazine poses a question I've been wrestling with for ages - why do Australians suck at pitching? I've been lucky enough to attend a few Austrade market tours and every one of the ANZA Tech Net Gateway sessions in the US, and it's something I've got to say is true - put an Aussie entrepreneur in front of a group of would-be investors or customers and arm them with PowerPoint, and they turn into everyone's nightmare - be your nightmare of a salesman from hell, a boring old relative or an over-caffeinated geek. We forget who is in the audience, why our ideas might be interesting to them, and what we actually want from them. I've blogged about it before, and whinged about it even more regularly in conversations. Anyway, I posted some answers to the Anthill site, and have reposted them here. Let me know if I'm wrong ...

A few reasons (buried within some massive generalisations ...:

We are not trained to present. Few Austalian highschools make a habit of putting their students out in front of a group to speak. Hence we are much more comfortable sitting in the audience.

We are shy. Be it fear of the tall poppy syndrome, or some cultural retardation, we are reticent to say that we are actually good at what we do, or prove it. It's something we need to get over quickly. If we aren't prepared to say and demonstrate that our products and services are the best in the world, no one else is going to do it for us.

We do not do enough research on the audience. A one-size-fits all presentation does not exist. Each presentation and pitch needs to be tailored to who is in the room, and getting across your message in such a way that it fits to their needs.

We forget what we are doing. I've witnessed many pitches where the point of the pitch has been totally buried under useless facts. People do not care who your founder was - they care about what you can do to make them more profitable or improve their lives. Everything else is fluff.

We do not understand brevity. Most Australian entrepreneurs baulk at the idea of a five minute presentation, but that's about all the attention most of us can really secure anyway. Then we kill that attention with a bunch of slides that only serve to reinforce the meaningless information we were serving up verbally. Brevity is the key - keep the audience intrigued, and let them form the questions that will keep them milling around afterwards.

We have no idea what we are doing anyway. When asked to sum up their company in a few words, most entrepreneurs struggle, and cannot articulate their value in a compelling way. Pare it all back and find the core reason for your existence, then move forward from there.

The value of every company can be summed up in one sentence. That one sentence can be used to generate a question, which in turn generates the next statement. It really is that simple.

Congrats to the Startups Carnival winners

A little while back I reported on the Startups Carnival being run by VS Consulting Group. I just wanted to offer a quick note of congratulations to the winner, Scouta, and runner-up GoodBarry.Great to see more Aussie innovation finding its way into the spotlight.

Story in development – Australia's digital media exporters

Am working on a feature for B&T's Digital Media magazine on Australian digital media exporters to the US, and am trying to compile a comprehensive list of all that are out there. If anyone knows of one that should be included, please send me an email. I am looking for companies that have made a sale or set up an office in North America (or are just about to do so) and would class themselves as a digital media company (so for instance working in digital or mobile content and platforms).

Next - Well down the road to dystopia

If you have an interest in the future of computing - be it consumer or corporate - you should read Nicholas Carr's latest book, The Big Switch. Carr is best know for being the author of the controversial book Does IT Matter?, which questioned whether or not the billions of dollars spent on corporate IT is genuinely delivering competitive advantage (it's a valid question, when you consider that it is almost impossible to get a large company to describe how IT projects contribute to their profitability, or differentiate them from competitors).

In his new book Carr looks at the development of the electricity grid 100 years ago and its consequences for society, then looks into the current development of the global computing grid and its own possible future consequences. Although Carr takes a neutral tone, some of the possibilities are frightening.

You can read my interview with Nicholas here, or a 1000 word extract from the book here.

Last call for hosting stories ...

I'll be closing off content for my web hosting feature tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday, March11). If you've got any stories to offer up - good, bad or otherwise - please contact me by email before then. Web hosts remain the bane of many site operators - we want to know what makes yours good - and what made your previous one not so good ...

07 March 2008 - a great day for Australian digital media

Friday was one of those great days where there is so much happening it's hard to stop from getting dizzy.

Started off with the Media '08 conference held by Fairfax Digital and X Media Lab. Brendan Harkin and Megan Elliot from X Media Lab put together a great line-up o0f speakers from around the world who spoke on a huge range of topics (although I was only able to attend the first half). I've included some thoughts on the presentations of Kevin Anderson and Assia Graziloi-Verier below (click here and here), and would have liked to have heard from Niall Kennedy (the organiser of the annual Widget Summit in the US, and the subject of a story on widgets which should be appearing in Next on Tuesday) and Kaiser Kuo, my one-time Asia Pacific colleague on Red Herring and now the group director for digital strategy at Ogilvy in Beijing (and a former member of the Chinese rock bands Tang Dynasty and now The Spring and Autumn).

After the morning sessions I took off to a Trans-Tasman Business Circle lunch session to hear a presentation by iPrime CEO Tony Surtees. Tony spoke at length about the transitions that are currently happening in media and advertising, and what people will need to think about in order to adapt to them. Surtees believes that making headway requires a different kind of media company with a different kind of relationship - one based on conversations rather that shouting, where reaching the influencers is more important than reaching everyone. He also used a statement that I completely agree with - advertising will be about finding the people who count, not counting the people you find (if anyone knows the original source of the quote, please let me know). Also good to run into Dan Segal (new media director at Ericsson) and Gary Hayes (virtual worlds expert and director of the Australian Laboratory for Advance Media Production).

After lunch I caught up with Dan Fill, the head of multimedia production at ABC Television, whom I'm interviewing in an 'on-the-couch' session for The Domain in Melbourne on Thursday night. I've got a feature on Dan coming up in the next edition of Digital Media. I then met up Dave Winter, CEO of the online video streaming company Vividas. His company is in the process of evolving from serving up ads and other short-form media online to getting into full-length and live programs, and recently was named the platform for the streaming of English Premier Leagues football into the US. Part of this story will be included in a feature on IPTV and Web TV for the next edition of Digital Media also.

I ran into both gentlemen again later that evening at the 14th annual AIMIA Awards - Dave as a sponsor and presenter, and Dan as a winner. It was a great night - many of the best and brightest in the Australian digital media industry turned out. It was great also to see Ish Media pick up an award in the Best Entertainment category for its Girl Friday series - Ish Media came on the recent AIMIA Digital Media trade mission to New York that I attended (and am still to write up) and will also be featuring in a story in the next edition of Digital Media (along with TigerSpike, MassMedia Studios and a bunch of others). Congrats to all the winners, and to everyone who put so much effort into making a great night.

AIMIA also used the event to launch its Innovatives program, which has been designed with the assistance of Intel, Deloitte and ABC Innovation to help Austalian organisations get their digital content ideas off the ground.