Breakfast Taco Day 5: Slightly too much AI, many, many revenue streams and the inclusive power of Voice Assistants
Howdy from Austin! 🙋
If anyone says “Al” again, I’m gonna freak out. There is currently no panel or talk that doesn’t somehow refer to artificial intelligence. On the one hand, it’s quite true, it is a big upheaval right now. On the other hand, not everything that is currently sold as AI really is AI.
Apart from that, we had a fantastic evening at our first Media Startup Night in Austin yesterday! More than 150 media managers, startups and journalists came to the German House to network and to find possible partners for cooperations. At our 1-Minute-Pitch-Event of our 13 startups, where the audience could invest our very unique Unicorn Dollars, Team Newsadoo won by far — congratulations!
After four days of a tight schedule, tomorrow I might take a look at a few things off the beaten track. If you are interested in certain topics, please let me know via Twitter and send me to the right sessions!
🔮 #MediaTrends
Let’s talk business. “Revenue Roulette” was the name of a surprisingly interesting session yesterday. Not so much because of the actual content, but because of the overall feeling the panel had. It pretty much agreed that media houses…
… should bet on multiple revenue streams.
Because, surprise, the one holy grail does not exist. It is not just subscription or advertising. There is a wealth of ways. In Cleveland, for example, a radio station monetized its (very large) building by allowing communities to use it for Meetups.
We’ve seen this in the startup scene for years. Already the German Gaming Community Rocket Beans has financed its 24/7 Twitch channel by at least 7 different ways from subscriptions to advertising to merchandise. Also our (content-)startups at Media Lab Bayern always stand on at least two or three legs.
… can use platforms to reach users.
At least if the platforms support them in selling subscriptions. Apple News in particular came up: Even if it doesn’t make a lot of money, if it creates a few hundred subscribers, thats more than none. Is that the final straw? Or the new humility?
Three more interesting observations to think about:
“Media nowadays treats every piece of content like a product.”
And does so with a corresponding multi-channel marketing strategy. Journalists still refuse, but what would it be like if we actually looked at it that way? Each article as its own product? That has to be marketed? With a process that streamlines this for every article and always employs a miniature sales and marketing team in every case?
“Nothing is ever dead in digital.”
First podcasts, then newsletters: maybe digital media products are just like patterns of clothing. At some point everything comes back. What are the raver pants of digital media?
“Maybe you don’t need a newsroom this big.”
Which is reflected in all the analyses at the Washington Post: The content that is valued the most is either fascinating or critical. And of very high quality. Why then do we still waste so many resources on producing “Meh” content, asks Emilio Garcia-Ruiz of the Washington Post.
I’ve been saying for a long time that we could solve the problem of information overflow by producing less and better content. I would love to start a challenge to find out how many texts, videos and audio pieces less a newsroom could produce before users notice it. My guess: 50 percent. At least.
Oh, and: “In 60 months from now, local television will be dead.” I’ll just leave that here.
👩 #TechThatChangesTheWorld
Today we had data and voice. In short, two interesting thoughts from the (otherwise unfortunately very basic “Data is important we should use it now”) data session: Algorithms can help a lot in the production of film and video. See for example the interactive “Bandersnatch” episode of Black Mirror. To develop story trees like that is extremely time-consuming, computers can do it a lot faster. In addition, there are NPCs in gaming whose actions are already supported by neural networks. Thus more dynamic stories can be developed.
Again I wonder why the inspiration by games is still such a niche thing in journalism. For this to change, I think we need to reduce production costs for new (multimedia) content. In contrast to VR, games, film and music, journalism is based on topicality and developing stories, and producing that kind of content fast is simply too expensive at the moment. Or maybe we could find ways to keep content relatively up-to-date over a longer period of time.
Maybe this is a good topic for a tech challenge, which is a current idea in the Media Lab Bayern. We would like to give out 2-months (or so) research scholarships, during which people could deal with such a topic conceptually. If you find that exciting: Let’s talk!
💡#CrazyIdea
And now to the topic of voice interfaces: Some research is currently focusing on use cases for disabled people. If you’re in a wheelchair and can’t use your hands, you can use Google Home to adjust your bed, switch on your TV or make calls.
That sounds obvious now — but it also works the other way around. I found the case with Alzheimer’s patients exciting. They can ask their smart speaker 30 times a day what their husband’s name is again — without Alexa ever being annoyed. Taking off such emotionally very stressful work from the Caretakers creates space for things for which they are actually needed: love and devotion.
For me it was yet another example of how much good technology can do — and what a fantastic time we’re in to invent it all.
Transferred to journalism and media: Voice is an insanely inclusive medium that every toddler can use as soon as they can speak. The best products, however, are created the more specifically when you tailor them to the needs of a specific target group. This will be a completely new challenge in terms of product development (and perhaps also an exciting tech challenge?).
Next Level Diversity
Spotted first by Jim from MedienNetzwerk Bayern and then tried by Mustafa from Kerngedanke: An artificial breast for men. Now even fathers can breastfeed their babies. 👍oder 👎? I am still undecided. 😅
🚀#StartupLearning
Bernhard and Julia from Kontextlab have been working at the SXSW on how to communicate knowledge in an understandable way. The context of information units is especially important — otherwise you end up with the “The Blind Men and an Elephant” parable. The project “Migration Trails” shows information on digital maps and says: “Readers appreciate the interactive approach, feel emotionally connected, give feedback and are engaged for longer than average on the maps. This is an exciting confirmation, as Kontextlab has already found out for its own product.
💥 #MustSeeInAustin
According to Digital Strategist Thomas Knüwer, the LG house is supposed to be great, and yesterday I saw that Bumble, the feminist Tinder, also has its own house. Today I didn’t make it to the house tour, so I’m still on the list for tomorrow.
Our Favourite Sessions for Tuesday
09:30–10:30am: Did a Robot Write Your News? Automated journalism will soon find its way into the world’s newsrooms, albeit more as support for journalists than in the form of a fully automated reporter. What impact will this have on journalists? And what can journalists do with AI to combat AI-supported misinformation?
9:30–11:30am: The Science Of Brand-Building Stories. A successful brand needs a successful story that stands behind it and explains its motivation and attitude. In this workshop, two experts will explain which psychological aspects play a role in how to reach your audience with these stories.
11:00–12:00am: Easy to Fool? Journalism in the Age of Deepfakes. Another panel with Poynter Institute, WaPo and Knight Foundation on the subject of false information and deepfakes. This time, however, it’s less about technology than about the crisis of confidence: If everything could be fabricated, who will trust journalists? And what can journalists do to prevent the spread of counterfeits?
11:00–12:00am: Building an In-House Design Powerhouse. In many (media) companies, the question is how to make their own design appropriately digital and innovative. This is a particular problem for large and thus slow companies. Stephen Gates leads the design transformation of the product design company InVision and will report in his session on how companies can have their design on fleek.
11:00–12:00am: Digital Transformation, AI and an Innovation Mindset. Using AI is en vouge right now — but to do it successfully, you need the right culture of innovation, user orientation and technology. In this session, Sandy Carter, Vice President of Amazon Web Services, will explain to her audience what an environment looks like, in which machine learning can be used successfully.
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