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May conference focuses on digital media
Tuesday, March 05 2002
by Matthew Clark


Digital Media Intelligence will run a National Digital Media Conference in May as
the industry readies for major growth in the next 5 years. 

Minister for Public Enterprise Mary O'Rourke, TD, launched Ireland's National
Digital Media Conference (NDMC) on Tuesday, which will take place on 01 May at
O'Reilly Hall, UCD. 



The format of the NDMC has been designed to appeal to stakeholders from across
the telecommunications, media and technology sectors. Delegates will be able to
hear the views of leading figures in the digital and on-line arena and the event,
and will also participate in a variety of focused workshops. The theme of
conference is "Competitive Strategies for Survival." 



The event has been organised by Digital Media Intelligence, a joint venture
company formed by Perfect World and Hoson Publishing. Event sponsors include The
Irish Times, Ireland.com and RTE.



Keynote speakers at the conference will include Martina King, chief executive
officer of Yahoo UK & Ireland, Mary Mangan, chief operating officer of
Ireland.com, Daniel Stevenson of Jupiter MMXI, and Professor Mary Lamkin, the PJ
Carroll Professor of Marketing at UCD.



"We are trying to capture the concerns of the industry," explained Barry
O'Neill, Partner at Perfect World. "We want to create feedback on this and
create a document to voice the concerns of the digital media industry in
Ireland." He said the organisers hope to then distribute that document to the
industry and the government. "I think it's key that the industry here begin to
define itself better. There will be a real business opportunity for digital media
here in the next few years." 



Over the past year digital and on-line content companies have suffered, with some
facing a harsher environment than others. Internet-based content companies may
have faced the most difficult atmosphere with the fall of the dot.coms in mid
2000, but many analysts now say that DSL, and the convergence of television and
Internet broadcasting could change all of that. 



Last month Andy Ruane launched IrelandLive Television, a 24-hour Web based
digital news service. After launching the service Ruane told ElectricNews.Net,
"It's all about content. Some of the infrastructure may not be there, but it
will be, and now is the time to get the content out there." 



Virtually all of the large research organisations tell the same story: streaming
media, both audio and video, will see major growth in the next few years. 
Frost & Sullivan alone estimates that the revenues amassed in the European
enterprise content delivery market came to USD88.2 million in 2001, but this is
forecast to leap to USD976.1 million by 2007. 



Meanwhile Analysys forecasts that the streaming media market will be worth nearly
USD200 million in 2006 from around USD25 million in 2001. And last week
Measurecast pointed out that more than 13 million hours of music, news and other
radio programming was streamed over the Web in December. 



Further information on the National Digital Media Conference 2002 can be found at
 http://www.ndmc.info.