X Media Lab - Mohamed Nanabhay, head of new media at Al Jazeera

First up after lunch was Mohamed Nanabhay, head of new media for the Doha-based cable channel Al Jazeera. I had a chat to Nanabhay yesterday for an upcoming story, and it was fascinating to hear a media perspective from a different part of the world. He refers to the company as the only global media company broadcasting for 'the south' - ie, the developing world below the equator.

His role is to get Al Jazeera content to those people who can't access it on television. He looks at getting content onto multiple platforms and online services, beyond just pumping it out of a website.

He talked about the ease with which consumers can create content, from podcasting to upstream.tv, and talked about what this means for Al Jazeera. He also talked about the issues of copyright in terms of what consumers are doing with content, and about the issues around creative commons licensing. He also talked about the difficulty the is arising in being able to find interesting and relevant content amongst the torrent that is being generated.

But the big question is how to handle this at Al Jazeera.

"How do we deal with this content that is coming? Everyone is putting up these 'send us your pictures' sites. But no is talking about what it mean? Because it is in their hands."

I'll put up a link the full article once it's ready to go.