Book launch: Futuretainment by Mike Walsh, Sydney, 1 December 2009

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Book launch: Futuretainment by Mike Walsh, Sydney, 1 December 2009

2 December 2009

Last night Mike Walsh launched his new book Futuretainment – which looks at the future of media and marketing – at the Hotel CBD in Sydney. He spoke with technology journalist Brad Howarth, and offered a few of his insights into advertising and marketing, particularly in Asia, together with a couple of trend predictions for 2010.

People born after 1994 are digital “naturals”. They have never lived in a world without web browsers.
“Naturals” have never known a time when they cannot access decent content somewhere online.
Content producers and creators (copy-righters) such as musicians are effectively marketers.
Musicians, for example, encourage “content theft”… they don\’t make revenue from recorded music, that comes from sales of merchandise, live performances, etc.
Social networks drive TV programming. People increasingly watch what is forwarded to them (videos, links to videos).
Viewers are deciding what they will watch, not the TV networks.
How will content producers make money? Become a celebrity… cue Ashton Kutcher and his declaration to become “the next new-media mogul“.
Japan excels at producing content for mobile phones.
The Chinese know how to make money with social networks. QQ, a Chinese variation of Facebook, made US$1 billion last year.
In Korea people watch more TV shows on mobile phones than a television.
Digital consumers in Asia are generally very tech savvy, have access to unlimited bandwidth, and have little regard for copyright.
Ninety per cent of Chinese internet users have broadband, which is considerably faster than that available in Australia.
Augmented reality will put consumers in control by way of real time product and service reviews and critiques.

Originally published Wednesday 2 December 2009, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.

Rebekah Horne of MySpace Australia, talks to Mike Walsh at Fourth Estate Domain

17 June 2009

Rebekah Horne is the Australian head of MySpace, and Vice President of Fox Interactive Media. She also oversees the IGN, Rotten Tomatoes, and Ask Men websites.

Last night she spoke to Mike Walsh as part of the Fourth Estate Domain On the Couch interview series, in Sydney. Here’s some of what we heard.

Yes, Horne has a MySpace profile, and refers to social networking rival, Facebook, as “the other site”, or “F Book”…
78 per cent of the MySpace audience in Australia is 18 or over.
MySpace memberships grew six per cent in March compared with 3.6 per cent growth for Facebook.
There are some 40,000 Australian bands on MySpace, both signed and unsigned acts.
MySpace widget, or application, developers have been guaranteed recompense for their work, being the revenue generated from ads associated with their widget.
Australia is a great market for creative content producers, but producing a video series for Web TV, such as quarterlife, is still expensive, and it can cost in the order of $200,000 to produce a series of three to five minute “webisodes”.
The recently launched MySpace TV is interested in hearing from creative content producers who have ideas.
MySpace Mobile is “going gangbusters” receiving two million page impressions out of a total of one billion impressions for mobile.
PlayStation Portable is the most popular device used to access MySpace Mobile.

Originally published Wednesday 17 June 2009, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.

Creed Chris O’Hanlon, on the couch, with Mike Walsh, Sydney, October 2003

8 October 2003

Dot-com flamboyance, and web design world domination, are terms synonymous with Australian entrepreneur Creed Chris O’Hanlon. Spike Networks, the web design company O’Hanlon co-founded in 1994, quickly expanded from its base in the Sydney suburb of Double Bay, into Asia, Japan, and the United States, thanks to the backing of numerous venture capitalists.

But Spike didn’t just do extravagant, and expensive, websites. At the height of the dot-com folly, Spike was even operating a radio station.

As with most things dot-com though, Spike came tumbling down in spectacular fashion, although O’Hanlon had left the company long beforehand. Workers (including someone I knew personally) lost jobs, investors were out of pocket by millions, while the rest of us were left wondering how so little could have come of so much hype.

Not helping matters were the stories that began emerging of the indulgent lifestyle led by O’Hanlon, during his time as boss. No expense was spared. Five star hotels, first class airline travel, and gourmet dining the world over, you name it. Then there was the extramarital affair with a Spike employee, which later resulted in allegations of sexual harassment.

So when an email from The Domain, a local media and technology professionals networking event arrived the other week, inviting me to see O’Hanlon speak, I knew I didn’t want to miss out. He would be talking to Australian futurist and speaker Mike Walsh, at the Hotel CBD, in downtown Sydney, as part of Domain’s On the Couch interview series.

Those expecting to see O’Hanlon pelted with projectiles however, would have been disappointed.

This despite Walsh pointing out O’Hanlon, in wearing a red shirt, had readied himself for any rotten tomatoes that might be thrown his way. In the end, the Spike co-founder only had to field a total of three audience questions, none of which related to dubious past activities, business or otherwise. Strategically, O’Hanlon headed off any acrimony, by admitting at the onset the “terrible” things he was accused of, were, “unfortunately true”.

Instead he offered an array of insights into online media and communications in general. He has been working as a consultant in Japan for a well known car manufacturer in recent times, and spoke of how mobile phones had changed the previously rigidly structured fashion in which the Japanese communicated with each other. O’Hanlon also spoke of the death of copyright, and the dearth of ideas when it comes to conceiving creative advertising campaigns for electronic media.

He also mentioned the upcoming publication of a book he is writing, which we were told would be titled The Zen of Failure. If nothing else, all of this shows that there are always opportunities to turn failure into, if not success, at least money. The right attitude is also useful, especially when trying to turn around a tide of negative perception. The gift of the gab, that is, the ability to sound intelligent, articulate, and well worded, is also somewhat useful.

Originally published Wednesday 8 October 2003, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.