“Members of some virtual worlds may be able to withdraw cash from their virtual bank-accounts via real-world cash machines. … Governments should be alert to any attempts to exploit the mechanisms of virtual economies to undertake criminal activity. Money launderers may use trade in digital artefacts and virtual currencies as a new means of money laundering.”

Huh. $700 million GDP for 2007. What are people doing to generate this kind of money?

Before I started doing this week’s readings I was thinking about Second Life and what kind of monetization is used within the virtual world, aside from the subscription fees. I don’t have a Second Life account but I’ve been seeing it pop up everywhere lately. Does anyone have any thoughts on how the news media can fit into Second Life?

Also, the report said that user-generated is not yet refined enough or good enough to compete with professionally generated content. That’s partly true. Some of it isn’t, but a lot of it is really, really awesome.

I feel like a broken record, but whatever. Here it is again: The Internet, citizen journalism and user-generated content are here to stay, and I think that’s a good thing. Holly mentioned her grandmother. I’m going to take it a generation closer to us and write about my mom. I can’t tell you how many times she complained to me and my sisters about popular culture and media culture in the ’90s and early this decade. “Everyone looks the same; everyone sounds the same; they’re all saying the same thing; they’re all doing the same thing. Back when I was a kid, people were individuals. You didn’t have to fit one mold to be popular or great or appreciated.”

She may have been romanticizing the ’70s, but she had the late ’90s spot on. Think about who and what were popular when user participation was at its lowest and media conglomeration was impenetrable. Britney. *NSYNC. Fox News. Everything was hyper-managed and packaged for perfection. Hell, many of the biggest bands in those days were created for the sole purpose of making money - not for making music or doing anything of actual artistic or intellectual value. What we have now may be a bit messy, but it’s finding itself and at least it’s more democratized than all the top-down, for-profit, superficial crap that reigned the airwaves and magazine stands when we were in high school.

Not that there was nothing good out there. But if we’re going to worry ourselves silly about what’s around the corner, let’s at least be honest with ourselves about what we’re leaving behind.

I think the point of building synergy between platforms: radio, TV and the Internet is the key, and most media companies understand this now. I think we will eventually see most media companies transition their operations to put the Internet at the center of their focus, producing media for television, radio and print as secondary markets. Look at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In the past few years they completely reorganized to put the web site at the center of their business, with the paper and other media properties on the second tier.

And one thing that bothers me about the curling up with a book on the couch versus going cross-eyed, hunched over in front of a computer monitor argument: Five years ago I sat hunched in front of my blurry, bulky computer monitor. I curl up on my couch with my laptop today. Five years from now I’ll have some device that is even more comfortable to use than my laptop. Maybe something like Amazon’s Kindle. Don’t use the limitations of technology as a reason the technology will never succeed because limitations never last long.

What I appreciated from their report was that it avoided an overly gung-ho approach; they acknowledged repeatedly that each of the new technologies face challenges and limited appeal to many people. In particular, they noted a simple lack of time or interest in spending additional hours per day online…something that perhaps affects older people more than the younger generation, but its a consideration that definitely affects me as a user. I already feel like I spend more time than I want to online, so while I appreciate all the stuff that the web offers and know it would be nice to be better-versed in lots of it, if it means more hours sitting in front of a monitor, I’m not sure from what other part of my day I would be willing/able to take that time. It’s that type of attitude that seemed to temper Deloitte’s piece.

–By 2015, the number of Chinese adults under 30 is expected to swell 61%, to 500 million, equivalent to the entire population of the European Union. From issues of grave consequence to trivialities, the government has made clear that it will do whatever it takes to keep the swelling middle class happy. In Beijing, for example, newly prosperous residents are snapping up automobiles at a rate of 1,000 a day. The number of vehicles on the capital’s sclerotic roads has doubled in the past five years, to 3 million.

Armed with credit cards and heightened consumerist addictions, companies will dedicate large portions of their biz models to satisfying the Me Generation.

Add to that the incoming “sixth generation” political leaders (6 generations since Mao) which are schooled in subjects other than engineering for a change, have traveled the world and are less isolated in their own social networks, and you have the next dynasty.

Wal Mart is toast.

But for us American journalists that lack Mandarin and Cantonese, where do we fit in? Not to mention the still draconian laws over journalism (not media - that term is used as a catch-all by Deloite)
Do we matter for China?

Social networking sites do have different ways of offering privacy that’s free. Facebook, for example, will let you show photo albums to some friends but not to others, and I think that Flickr has a similar sort of feature. But again, while I might use that to make sure my mother doesn’t see all of my pictures, if someone was well-versed at hacking and really wanted to find them, they’d probably be able to.

I do agree with Deloitte’s bottom line that user-generated content has the potential to offer more of an opportunity than a threat to mainstream media, if the media takes an opportunistic stance towards such content. I think this is something that some more mainstream forms of media are just starting to recognize. What’s that old saying…’If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?’

The lesson I got from both pieces is that media companies have to be flexible, willing to try to new, varied models, and in tune with what consumers actually want/where they’re actually clicking. As we talked about last week, technology is allowing for better measuring of consumer behavior.

“They [marketers] favor media that can substantiate an ad’s influence on customer preference, purchase, and retention. This means a growing
penchant for online media, especially those that can deliver a reliable indication of customer response.”

This is bad news for TV but of course good news for media available online. As the graphic showing the disconnect between the money spent on car advertising and the influence of said advertising demonstrates, mistakes have been made, money has been wasted, but more monetization opportunities are available online.

The risk of advertising on news websites is everything we’ve been talking and worrying about. Will the wall between editorial and advertising come down? Will readers be able to differentiate between advertising, news, and entertainment?

The Deloitte predictions underestimate “older” users willingness to try new media, even if only cautiously. Scanning my facebook list of friends, I was surprised to see how many were family or family friends, adults over 40 who were on facebook to keep track of their kids, share photos and get in touch with old friends.

Whenever I visit my grandparents, my grandmother wants me to teach her something new on the computer. Last December I showed her wikipedia and youtube. We searched for JFK’s inaugural address and when we found it she was so excited. Certainly my 80-year-old grandmother does not represent a significant portion of the online audience. But these users are not incapable of becoming part of the online community. And eventually we will be those older users and readers, and our habits will have already been shaped by a lifetime in front of the computer screen.

“The Future of Advertising is Now” is right on point in terms of the direction marketing is headed or at least consistent with what Mediill’s IMC program is teaching. Today’s marketers are challenged to think beyond medium or message and must capture and enhance a consumer’s brand experience, i.e., what do consumer’s need, how do I give it to them and how does my marketing enable a consumer to develop a relationship with a brand. Contact points that are platform agnostic and reach the consumer in ways that are meaningful to them do not necessarily have to be experienced via a mass medium like television. Nike is an excellent example of a marketer that has embraced integrated, experiential marketing practices that use new and traditional media. Their online running clubs, instore tie-ins and partnership with Apple provide “value” to the consumer and enhance the brand.

In terms of branded entertainment and advertising in the gaming space, I think advertisers need to be carefull not to detract from the consumer’s game or entertainment experience. Sponsorships and product placements can easily get out of hand, (think American Idol and Coke) and detract from the content and annoy the consumer.

I am also strangely excited to see what new forms advertising is forced to take thanks to the advent of more interactive media, and the undercutting of their ad-revenue due to DVR technology.