This Friday I went to the
educational center 'Benua's House' (probably I had to write 'Benois') where
'NextMedia' Conference had taken place. As few years ago it was a hype for internet sites, now the rush is about social media marketing, applications for social networks and other social *ing.
The event smoothly organized by Svetlana Horosheva and Elnara Petrova
@elnarapetrova gathered not just good speakers, but real doers of the Russian traditional media and social media businesses (list goes on with social gaming and social shopping sub-industries).
- Misha Romanovsky (GameLand): "Now it's important not to be good at something, but understand that changes happen faster and faster".
- Sergey Mitrofanov (CEO at Brandflight Moscow) @SEMitrofanov: "Brands now are what people think about goods and services, and not that companies would like people think about their brands".
- Oleg Tretyakov ('Delovoy Peterburg' Editor in Chief): "We do believe there's our audience in vKontakte"
- Dmitry Filatov (Sonetika - 'VKontakte Magazine' publisher): "Our audience is not advanced at all, but anyway we can sell to them"
- Andrey Fadeev @fanandr and Anton Korobkov @korobkov (that time I mostly spent in the corridors)
Opening speeches were by sponsors representatives including
VKontakte's Vlad Tsyplukhin
@tsyplukhin and
Ingria's Andrey Talalaev.
Few minutes before opening.
Stand-up meal was very untraditional as well as trendy and delicious. Ferma company served tables with eco-food: natural milk, quark, cheese and bread. Really fresh and healthy!
Some thoughts afterThe ways we acquire information are rapidly changing. That in turn gradually changes how we communicate and consume. Related institutions (companies, regulators, etc.) will adapt or disappear. Formal and informal learning is also starts to change in this context. Will Education be the Next? Probably.
New media are platforms and relatively independent (or lousily linked) agents that use these platforms. It seems that the same model will work for education. As a proto-example the evolution of the Russian platform
'TheoryAndPractice.ru' shows how the whole market of education will transform. And not occasionally this project is becoming an international one (see
the version for Denmark)
Each industry in its early ages is vertically integrated. As market develops new players come allowing more and more layered production structure and specialization of suppliers. An example related to this post - the conference was organized by a media agency with the same name as the conference's name 'NextMedia' - that is kind of spin-off from 'Delovoy Peterburg'.
And by the way, here is the recent quote from TechCrunch ;)
DST’s Yuri Milner:
“This is the era of mathematicians … It’s not about social networking”
I feel that it's true.
