Panel on News Innovation @ World News Media Congress

Mark participated in a panel on news innovation at the World News Media Congress in Glasgow.

The other participants included Frédéric Sitterlé, Director of Development at Groupe Challenges, which is creating news products for use in Renault cars,

In the future, you will not choose your car based on its horsepower. You will choose your car based on the experience it delivers. A car manufacturer will need to provide something more than empty boxes on wheels.”

Kourtney Bitterly, R&D Lead at the New York Times, who talked about the cmpany’s research into Smart Speakers.

We do design-thinking research. We spend a lot of time with people in their homes, interviewing and observing them.

And Robyn Spector, Director of Corporate Strategy and Development at the Associated Press (AP), who talked about giving AI tools to journalists.

Our goal with AI is to give journalists the superpowers they need to thrive in this new news climate.

Mark talked about using blockchain to price news data:

At the moment, there’s so much discussion about subscription models, and how much can we get people to pay for news. But nobody really knows the real cost of a piece of news.

And the challenges facing startups, which don‘t have the resources of large companies, and must innovate or die.

It seems companies really want to pick the winner. News organisations would rather wait and see if something succeeds. But how can something succeed if they haven’t been funded from beginning?