The king is dead, long live the king
A conference taking place in London today heard that the power of information now shifting into the hands of the consumer. It was no longer a case of the content, but the customer being king.
At the Financial Times Digital Media Conference, several speakers predicted a big rise in the sharing of information among online communities with common interests.
Delegates heard that as more media became increasingly available in digital formats, and traditional models of media packaging and distribution started to unravel, "the customer is king" was fast becoming the industry's new mantra.
Consumers are exercising more control, said Microsoft's Neil Holloway. "People want to connect to information and connect to their friends," he said. "The focus will be on highly personalised experiences."
"Collaborative usage of the internet is rising," said Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopaedia written by thousands of users.
The scope will exist for far greater personalisation of all forms of content, and end users will be empowered and have greater influence, controlling how, where and at what price they consume content
Lorraine Twohill, director of Google's European marketing programmes, said consumers of news from the media were transforming themselves into providers of information.
Ed Shedd from Deloitte told the FT Conference that in the future media would be delivered to a growing range of devices.
"The scope will exist for far greater personalisation of all forms of content, and end users will be empowered and have greater influence, controlling how, where and at what price they consume content."
According to David Moody of BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial division, one day schedulers might find themselves redundant.
His comments seem fairly relaxed given the dramatically changing face of the media. Consumers are already getting used to 'pulling' information when they need it rather than waiting for something to be broadcast. Mr Moody's prediction could come true a lot sooner than he thinks.
