The second international speaker was Nic Newman, the future media controller for journalism at the BBC in London.
Newman started by talking about the proliferation of online video and mobile devices and the changes they are having on media consumption.He talked about the rise of iPlayer and the amount of UK internet traffic it was generating, and the way that iPlayer was being consumed across media such as the Nokia N96 and the iPhone (a respectable 3 percent for the last device alone). He also talked about the ability for users to customise pages, such as the type of news that they see - even on the BBC weather site.
Future strategies include focusing on distinctive content, such as its Democracy Live site that will create an experience with live and on-demand video and text information that is native to the web. Another strategy is to embrace communities, expanding beyond old-fashion radio phone-ins to foster online conversations and to embrace it as a news gathering mechanism. "There is no turning back - the conversations are happening, and they can happen with us or without us," he said.
Content must also be made sharable, within the boudaries of content rights, via widgets and other portals so that content gets to where the audience actually is. Keeping it simple is also a core strategy, by hiding the complexity. And finally, he discussed the future of TV and the arrival of open IP TV, due to its lower distribution costs and greater flexibility. He sees it as a means of future-proofing TV and taking the iPlayer into the living room.
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