“Digital content is replacing analog content at a frenetic pace”

The creator of the concept of the web 2.0, Tim O´Reilly, will be the star guest of the International Digital Content Forum, FICOD 2011, in which he will offer a presentation on the challenges of the media at the end of the analog era. The first person to publish a book about the Internet gives his opinion in an interview published on the Red.es website about the importance of digital content in today's society.

Do you think that the digital content industry will prevail over analog content in the near future?? Or is a kind of peaceful coexistence between the two possible??
There is no doubt that digital content is replacing analog content at a frenetic pace. I believe that most forms of digital content, including books, will become as rare as vinyl records in a surprisingly short time. Some forms of analog content, like magazines, They can survive a little longer than others, but the critical mass of buyers that maintains the cheap distribution of analog content is going to disappear.

How do you think traditional media should face the definitive leap to the primacy of digital information??
The most important thing is to ask what work they do for the user., and if it can be done better with something that is more like an application. Yes that's how it is, it will be. (Consider as an example, maps and atlases or train schedules. Applications replace the old format because they offer a better service, They are here to stay and will effectively replace the previous format).
Imagine a bird identification guide. Surely a bird identification app would do better. Even a novel can find itself competing with a game. A Harry Potter novel has more in common with a fantasy game than a technical reference manual. The analog nature of both books could make them appear to be the same. But they are not at all.
Many content producers fall by the wayside because they try to stay true to the old ways, instead of deeply rethinking what your customers really want from your products. Even when you think you've already done that, you could be wrong. For example, when I launched Safari Books online in 2000, I thought what our readers really wanted was better search and faster reference. They actually want that, but we were competing more and more with free content on the web. And it turned out that it was important for us to rethink more as a just-in-time learning platform.. It's a small but very significant difference..
It is also important to remember that we are at the beginning of the transformation of content into services (what customers really want). Consider Google Maps as an example. It has completely defeated analogue media. But you can already see the future. At the moment, we still use a map on the screen when we drive. But what happens when self-driving cars like the one Google showed off earlier this year become commonplace?? Even the interface will disappear, since the car knows how to take you where you want to go. In the same way, Apple's new voice-powered Siri service could threaten search engines like Google, some day. You always have to be alert for what is to come.

Can the user as a content generator be considered a serious competitor in the digital content industry or does professionalism prevail over amateurism??
In 2003, Clay Shirky observed that the internet is completely changing the traditional publishing model, of a model in which it is first curated and then published, to one where you publish and then curate. Anyone can create a website or blog, or post a video on YouTube. Healing happens after the fact, through search engine algorithms, or by social virality. And this is what Amazon is starting to do now with its own book publishing platform.
Of course there is a next level of curation that happens for example when something is extracted from the web to publish in a traditional media.. Marketing – building an audience and engagement with that audience, creating a network of connections and recommendations, taking your time to perfect an internet-generated product, and if, spending money promoting a product still happens in the media.
It is important to remember that crowdsourcing has always been key in many types of publications. While newspapers used to charge for their content, and some publishers (including O'Reilly) they do the same, many book publishers do it in other ways. Bloomsbury no creó Harry Potter, JK did it. Rowing, and she was a stranger. What an editor needs to do well is a kind of 'taste creation'. That is, you have to have an idea about something that matters, and then create a brand around that, marketing your tastes as well as individual products that reflect it.
A good example of O'Reilly's work in this area is Make magazine and Maker Faire. We recognized a movement, We gave it a name and then built products for that audience we identified.. Make is a multichannel that combines content subscription, in-person events that have hundreds of people, online content with advertising support and possibility of online purchase of content, equipment and materials. Much of the content is generated by the user themselves, but they get what really matters., when passing through our filter. This is true in all O'Reilly's businesses..

Do you think that, in the context of the current global economic crisis, The digital content industry is a safer business opportunity than investing in other sectors.?
History has taught us that even in the face of a global economic crisis, entertainment industries continue to hold up quite well.
Where the digital industry is not safe is in intense competition. Simply moving and existing content, online businesses are not enough. We have to think about how to move these changes online and what to do to bring them closer to the consumer and offer them what they really want.. Content providers are facing new types of competitors, such as software companies developing data services and invading the field or intermediaries becoming the competition by launching their own content. One of the biggest advantages of digital content is that you can find new customers in areas where the economy is growing.. For example, O'Reilly is expanding more internationally with the ebook business than with the print business. In print publishing we were limited to countries where we had a sales office or that fell into our distribution network.. Now we sell all over the world wherever there are people who want our products. We are constantly surprised by the level of demand from countries we would not have previously thought we could sell to..