You would think that with an economy in downturn, conference organizers would group their efforts to optimize the efforts- but nope. Over the last 3 days, I’ve been conference-hopping between Omma, NxtStage and Future of television in and around the same hotel (not the mention the Digital LA networking event…)

Something interesting happened at the Omma. It got ‘dominated’ by 2 speeches

Jason Calacanis really fired up the crowd by shouting that it is the perfect moment to give the final blow to traditional media.

Radio, TV and especially newspapers are in near-death condition, and Jason made an argument that newspapers actually deserve that. They have blocked all innovation, didn’t undertake anything, created lousy sites, and currently produce extremely poor products. The journalistic staff will evolve into new journalism, which is probably going to be better that the time-pressured copy-paste most are obliged to implement from their managers.

It is rather funny that the newspapers have reported and written about the impact of the internet, the rise of digital media and the arrival of an economic downturn – but failed to do anything with their own information.

Was it all ‘digital media’ sheers? Nope… He also made a strong point that social networks will not work as an advertising media. Just like AIM, instant messaging and others, the conversational media are a bad place to ‘interrupt the discussion’. Search is the clear champion, with about 50% of the online advertising revenues going to google. Twitter is the new darling instead of facebook, and he gave some (obvious) advertising examples.

The Mahalo company presentation was less impressive than the Mahalo Answers service, which I actually like a lot. To me, it sounded like a pitch to get acquired by Google, who are about to launch Venture Capitalist fund. Mahalo is a sure candidate, now that most web2 companies are about to fail in advertising driven business modes.

Where Calacanis was shortsighted when he stated that engagement is bullshit, and that it’s mostly used by platforms and players of which the advertising branding effort didn’t work. Even if it was funny, I don’t think that is wharthe intended to say. Conversational marketing just failed to implement a lot of decent creations until now. There is only a handful of examples where conversational marketing has been implemented in a good way, so it’s way too premature to announce conversational marketing as an industry winner.

Next, nearly every speaker, panel and discussion mentioned Calacanis and tried to proof him wrong.
Which actually had the opposite effect. Whilst Calacanis’ ‘it’s the perfect moment to give them a final blow’ sounded somewhat provocative, it is clear that traditional media are in trouble. If you are a newspaper employed person, and you feel good or have not thought of any new opportunities after hearing this presentation and conference, you’re simply in a condition of denial. That, ofcourse, is OK if you are a year away of retirement. However, it’s also a huge opportunity for those willing and daring to take a risk.

Calacanis’ haunting speech waved on for 24h, after which John Batelle – mostly known for organising the web2.0 conference, initiated a feeling of opportunity, even a sparkle of optimism (coming next)

bart

update: David LaFontaine, with whom I discussed for a long time during 2 days, posted his views on his blog- as well as the summarizing video here below. Certainly watch from minute 7 until the end.