european broadcasting union conference

I’m sitting next to BBC Manchester’s Richard Fair at Multimedia Meets Radioconference at the European Broadcasting Union in Geneva. Yes, the EBU are the people who put on the Eurovision song contest.

Michael Mullane, who seems to be the person at the EBU who drives this particular conference, is blogging it as are a few of the people sitting around me. I’ll update with links to them once I find them. I’m tagging mmr2007.

I’m also twittering and flickring.

First on stage after the introductions is Guillaume du Gardier, the Director Online Communications at Edelman, Paris. He’s a Public Relations blogger and podcaster. Guillaume’s presentation is about Web 2.0:

This is changing what the audience wants: they want to have their say, participate, create, expect you to listen to them and will complain to the world when they aren’t happy. He shows the kryptonite U-lock “drama” from engadget – where a blogger opened a supposedly undefeatable lock with a bic pen.

It’s a shift, say’s Guillaume, “… now you have (the chance) to listen, you have to share the space, you are in competition with the crowd, you might be pissed off, you’ve lost your supremacy, citizens are the reporter – it’s a movement: grassroots journalism – citizen journalism. It’s a positive shift.”

The new challenge for broadcasters? There are individuals out there with mobile phones and laptops who are faster, have lower costs, doesn’t care about boundaries, AND who has the trust of his audience. He points out Leo Laport’s Twit.tv on iTunes as a good example, also daily with joanne on Rocketboom.

To summarise… “it’s an opportunity for broadcasters: you can build relationships, benefit from an unlimited worldwide focus group, can identify talent, benefit from others ideas, you can innovate and distrubute content via new channels, etc.”

“You aren’t driving innovation – communities do.”

“You’ve got the content and the people – you are the pros. Learn how to share, build own community of supporters, involve audience… bare in mind, nothing makes a blogger or podcaster more happy than to get on TV or radio.”

Next up… P2P (which I might not blog)

Other people blogging, tagging, etc: Tuija (blog / del.icio.us) and Michael Mullane.