The second keynote of the morning is with Rob Hyndman and Dr. Michael Geist, who will be chatting about the web and society. Here are my notes, with my comments again in italics. I think Michael looks a little like Billy Crystal.

• Oooh a slidedeck! Michael Geist is opening with a presentation, and he’s using pictures on slides just like we saw at Northern Voice. Seems to be a popular format. He’s talking about Sam Bulte and the copyright fiasco that happened over the holidays. He’s an excellent speaker. I guess the bloggers defeated Bulte in the last election. Or did they?
• Three lessons we can draw: new voices, new stakeholders, new copyright.
• There is a tendency at times to focus on the negativity of what’s taking place (spam, porn, etc). There is some remarkable stuff taking place: content creation, content sharing, good news story.
• Readership of papers is flat in Canada, in decline in the US.
• Canadian retail sales of books remain constant. Records for vide games. Declines for music.
• “What is more long tail than Canadian content?”
• Michael’s question is what’s the policy to ensure this great stuff continues, and in fact, to encourage it?

Now we’re getting to the conversation.

• Rob says “after hearing Michael speak, I feel like going out to run a marathon, the world is gonna be okay.” Agreed.
• We’re looking at new legislation being introduced probably this fall. Michael says that US-style law is protection for things like DRM. The tools and laws don’t work.
• What about iTunes, it requires DRM, doesn’t that tell us something? Michael says it tells us something about the labels, only willing to do it when DRM came around. It will be unfortunate if we end up in a world with only iTunes.
• Where is the Canadian content? Apple doesn’t need to negotiate deals with the smaller companies, so these things are missing.
• We saw some movment in France to try and rollback DRM, are there signs that there is some flexibility? Michael says users already have control over content, the question is whether we’re going to lock them up for it. A growing number of countries are recognizing that policies put into place in the 1990s are outdated, and don’t reflect the current state of the web.
• We’re seeing a move to a more collaborative method of content creation. What does this tell us about the ideal model of intellectual property protection? Rob says he isn’t anti-copyright, but we need to understand that some of the reforms are not about copyright, but protecting markets. DVD region encoding, for example, has nothing to do with copyright.
• Question from the floor: do we need new copyright policy in Canada or not? Michael says the starting point is “do no harm.” There are some opportunities: we have a fairly limited fair use right, which is stifling to new business, for example. There is an opportunity to do good, but we can do a lot of harm along the way.
• What is the current political reality? The Canadian Recording Industry is about as good a lobbying group as there is. When musicians finally speak out, it’s a breath of fresh air, but you can’t undo twenty years of lobbying in two weeks. Matthew Good and the Barenaked Ladies are leaders in this space. There’s a new coalition of artists.
• Question about the SOCAN levies: Michael says their vision of levies really went to liabilities. It’s unlikely we’ll see a lot of people push in that direction.
• Another question: Do you see young people getting more politically active if their fun is limited? Michael says it is tough to say, but if there is an issue, this is it. More and more people are starting to see this as their issue, for example, the musicians.
• Michael says there will unquestionably be infringements, but that’s why we have a system, so that we have a set of rules and we have certain abilities when someone clearly violates. This may be a very smart room, but none of us is smart enough to see what the world will look like in a few years. But I would argue that all of us is smart enough, the wisdom of crowds!
• This is not just a copyright issue, net neutrality plays a big role. Michael says it is absolutely an issue here in Canada, for example, what happened with Telus during the lockout. If you have economic incentive to block content, and no laws in place to say you can’t use market power to do that, then we’ve got problems.
• Michael says we need to rethink policies that are developed with the idea that everyone will want incentive (say getting paid for blogging).

Here are some notes from the first keynote of the day, featuring Om Malik and a discussion between Om and Mark Evans of the National Post. Items in italics are my thoughts and comments. They are discussing the future of media:

• Kind of cool, two green couches up on stage for this conversation.
• Can the old world of media survive, and if so, how do they adopt? Om says he doesn’t see the difference between old world and new world at all. As long as the information is delivered.
• Traditional media faces challenges because some people simply shouldn’t be in the traditional publishing business Om says. He thinks it would be impossible to replace things like the NY Times or National Post or WSJ.
• Are bloggers journalists? Om says people in that debate have too much time on their hands.
• Mark says a lot of newspapers are still struggling with the online business model. If they haven’t been able to embrace the web, how can they embrace blogs and podcasts and things? Om says if they don’t, they face a bigger problem, which is a whole new generation that only consumes their news online (sounds a lot like me).
• Om says that Forbes.com is really saving Forbes’ bacon right now.
• The hundreds of newspapers that will disappear are probably bad newspapers, Om thinks. It won’t be papers like the New York Times – “that said, I’ll be glad to see a lot of newspapers go.”
• Om says blogs are killing off the trade press more than anything.
• Mark asks about television, watching what you want when you want? Om says the mainstream market doesn’t really care, there haven’t been that many Tivos sold. He says TV is still a passive medium, people just want to sit there and watch whatever’s on, for the most part. Regular people don’t care about Tivo’s.
• Apparently Mark Evans likes The Sopranos, and has a bunch recorded on his PVR, ready to watch. I’ve still never seen an episode of that show.
• Mark asks about the Three C’s – credibility, content, and cash.
• Om says getting discovered is harder than attaining credibility. People can make judgement calls if they find the blog. Credibility comes from the content you create, and in the end, people recognize what’s good and what’s bad.
• Mark thinks newspapers can survive in local markets, for local advertisers. Om thinks there is an opportunity for local-focused startups.

And now, some questions from the floor.

• Are we underestimating the capacity of the day-to-day world of print, where you basically have a free license to spam?
• What about Craigslist? Om says the newspapers are up against free classifieds, but otherwise, Craigslist is a different kind of beast.
• “When information is free, the only thing of value is point of view.” Do you think that’s a helpful paradigm? Om says context is more valuable, you have to put everything in context, and most of the time, people fail to do this. People confuse opinion with context. Om says context is the single biggest thing missing in the news today.
• Imagine a future in which you get the news on a digital paper. How far are we from that world? Om has no clue.
• About the economics of blogging – how is one to establish themselves financially? (Boris Mann beside me says, join a network, next question! Agreed.) Om says he is part of Federated Media, which is an aggregated network. What we need is a new kind of advertising paradigm. Om says advertising is seriously lagging in the blogging space. Mark remarks that many reasons people blog now are not financial, they just want to get their point of view out there.
• Question about net neutrality. Om says from a blog publishing point of view, its not much of an issue. Mark wonders if it is a way for traditional media to protect themselves online, because they can pay. Om says there is room for independent media, they don’t need to be streaming high def!
• Question about transitioning from tradtitional newspaper to online. Om says lifestyle, sports, and business support the paper. In the online world, you can finetune things, maybe using AP or Reuters for international news instead of your own team. Om says the concept of magazines is not going away anytime soon.
• How do we effectively change that paradigm of advertising. I can turn off my ads on a website using Firefox – how do advertisers deal with that? Om: Internet Explorer, 85% market share. I would say that since Google pretty much owns Firefox, and their business is advertising (not search!), I wouldn’t expect it to get any worse than it already is. Om says he can’t believe the number of people that click on his Google ads. Mark: “who are these people?!”
• Om says the blogs that provide value with stick around, and the ones that don’t will go away. “Every user comes with their finger poised on the back button.” Boris remarks that RSS hasn’t come up once yet. How many people in this audience visit Om’s blog on the web? Probably most use RSS.
• Ah what do you know, the next question comes up, and Om answers with RSS. The question was about monetizing information, can we actually do it? Om says in reality, there is a fundamental change happening, with a new format of information distribution and consumption, and the business model needs to be worked out.
• What does it look like in three years? Om says it will look pretty similar. NYTimes or WSJ might hire some bloggers, but things aren’t moving as fast as people think. You will see the biggest media experiment.
• Boris gets to ask a question: he says he only uses RSS, he never visits the websites. Blogs are conversations, Boris can’t have a conversation with the National Post! So no question, but just comments, but he made a good point, and Om agrees. Om says RSS is a challenge, but its a huge opportunity. Whoever can figure out a new advertising model right now stands to make a lot of money. Mark says old media is failing miserably at creating a conversation.
• Om says Web 2.0 is a new way of thinking, not some fancy new javascript bits. Is it really all about advertising? I think there’s so much more to Web 2.0.
• Seems people get their news mostly from the same services. Are you concerned about how that affects the conversation? Om says the real intelligence of blogs is in the comments.

Not surprisingly, this session went slightly over time.

Stuart MacDonald is on stage welcoming everyone to the conference. He says they want the event to be a two-way conversation, full of meshing, instead of the typical “we talk you listen” kind of conference. “Think of yourselves as participants, rather than attendees,” they say.

Introductions to the organizers, thanks to the sponsors, etc, etc. Housekeeping stuff, there is free WiFi, and there is power in the floor (though we can’t figure out how to open the panel). Please turn off your BlackBerry’s (apparently they make a clicking noise?). On with the show!

Let’s Mesh!

Just arrived here in the auditorium for Mesh 06, and I’m ready to go! I’ve got my Oilers jersey on, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst all the khakis and dress shirts, but that’s cool. I’ll have lots of pictures to post throughout the day, so check out Flickr. There’s lots of people here already, with more and more coming in.

I haven’t seen as many people I know as I did in Vancouver yet, but that’s to be expected, as most of the attendees here are probably east coasters.

It wasn’t looking good last night after I went to sleep – I woke up coughing and ended up being seriously ill. Fortunately it only lasted for about an hour. I felt fine before, and I felt fine afterward, so maybe it was something I ate? In any case, I’m back to normal.