May 17, 2008 6:41 AM
Susan Decker discusses the future of technology and Yahoo! on panel at the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem
As mentioned in my previous post, I attended the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem this past Thursday. One of the sessions that I attended was a panel discussion entitled, "The Revolution of the Internet and the New Media." The panel was moderated by Yossi Vardi and the panelists included, Yahoo! President, Susan Decker; Google Co-founder, Sergey Brin; Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO, Maurice Levy; News Corporation Chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch; and Windsor Media Chairman and CEO, Terry Semel. The question posed to the panelists was "What is the future of the new Internet media?"
While the panelists were able to paint an overall picture of what the relationship between the Internet and media will probably look like in the future, only Susan Decker's comments really stood out. She began by mentioning that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." She discussed the importance of the Internet for essentials and mentioned that while Yahoo! currently covers the "breadth" of the Internet, the future is in the "depth," such as processing speed, low costs storage, mass media distribution.
In relation to mass media distribution and the role that it will play, she emphasized the personal connection that will be widespread in the future, and how it will affect news and TV in the future. This new media, dubbed "we" media, will allow individuals to define news and entertainment and receive it for themselves based on their own personal interests and then to share it with their entire social graph. What role Yahoo! will play in this, is still a major question. In reference to that, Decker concluded by stating that with over 500 million users, Yahoo! is both the largest social network and the least useful, and that the social graph will be used in the future to prioritize one's information and interactions with others through it.
The means of attaining this in the future are what IT professionals should keep an eye on and try to really understand:
1. Creating open experience - figuring out the how and where.
2. Highly personal filters that are user generated and customized.
3. The connection of the online and off-line worlds and the digitization of everything.
(Note: Picture is of the stage before the panelists arrived.)
While the panelists were able to paint an overall picture of what the relationship between the Internet and media will probably look like in the future, only Susan Decker's comments really stood out. She began by mentioning that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." She discussed the importance of the Internet for essentials and mentioned that while Yahoo! currently covers the "breadth" of the Internet, the future is in the "depth," such as processing speed, low costs storage, mass media distribution.
In relation to mass media distribution and the role that it will play, she emphasized the personal connection that will be widespread in the future, and how it will affect news and TV in the future. This new media, dubbed "we" media, will allow individuals to define news and entertainment and receive it for themselves based on their own personal interests and then to share it with their entire social graph. What role Yahoo! will play in this, is still a major question. In reference to that, Decker concluded by stating that with over 500 million users, Yahoo! is both the largest social network and the least useful, and that the social graph will be used in the future to prioritize one's information and interactions with others through it.
The means of attaining this in the future are what IT professionals should keep an eye on and try to really understand:
1. Creating open experience - figuring out the how and where.
2. Highly personal filters that are user generated and customized.
3. The connection of the online and off-line worlds and the digitization of everything.
(Note: Picture is of the stage before the panelists arrived.)
