News: PICNIC 06 Review, Amsterdam

Last week we were in Amsterdam for Picnic ´06. More than 3000 international delegates attended the first-ever Amsterdam’s annual Summit focused on innovation and creativity in cross media content and technology, specifically in the fields of entertainment and communication.
Below you will find the most interesting and remarkable Picnic´06 topics and trends according to our perspective:

- METATREND: Virtual Life -> Macrotrend: Virtual Community
- METATREND: Life after the death of TV -> Macrotrend: Content is the King
- METATREND: FUTUROPOLIS -> Macrotrend: Digital Cities
- METATREND: Participation -> Macrotrend: People’s Media
- METATREND: Sharing Culture/Aggregated Environment -> Macrotrend: Social Media
- METATREND: Authenticity -> Macrotrend: Always on

METATREND: Virtual Life
Macrotrend: Virtual Community

Philip Rosedale, Founder, Linden Lab/Second Life (US) presented the topic of multiple real and virtual identities by giving examples and making comparison of Second Life Characters and Real Life People. Second Life is an environment that could be explore, build and one of the best and immediate example of using technology to present yourself anyway you want. According to his Founder, Second Life is actually a world better than the real world. And, if it is becoming hip to be there, why not invest part of the advertising budget there? Virtual world, real money (see the article from Businessweek)

Some virtual spaces are already branded, and after the virtual showroom from American Apparel, another interesting marketing experiment is going on Second Life. TEXT100, one of the best Technology PR Agency, has just opened a virtual office, and Andrew McGregor, Director (Europe, Middle East, Africa) declared that the pilot project has the aim to gain know-how on PR potentiality in a virtual environment. “I predict there will be a totally new brand community out there within 18 months,” said McGregor “ now is the time to build there – or the competition will.”

METATREND: Life after the death of TV
Macrotrend: Content is the King

Look in the present, see the future. If TV is dying what will be next? Is TV at the end of its days? According to many experts, TV is not dead and the content is still the king.

The charismatic speech of Gary Carter, Chief Creative Officer of FMX, FremantleMedia, started with the strong assumption that TV is going to die or perhaps is already dead. Gary Carter listed some dead formats and models, like for example Reality TV and the 30 Second Spot. The content is what has survived out of this catastrophic scenario. Content is the king of the new networks.

By using a historical perspective, he explained how the evolution of mass communication shows us that mass media don’t disappear, replaced by new technologies (the only exception was the telegraph, which was not a mass medium) but old and new media coexist. Most of the technologies are indeed evolution and not revolution. TV will survive but formats (ex. Mobile TV) and distributions will change.
By using the evolution of phone for example, Gary Carter illustrated how communication devices have a common life pattern evolving through 3 spheres:

Public sphere -> Private sphere-> Personalized sphere

Talking about TV, he pointed out the transformation by explaining the generational switch from “TV as a window to the world” to a “ TV as a mirror” and finally today “TV as a highly personalized medium”. Power is not more about push or pull, but is about distributive network, peer-to-peer network.
The era of the prosumers has begun, the media will be totally personalized.

Also according to John De Mol, Founder of Talpa, Co-Founder of Endemol, Reality TV Pioneer (NL), TV is not dead. All what we see now, it is just the begining of a new era in which entertainment will be something more than a database with more than one option. The freedom of choice doesn’t make consumers happy. Companies have to focus on interactivity, intended as smartness and control. The real convergence is not about technology but more about creating applications: to connect people, to connect data, to connect ideas. People empowered by communication and creativity.

METATREND: FUTUROPOLIS
Macrotrend: Digital Cities

The first public discussion took place Wednesday afternoon, exploring the theme of cities as digital communities. During the debate, the experts confronted themselves with the technological challenges for the next urban landscape. A overpopulated urban framework, in which more than half of the humanity will be living in megalopolis of more than 10 million inhabitants.

For the Futuropolis, the new cities of the 21st Century, the technological and digital advancement will play a primary role in enhancing the quality of life for more and more people. In the future the responsibility of politics and governments will take the challenge to bridge the digital gap, by promoting innovation and building faster and extensive digital networks. In fact low cost, open, wireless broadband infrastructures will not just stimulate innovation but also increase efficiency. According to Esme Guzman de Vos, founder of Muniwireless.com (the Netherlands), city-wide wi-fi services would dramatically increase the efficiency of many services. (see the CScout trend on Wimax). Infrastructures boost the community, also in term of giving to the people new possibilities to develop new local media formats and new ways to communicate.

Contact us for more details on this trend. As a reference see our CScout trend on Future Cities.

METATREND: Participation
Macrotrend: people’s media
One of the key trends shaping the future of media and journalism is the democratization of media. Dan Gillmor, Founder and Director, Center for Citizen Media (US) talked about democratized media and conversation as a source of information.
Contact us for more details on this trend. We have reported about the overall trend several times: “Consumer Generated Media” in mid 2005.

METATREND: Sharing Culture/Aggregated Environment
Macrotrend: Social Media
Craig Newmark, Founder and Customer Care Representative, Craigslist (US) and Marc Canter, Founder and CEO of Broadband Mechanics, Founder of People Aggregator and Co-Founder, Macromedia (US) discussed about e-commerce, open source model and identity 2.0. Nowadays, connecting and sharing with other people is the one of most important factor for entertainment. Open standards will be the future for online communities. Highly aggregated environments, just one official identity, and multiple personas, which the users could choose to represent and play with theirs multiple digital identities. Talking about Myspace success, Marc Canter said that it is so popular because it is a global digital lifestyle aggregator.

METATREND: Authenticity
Macrotrend: Always on
Linda Stone, Consultant, Former Vice President of Microsoft Corporation (US) talked about Human Desires and Technologies. The way we manage our attention is changing. Today, in an always-connected world we pay continuously partial attention. Instead of multitasking, which is about doing things to be more productive and efficient, continuously partial attention is the motivation of not miss anything. Attention is everywhere. To connect, connect, connect. “We are all so accessible, that we are inaccessible”. The state of being always on doesn´t respect our biological clock. Always on Lifestyle is gradually being replaced by a feeling of being exhausted and over stimulated. Because of this, more and more people want to rediscover the real meaning of connection. Authenticity is the key concept behind it: “Trusted voices in a noisy information world.” Authenticity as way to simplify your life. In the next era, individuals will increase focus. A uni-tasking society.

Links
Picnic 06 Blog: http://picnic06.typepad.com/
Official Website: http://www.crossmediaweek.org/

Photos by Julian Bleecker and
Photos by Frangino Lucarini

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