1. The document discusses the changing digital landscape and the transition from print to digital media. It notes how digital immigrants must understand the current digital environment. 2. It provides statistics on internet usage in South Africa and trends in video and user-generated content. New communication models and monetization of content are also covered. 3. The future of virtual worlds and augmented reality is explored, with the distinction between real and virtual becoming blurred over time. New forms of storytelling and avatars are discussed.

1. the writer as
digital immigrant
creative writing master class
patrick collings
25 August 2009

2. former foreign correspondent
pioneer in the south african
internet partner in sagacite
brand agency working both the
business and creative side of
branding author of the brand
architect blog recipient of brand
leadership award i am a digital
immigrant

3. image by tim morgan

4. image by bernardo borghetti

7. the digital landscape
image by trey ratcliff

8. let’s set the scene

9. Note: Video of Digital Mad Men

10. web 3.0
web 2
Photo by Stig Nygaard

11. Note: Video highlighting the growth of social media

13. image by jeff turner

14. the flow, not the contours
Note: The following slides indicate how changing applications serve similar digital needs over time

23. must understand our own landscape
photo by glado trouchky

24. 1.5bn | 0.3%
Note: South Africa’s share of global internet connectivity is .3% of 1.5 billion

25. 51m | 10%
Note: South Africa accounts for 10% of Africa’s connectivity

26. 12m | 0.03%
Note: The number of active blogs and the percentage from South Africa

27. 340m | 0.5%
Note: Readers of blogs and the percentage who read South African blogs

28. 9.5% | 96%
Note: Internet connectivity in South Africa versus percentage of adults owning a cell phone

29. some final observations on the landscape

30. Photo by Trey Ratcliff
Note: Internet a combination of the big and the small

33. Note: Video of Faris Yakob talking about recombinant culture

34. photo by Oliver Wilke
crowdsourcing

35. smaller, more mature
Photo by Akbar Simonse

36. camera, action Photo by Wen Zhang

37. as a society we are
becoming more visual
“video beats pictures beats text” - trendwatching.com 2008 report

38. what sort of numbers are we talking about

39. five billion
videos serves each month by youtube
44 percent
of all online video consumption
in the U.S.A.

40. Cisco: By 2013 Video Will Be 90 Percent of All
Consumer IP Traffic and 64 Percent of Mobile

41. a digital lubricant

44. today, everyone can be a director

45. video clip of user generated polo “commercial”

46. But it is not
only the directors
who are going to

49. what we need to consider now are the
communication channels and models
available to brand managers
increasingly becoming a home to branded entertainment

50. but not everyone
is happy with the
concept of branded
entertainment
Photo by Darwin Bell

51. what about the news media

60. monetize it

61. TV Ads

64. “Google is not the first company to
confuse a large audience with an
attractive business model”
Financial Times, 20 August 2009

65. user generated and premium content
will that increasingly be the model?

66. stop the
Photo by Ed Schipul
presses

67. years from now, people will look at the new
media business model and say it “happened” in
the recession of 2008 / 2009

68. Photo by Vanessa Pike-Russell
what started as a trickle

69. Miami Herald into third
restructuring New York Sun closes aft
New York Times Will Cut
years
Salaries; Washington Post to
Offer Buyouts When newspapers fold
Ad Declines in Mass Media US newspaper crisis deepens
Seen as More Than Just
Economic
Christian Science Monitor
abandons print edition
Rocky Mountain News Folds
Amid Ad Slump
Hearst Plans to Slash, Sell or
Shut Paper in Bay Area
Hearst Shuts Down a
Seattle Paper
Gannett slashing dividend to
preserve cash
Washington Post Net Plunges
Seattle Paper Advances Plans
Cincinnati Post folds to Turn Into Online-Only
Blender Magazine to Go Publication
Online Only

70. not only in the US, and not only newspapers

71. those abandoning print either headed to...

72. Photo by Kirk

74. not coming back

75. 1 the print business model was already under
long-term threat from digital
2 great expense in returning to traditional print
model
3 “recessionary push” will lead to changed
habits and rituals

76. abandoning print saves 50% costs, but ...

77. online advertising
not enough to sustain
traditional news
operations

78. ?
defining questions

79. “it is possible to charge for content”

80. © that’s my copyright

82. photo by D Barefoot
the rise of the bloggers

83. America’s
Photo by Jacob Botter newest profession

84. 1,700,000
Note: Number of people in US making money from blogging

85. 452,000
Note: Number of people in US earning their primary income from blogging

86. 100,000 = $75,000
Note: Rule of thumb that 100,000 users translates into annual ad income of USD 75,000

87. $75 - $200
Note: What people are charging for writing a blog

88. $45,000 - $90,000
Note: What people are earning for blogging for a corporate

89. 1% >$200,000
Note: One percent of bloggers earning more than USD 200,000

90. journalists
bloggers
Note: rise of bloggers, drop of journalists in Washington
photo by matthew bradley

91. is trust the new slingshot
Note: People increasingly trusting blogs rather
than media organizations
photo by Jennifer Hayes

93. business model changing offline, not only online

95. perhaps
the internet
is not such
a safe place
for traditional
print media
escaping the
photo by Kyriakos recession

96. digital doesn’t just mean the web
Photo by Rienk Jan Schurer

97. the kindle isn’t alone

99. new business models are rapidly emerging

100. expect to see early adoption by higher eduction

101. what can history teach us

102. remember when cell phones phoned

103. before text messages

104. before they took pictures

105. before they recorded video

106. before the applications

107. do you remember before

108. ?
similar path for the e-reader

109. subscription models

110. the new textbook

111. colour is coming

112. so is video

113. and competitors

114. prices are falling

115. new ad models are emerging

116. “I find it hard to believe that the
primary way of reading newspapers
10-plus years from now is going to
be on printed paper.”

117. our virtual reality

118. virtuality is increasingly our present and future
Photo by Jerry Charlotte Miller

119. we have been preparing for virtuality for some time

120. in our
philosophy
Jean Baudrillard (1929 - 2007)

121. in our literature
& films

122. our children brought
virtuality home

123. we trade in
currencies
that we never
actually hold

124. we immerse
ourselves in
the game

125. second life
introduced
the reality
of virtual
worlds to
many adults

126. video clip of sony home virtual world

127. video clip of sony home virtual world

128. virtual worlds were the next
evolution of the internet

129. 14!000!000
800!000
they came
from september 2006 to june
2008, the number of second life
members grew from 800,000 to
14,000,000

130. 80!000
10!000
they played
from september 2006 to
february 2009, the number of
simultaneous second life users
grew from 10,000 to 80,000

131. 35!000!000
15!000!000
they paid
in the space of 42 months the
average value of transactions per
month on second life went from
$15m to nearly $35m

132. 64!000
44!600
they profited
in february 2009 over 64,000
people had a positive linden dollar
flow, up from 44,600 in
september 2007

133. 32 | 45
average age % female

134. great virtual land rush
philips c|net adidas mercedes
bmw dell mazda microsoft reuters
sony bmg vodafone l’oreal ibm mtv

136. what went wrong?

137. limited understanding + flawed
strategy + rushed implementation
is always going to end in tears

139. goes on

140. 3
to take out

141. original, evolving,
crowdsourced stories

142. Note: Video promoting Wagner James Au’s book

143. virtual stories with real consequences

144. the rise of the avatar

145. some are detailed

146. of 26 million and counting

147. unique avatars and within games

153. Ray Winstone

154. John Malkovich Anthony Hopkins Angelina Jolie

156. avatars are child’s play

157. 0 1,5 3,0 4,5 6,0
webkinz 6,0
clubpenguin 4,7
zwinky 4,4
neopets 3,6
imvu 2,4
barbiegirls 1,8
gaia 1,3
0,6 habbo
0,6
redlightcenter
kaneva
0,6
second life
0,5
unique US visitors in Sept 07, in millions

159. look east...

160. 340
m i l l i o n
accounts

161. virtuality is a third of transmotion
Photo by Chad Nicholson

162. the second
is transmedia

163. the third is
augmented reality

164. Note: Augmented reality campaign in South Africa

165. “One of the things our grandchildren will
find quaintest about us is that we
distinguish the digital from the real, the
virtual from the real. In the future, that will
become literally impossible. The distinction
between cyberspace and that which isn’t
cyberspace is going to be unimaginable”
William Gibson

166. Patrick Collings
patrick@sagacite.co.za
+27 (0)83 616 0967