This post records speaker commentary at the Future of Media Summit, held today simultaneously in Sydney and San Francisco. All commentary is paraphrased as best as I recorded it in handwriting.

The aim here is to make the topics, structure and content of the post provide a snapshot of current coordinates and future directions in the digital media business. Beyond this, no analysis is attempted here.

1. Content "de-portalisation"

In an era of "de-portalisation" you need platforms that attract users to a myriad of sites.

- Keith Teare, CEO and Founder, edgeio corp.

Mainstream media are adopting blogging more and more. A lot of times it won't work out because they don't have the voice that the more successful have in the blogsphere.

- Gabe Rivera, CEO, Techmeme.

2. Content over broadband

[What we have in Australia is] not broadband but "fraudband". [South] Korea is the broadband lab of the world.

- Tony Surtees, CEO, Prime Digital Works.

3. Content immersion - virtual worlds

You get behaviour changes when you have the [higher] levels of broadband speed, eg immersive worlds, games and digital goods. ... People have become digital natives far faster in Asia partly due to the speed of broadband connection.

- Jeremy Liew, Partner, Lightspeed Ventures.

4. Content generated by users

Fifty per cent of our content is credibility from our user-generated content.

- Scott-Bradley Pearce, Strategic Adviser Content Syndication and Multimedia, CNET Networks Aust.

5. Social networking

There is no virtuoso who has created synthesis for influence networks. I have the same group of friends on Facebook as I had on Orkut and LinkedIn.

- Mitch Ratcliffe, Founder, Buzzlogic and Tetriad.

6. Business models

There aren't new business models. There are some tried and true models. [But there are contemporary variations on them.]

- Rob Antulov, CEO, 3eep.

7. Content personalisation and consumerism

We've gone from hundreds of markets for millions of people, to millions of markets for hundreds of people. The economics of production have changed, so markets are able to segment brands for niche markets. It is a more perfect market because peer review and recommendation makes it more likely that a consumer will buy.

- Tony Surtees, CEO, Prime Digital Works.

8. Content mobility and monetarisation

In the mobile world each carrier has had a walled garden with which they are trying to create a complete portal. It's not a world wide web. They have a more sophisticated payment technology so they can get micropayments [more so] than ISPs could ever do.

- Martin Hoffman, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Loop Mobile.

9. Content regulation

The value of DRM [digital rights management] is in tracking who goes there rather than to [ensure you force or] score a transaction.

- Chris Gilbey, Co-Founder and CEO, Vquence.

Already the sorts of things at law that are required of social networks on mobile phones are more [circumspect] than is the case in MySpace. That's a situation that may not last.

- Mark Pesce, Founder, FutureSt Consulting.

10. Content globalisation and localisation

The six hours time zone which surrounds Australia will within 10 years be the greatest economic zone in the world. ... One in 20 Australians are of Asian heritage. The key point every multinational company is coming to terms with is that Asia is not Asia, it's many different countries. There are many variations. Globalising the world will not happen. Asia is developing incredible wealth and it's creating a middle class and the middle class wants branded products. ... What is happening is the great strength of the US economy is toppling.

- Harold Mitchell, Chairman, Mitchells & Partners.

The US market is an online advertising market of US$20 billion growing at 30% per annum. [There is a] sub-US$1 billion [online advertising market] in China growing at 100% per annum. If you are looking at the typical planning horizons of three to four years of a typical company, you'd invest in the US. ... The conventional wisdom is that you must localise. [But] because the users are local you don't have to localise [to the extent you used to have to].

- Jeremy Liew, Partner, Lightspeed Ventures.

The US has been fortunate with one currency and one language. Today our service is available in 80 languages. We have a version in Latin, Ancient Greek and Corsican.

- Freddy Mini, COO, Netvibes.

Passion is more important than geography. I'd rather focus on getting people interested in a given subject focusing on it.

- Kathryn Hamilton, Head of entertainment and lifestyle, YAHOO!7.

Graphics credit: Here they are used purely for effect. The full, unedited graphics can be seen in a chapter of Speed @ Work (Australian Institute of Management and Wiley, Sydney, 2006). The chapter is written by Michael McAllum, titled "Strategic thought: getting ahead of the curve". It emphasises the need to plan and time product and organisational development to boldly anticipate, forecast, invest in and capture new markets.