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December 18, 2006
My Acceptance Speech
You have probably heard by now, but if not, I am Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. According to the flattering article about me in Time Magazine, I won “for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game.” As modest and unassuming as I am, at first I thought it a bit presumptuous to prepare an acceptance speech, but then again, you never know, so I threw something together last weekend just in case:
I humbly accept this great honor. It is as much my pleasure as it is my responsibility to society and the world to take my place among my historical peers. Leading next to Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy, you will find me. When you think of blazing new trails, yes, think Lindbergh, and now also think me. MLK, Gandhi and Churchill were great men all, and I think you can tell a lot about someone by the company they keep. (Me.)
Frankly, it is an honor just to be nominated, and since I didn’t know I was nominated, winning seems all the more precious to me. I would therefore be remiss if I didn’t mention my fellow nominees and recognize their outstanding achievements, even given their relative shortcomings to being named Person Of The Year like me.
On Time Magazine’s website there was a poll asking who should be made Person Of The Year for 2006. The list included George W. Bush, Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Nancy Pelosi, Condoleeza Rice, Al Gore, Hugo Chavez and “The YouTube Guys.”
These are people of note: Some great, some terrible and some notorious, I can see how this list of nominees received some share of votes. But really, did they seize the reins of the global media, found and frame the new digital democracy, work for nothing and beat the pros at their own game? (Like me?) Of course not, though I don’t mean to impugn their fine work toward achieving whatever it is they have tried to achieve, I only point out that I applaud the editors of Time Magazine for carefully weighing the facts and then coming to the only reasonable conclusion: That I am Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year.
As I look back at my achievements this year, I am even amazed myself at all that I have accomplished:
- I blogged, often ramblingly.
- While I didn’t do it myself, I watched as Derrick podcasted because we share an office.
- I “timeshifted” broadcast programming so that I could enjoy it later. I call it “user-generated programming” though I didn’t coin the phrase unless you think maybe I did, in which case maybe I did.
- Through the power of something a small group of us people in the know call “Web 2.0,” I made a friend named Tom.
- I took a picture with my “camera phone” and shared it with some people. I called it “citizen journalism.”
- I made up a word and posted it on urbandictionary.com. This, I am told, gave me “street cred.”
- I sent a witty instant message to someone that was very entertaining yet ephemeral.
- I wrote an insightful review of a book on Amazon.com that garnered over 7 “this was helpful to me”s.
- I basically imploded the telecommunications industry when I Skyped someone in Europe. Boom. Done. Ovah.
It was a great year for me indeed. Thank you, Time Magazine.
The mobile space in 2007
I have been sayin’ it, and I think I may actually be correct now – the hottest story in the mobile space in 2007 is going to be User Generated Content. We have seen the tip of the iceberg and there is so much more to come. When you see it sinking into the world’s collective consciousness that media is about the upstream flow as much as it is about the downstream flow, you start to wonder from whence this upstream flow of media will come in the future.
Here’s a clue: The one device that I carry around with me all the time is a wireless two-way media communication device with a camcorder in it. (Yes, it consumes media of all sorts, and you can broadcast, multicast or even singlecast or whatever cast media to it, but really, with its upstream capability it is an intercasting device.)
Remember the Shawn Conahan’s Media Eras Infographic from October 2005?
Well, here we go into the mobile media era. Remember that the consumer activity of the mobile media era is “co-create.” (Yes, this is according to me, and the Infographic is completely unvetted and does not even exist on wikipedia yet. But it looks right, doesn’t it?)
Can what Time Magazine described as essentially an unregulated mess of low-production value content coexist with the current carrier-dominated landscape? You bet it can.
Remember the User-Generated Content Value Chain?
Certain companies, Media Networking Operators, will dominate the scene in the mobile space in 2007 by bridging the gap between the consumer behavior born on the web and the device for which it is best suited. The story isn't going to be "What is MySpace doing in the mobile space?" That story has been written, and it went about how we expected it to go. The real story of 2007 is "What is the mobile industry doing in user-generated content?" There are hundreds of ways to capitalize on this trend, and the opportunity by no means ends with one deal with one company.
That said, as a marker that we are headed in the right direction, it was great to see MySpace launch on Cingular today. It is certainly better than their WAP product (the fault going to WAP of course, not to MySpace, there is only so much you can do with WAP) and the simple UI gets done what you want to get done in a mobile environment.
Now I expect that the carriers in general will want to rev the social networking experience in general significantly from this first step, and we should see all manner of social networking, media networking, community, sharing and mobile media applications spring to life in 2007. Good times.
I am glad that I am Time Magazine’s POTY, because now I can really start influencing what happens in the mobile space. ;-) More importantly, I am excited at the flood of fresh ideas we are about to see in user-generated content in 2007.
Posted by Shawn Conahan at December 18, 2006 06:47 PM
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Comments
Look for carriers to offer their own branded user generated content platform using Infospace
will need to be sponsored platform though
Posted by: todd at December 20, 2006 06:20 PM