Will venture capital keep flowing and when will new exits appear?

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I visited several venture capital firms in Silicon Valley this week and also met the CEOs of a number of VC-funded companies. Not surprisingly, much of the talk was about the climate and outlook for venture capital, which is the spigot from which much of Silicon Valley drinks.

The MoneyTree Survey of venture capital, summarized in GigaOm , shows that total VC investments in the second quarter were basically flat over the last year or so, however with a slight continuing decline in early-stage investments. One of the key features is that late-stage investments are accumulating as exits become more difficult. IPOs had already dried up before the more recent stockmarket downturn, and now the tighter constraints on capital across the economy mean that trade exits are also falling off.

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Source: MoneyTree via GigaOm

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Fantastic insights from the blog coverage of the Future of Media Summit

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Sorry I’ve been slow to follow up on the Future of Media Summit – it’s been a very busy time since the event, including some long flights :-)

To start off here are some of the most interesting blog posts on the Summit. There are some fantastic ideas and insights in these, so well worth a read. In no particular order :

Stephen Collins: What will the future of media look like?, including the ‘artificial split’ between journalism and new media

Chris Bishops: Monetising future content: business models as traditional content models break down.

JD Lasica: Takeaways from Future of Media Summit, including the ‘Great Decoupling’ and media as ‘Distraction Machine’

Phil Morle: A Future for TV: The Collaborative Crowd – the future is (crudely) present

Seth Yates: Comprehensive Future of Media Summary including notes on all the panels

Jay Cross: review of Future of Media Summit, including the US future of journalism panel

Stilgherrian: Note to “old media: journalists: adapt or stfu!

(Same post at Crikey with different comment stream)

Jonathan Este: Bloggers: the biggest whingers since journalists (Response to Stilgherrian, originally posted on Crikey and reposted on Stilgherrian’s blog with comments)

Brad Howarth: Live from Future of Media Summit Part 1, Live from Future of Media Summit Part 2, Live from Future of Media Summit Part 3 – detailed insights and commentary

Craig Wilson: review of the Future of Media Summit, including discussion of the Twitter backchannel at the event

Gavin Heaton: review of future of Media Summit: the future of media is PARTICIPATION

Alex Gibson: compilation of ideas and annotations from the event Twitter stream

Kathy Drasky: live blogging and commentary from the Future of Media Summit in Silicon Valley

Gordon Whitehead: Future of Media: Opportunity or Train Wreck – believing in opportunities

Also be sure to see the initial review of social media commentary on the Future of Media Summit. Since then, additional posts on the Future of Media Summit blog include two additional summaries of discussions on Participant Roundtables on the Sydney side:

Media and social networks Roundtable

Shifts in the advertising industry Roundtable

[UPDATE:] More great blog posts

Hugh Martin: More thoughts on the Summit and Future of Journalism panel

Trevor Cook: Future of media: how relevant is social media? (Trevor coulddn’t attend but responded to the blog conversation)

Ben Barren: Recap of hesaid-shesaid Australia’s own Sarah Lacy moment (Ben also didn’t attend but adds thoughts to the debate.

Francis Pisani (Le Monde blog):

Blogalaxie: “future des medias” et “rumeurs” – Francis’s comments on the future of journalisms blog discussion stemming from the event.

I’ll be weighing in on the future of journalism debate (including notes from the outstanding Silicon Valley panel discussion) as soon as I get a chance…

Quick review of social media coverage of Future of Media Summit

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I’ll do some more detailed reflections on the Future of Media Summit tomorrow. I’m just about to fall over after a very long day, but thought I’d post a few important social media references and commentary on the event.

First stopping point has to be the Future of Media Summit Blog, where participants have been busily posting all day, notably:

Participant roundtables in Sydney:

Mobile Media and Content

Future of Media and Television

Flow Economy/ Media Strategy Workshop in Silicon Valley:

Yahoo!

CBS

Reviews of panel discussions:

Global Media Strategies – 1

Global Media Strategies – 2

CEO Panel – 1

CEO Panel – 2

Future of TV and video – by Mark Pesce 1

Future of TV and video – by Mark Pesce 2

Future of Privacy and Targeted Advertising

Future of Journalism (Sydney)

Unconference sessions:

New Media – 1

New Media – 2

Twitter comments:

See the Summize search for Twitters with the #fom08 tag – literally hundreds of Twitters from attendees at the Future of Media Summit (which included a Twitter 101 session during the Unconference session in Sydney).

Live video:

The Ustream video from Phil Morle

All this will give you a good feel for the event from the perspective of participants. I’ll provide some of my thoughts soon.

In previous years the Summit blog has continued to be active for quite a while after the event as discussions continue online – hopefully this will be the case this year too! Subscribe to the blog to keep up with the conversation.

Metarand: Podcast interview on the future of media and the value of frameworks…

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Rand Leeb-du-Toit, the indefatigable entrepreneur and social media evangelist, is very consistently producing interesting insights on the emerging tech landscape at his blog Metarand – well worth a look or subscribe!

Last week Rand interviewed me for a podcast – go to the post to listen to the interview. We primarily discussed my thoughts leading into the Future of Media Summit, looking at the broad landscape of what’s happening in the media landscape.

What I like most about being interviewed is that I often learn from my own answers. Rand wrote:

The biggest takeout: he uses frameworks to synthesize his pattern recognition and as a communication tool for exploring trends and the potential paths we will follow in the future.

I am very frequently asked how I keep on top of so much information and make sense of it. It was only when Rand asked the question of how I go about ‘pattern recognition’ that I realized how central is the role of the frameworks I create, which are as much for myself as for others. Of the collection of frameworks in the Future of Media Report 2008, released last week, unquestionably my favorite is the Future of the Media Lifecycle framework, which pulled together many of the loose thoughts floating around in my head.

Future of Media Drinks in Sydney tomorrow – all welcome!

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After the Future of Media Summit in Sydney tomorrow speakers and participants will be gathering at the Firehouse in North Sydney from 5:30pm for drinks and general post-event conviviality. We’ve simply named it as a spot for all to gather to grab a drink, so anyone is welcome to turn up, irrespective of whether they’ve attended the Summit or not.

Venue details and directions are here.

I will be in Silicon Valley for the US side of the event and long since in bed after a long day, so will miss out on all the fun, but the Future of Media Summit Sydney Chair, Jenny Williams of Ideagarden, and Jessica Hough and Julian Hill from Future Exploration Network will be there to welcome you and say hi. Pass on word to whoever you wish. Have a great time if you make it along! I’ll hear all about it afterwards…

Launch of Future of Media: Strategy Tools framework

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The third key framework from Future of Media Report 2008 (after Future of the Media Lifecycle and 7 Driving Forces Shaping Media) is the Future of Media: Strategy Tools framework.

This lays out three of the most valuable tools for building strategy in the media and adjacent industries. The high-level overviews are intended to provide some useful introductions to relevant strategy tools for those engaged in the front-line of creating and implementing strategies in an extraordinarily dynamic environment.

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Flow Economy Framework

The central framework used here is the Flow Economy framework that I first described in Chapter 7 of Living Networks (free download of chapter 7 here).

The chart gives an overview of the process of using the Flow Economy framework for media strategy, illustrated by brief examples of the strategies adopted by Apple, BSkyB, and NTT DoCoMo.

Scenario Planning for Media

A high-level example of the scenario planning process is described as applied to media, together with a scenario framework that is particularly relevant in the current environment.

Game Theory: Strategies for Openness

Traditional approaches to strategy are having to change as the industry landscape moves at a rapid pace to openness. One of the most powerful tools available to address these issues is game theory.

Future of Media Summit blog: Mark Pesce on iPhone phails, Tom Abate on future of journalism, insights from other speakers and participants…

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Every event we do, we run a blog for all speakers and participants. Since Future of Media Summit 2007 we’ve maintained the Future of Media blog on an ongoing basis, including my blogging activity on the future of media.

As we approach the Future of Media Summit 2008, the Future of Media Summit blog is taking off as a forum for fantastic contributions and ideas on the future of media. Summit speakers and participants are now posting, and we can expect some fantastic conversations on the event blog up to, during, and after the Summit next week.

Some recent highlighted posts with brief excerpts:

Mark Pesce on iPhail: A fantastic, detailed post on what is wrong with Australia’s iPhone plans.

Never in my five years in Australia have I seen such a complete failure in marketing. Three Australian telcos – Optus, Telstra and Vodafone – have the device. All of them have completely failed to recognize the pent-up demand for the device, and the way it will change network usage. This was revealed – beyond all doubts – in the way they released their pricing plans, and the specifics of those plans.

…

We could name our MVNO the Future AUstralian Carrier, or FAUC.

Don’t like your plan from Telstra, or Vodafone, or Optus? Well, get FAUC.

Yes, we’d still have to deal with Apple, we’d still have to promise them 10% of the operating revenues from iPhone, if we wanted to retail it on FAUC, but we could at least be completely transparent about our costs. Customers (that is, us) would understand where every dollar spent on FAUC went. That, in itself, would likely engender tremendous loyalty from the base of users – which would bring more users in, a slow tidal wave, as people abandoned the big-name carriers for a crazy mob of Australians who decided to do it themselves.

So… who’s in?

Mark Pesce (again) on Another Planet, Utterly Unlike Our Own.

This is the risk Disney takes when it uses old-fashioned business models in a thoroughly modern world. They may squeak by this time, and perhaps the next, but one day – and for the rest of time – that tactic will fail them. They’ll lose their market window, because they misunderstood the audience.

Tom Abate on Take me to your leader. Reflections from a life in journalism on where it’s going.

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Launch of the Future of Media Report 2008! We predict the media industry will be worth US$5.7 trillion in 2024

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Our Future of Media Report 2008 is now launched! (See also our extremely popular Future of Media Report 2007 and Future of Media Report 2006).

This will be given to attendees at the Future of Media Summit 2008 next week in beautiful glossy print format to take home. If for some reason you are NOT attending the Summit, you’ll have to settle for a digital version with small print-outs of the spreads (unless you happen to have a large-format printer handy…) :-)

This year we’ve taken a slightly different approach, moving away from providing statistics, and focusing on developing three frameworks to help people think about the future of media and engage in constructive conversations at the Summit. We’ve always found we get a fantastic response to our frameworks, so we focused on this as a way to create value with the report.

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Future of Media Report 2008 (pdf 1MB)

A quick overview of the report contents:

WELCOME

An introduction to the report. The full text is at the bottom of this post.

MEDIA: A GROWTH MARKET

Contains our prediction that the global media and entertainment market will grow from US$1.7 trillion this year to US$5.7 trillion in 2024 (in 2008 dollars) – released in this report – as well as information on current growth trends in advertising.

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New Framework: Seven Driving Forces Shaping Media

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[UPDATE:] The complete Future of Media Report 2008 is now available.

We are releasing our new framework: Seven Driving Forces Shaping Media.

This is the second framework we are releasing in the lead-up to the Future of Media Summit 2008, which will be held next week simultaneously in Silicon Valley and Sydney. This and other content will be used to provide a starting point for discussion and conversation.

The first was the Future of the Media Lifecycle, which has already attracted substantial links and commentary. In the next days another framework on strategic tools will be released, as well as the complete Future of Media Report 2008, including all three frameworks and additional content.

Seven Driving Forces Shaping Media (pdf 700KB):

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Even more new speakers: Belinda Rowe – Zenith Optimedia, Stephen Hollings – News Limited, Bruce Meagher – SBS, Jane Schulze – The Australian, Willie Pang – Yahoo!, Jim Waltz – Traffic Marketplace, Brian Lott, Burson-Marsteller etc…

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Adding to my last post on the fabulous list of new confirmed speakers at Future of Media Summit 2008 …

See the full line-up of media leaders speaking at the event.

Others recently confirmed for the event include:

Belinda Rowe, CEO Australia of Zenith Optimedia, one of the top few media buying groups globally, with very detailed insights into media industry structure.

Stephen Hollings, CEO, News Digital Careers, who has probably the broadest understanding of the classifieds market in Australia.

Jane Schulze, Media Editor, The Australian. The Media & Marketing section of The Australian is the most widely read media publication in the country.

Bruce Meagher, Director Strategy at SBS, Australia’s multicultural public broadcaster, which has adopted a variety of new initiatives.

Willie Pang, Head of Yahoo! Search Marketing, previously worked on Yahoo!’s Panama project and has very international perspectives.

Jim Waltz, President, Traffic Marketplace, one of the leading advertising networks.

Brian Lott, SAP Global Client Leader, Burson-Marsteller, one of the leading PR firms globally.

Check out our Future of the Media Lifecycle framework, just released. More research and analysis posted here soon.

Hope to see you at the Summit!