But let's not get caught up in our nostalgia for these ghosts of media past. The next generation will have a richer media experience than any other.
They'll have iPads in their earliest years, making touch interaction with text and media the norm. They'll have ebooks -- millions of them -- available anywhere, anytime. They'll live in a world of constant connectivity where media consumption becomes a truly social experience -- an act of sharing and engaging. They'll be their own publishers, editors and distributors; their own DJs. Their media consumption will be personalized, curated, customized to their specific tastes -- and yet they'll have access to a diversity of opinion much broader than before.
They'll consume more media, from more sources, and in a greater range of formats than we imagined -- news websites, live-streaming video, on-demand TV, podcasts, mobile apps, ebooks, news aggregators, video-sharing services, audiobooks, movie-streaming services, blogs, social networks, music subscriptions and a litany of formats yet to be invented.
Our generation stands between the two eras: Dismantling the old and imagining the new. What can we build together? How do we navigate this new media landscape?
There Are More Questions Than Answers
How do we engage communities in the news sourcing process while ensuring truth and accuracy? How do we empower our readers to become evangelists and marketers for our content -- without inadvertently becoming spammers? How do we direct the audience's attention in an age of constant distraction? How do we harness the explosion of user generated content -- cut through it, make sense of it, and package it for our readers, viewers or listeners?
What "packaging" should our media come in anyway? Should it be a glossy iPad magazine? A quick blog post? Do news consumers want branded experiences or would they prefer to consume our content alongside other brands in a news aggregator? Is the news article format still relevant or do we need to embrace new formats -- shorter pieces, aggregating tweets and status updates, additional multimedia, infographics and liveblogs?
What is the future of journalism? And what are the business models that sustain it? How do we prevent our content from becoming a commodity amongst millions of free news outlets? Can we charge for news? Are daily deals working for publishers? Which ad formats, techniques and innovations are working -- and which are failing?
These are the questions we need to answer. And it's for this reason we're hosting the second annual Mashable Media Summit, a conference exploring the future of media. On Nov. 4 in New York City, we've invited the media industry's leading innovators to show us what's succeeding -- and what's not -- in this new era.
The Mashable Media Summit is a chance to answer these questions, and to ask new ones -- to explore the digital age of media, and to embrace it. We hope you'll join us.
Mashable Media Summit Topics
Robyn Peterson, Mashable’s senior vice president of product, will be joined by Google’s Andrew Nash, Facebook’s Andy Mitchell and Paul Berry of Huffington Post Media Group at AOL, for a discussion about identity on the web.
Meghan Peters, community manager at Mashable, will lead a conversation on the evolving role of social media in news organizations. Joining her will be Drake Marinet from AllThingsD and Anthony DeRosa from Reuters.
Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, will explain how news organizations and journalists can influence the way in which we consume information online.
Josh Koppel, co-founder and chief creative officer at ScrollMotion, will demonstrate how emerging digital technologies are creating new opportunities for publishers.
Tor Myhren, president and chief creative officer of Grey New York, will speak about the power of creativity.
Christina Warren, entertainment editor at Mashable, will moderate a panel with Alex Iskold of GetGlue and Jesse Redinss of USA Network.
Alexis Maybank, founder and president of Gilt Groupe, will talk about a new model of e-commerce.
Tony Haile, general manager of Chartbeat will discuss how real-time analytics is changing publishing and will provide insights into new measurements.
Christy Tanner, general manager and executive vice president of TV Guide Digital will talk about the latest trends and innovations in social TV.
A Look Back at Last Year's Mashable Media Summit
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