Is creating a sense of community a challenge for new media companies?

Jim Tobin, president/CEO of itemus Inc, recently sat down with Canadian NEW MEDIA to discuss how content should be developed for web-based applications. Earlier this year he turned a gold mining company into itemus, an Internet start-up that is part venture capitalist and part business service provider. Tobin believes that when it comes to interactive web content, traditional collaborative relationships between producers and writers need to be replaced by a new interactive web model - one in which the audience takes a more active role in helping to develop the content. An edited transcript of that conversation follows. Jim TobinPresident/CEO of itemus IncProfessional HistoryExecutive VP, BCE IncFounder, BCE EmergisPresident, Hummingbird Comm.Executive, McKinsey & CompanyThe Internet doesn't need new media to thrive, but new media needs the Internet to thrive. It's also the lynchpin of this community issue because the Internet is a shared medium. It's the different producers and talent in new media that have not taken advantage of the power of the Internet to allow them to work very collaboratively, to find out who's doing what and to create new channels. If you complain about not being able to get mindshare with new media creation, well, join a group that has the power to build it. This is a pre-competitive era for new media. Rather than new media companies competing with themselves , they should be saying ‘alright, for this to be an industry we have to go and build an infrastructure, the relationships, and ultimately, responsibility.' We can't go to the conventional broadcasters and say, ‘ give me audience for my programming.' The broadcasters rightfully look the other way. They say ‘If this is a phenomenally new environment, then presumably if you have enough sensitivity about the audiences in the new media space, then that audience will get on board because it will reach through this viral marketing effect.' A new media company on its own can't do that. But there's enough critical mass in the new media segment, if you hook up with the post-production studios and the web service companies and the people who are creating content for entertainment, and for education. You come together in some sort of portal, and find a way to get some standards and a way in which people can recognize the quality, (and) create our own guidelines for privacy so that the government doesn't come and force us. Then the clout of that group and viral marketing will build a market that's big enough to sustain revenues. I just don't see enough of that activity. When you build new media properties, the production process should be interactive as well. You can't just build interactive content by sitting in a room and saying you are going to build something that's meant to be interactive, but not interact along the way. We have to engage the stakeholders every step of the way. I think a great example of what new media is going to be is the Blair Witch project, which, while the filmmakers were still in the field, was going into the chat rooms and saying , ‘ah, that's what they're looking for.' It's a bit daunting to say, ‘I'm going to give up my fundamental creativity if I have to subject myself to that - won't it dumb down my product?' What the Internet can do from the point of stimulation is program a heightened awareness-building for you as a creator. Your experiences can be far richer. Yet, most new media people haven't embraced the web as the input mechanism for the creation of that. The web requires that both the input and output are a result of the shared process.

Is creating a sense of community a challenge for new media companies?

Broadcast | May 18, 2000

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