The next presentation was from Joshua Hatch, the online content manager at Sunlight Live, a part of the Sunlight Foundation, and which uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. He talked about the importance of data and what can be done with it when creative thinking is applied, especially when it is freed.

Hatch ran through numerous examples of use of data sets online to demonstrate interesting trends.

“Data are also highly personal,” Hatch said, demonstrating a site that shows all of the American deaths in the Iraq wars – enabling people to search by age, location, name, and other data points. Some of the uses are also trivial, such as the New York Times idea that got hold of data from Netflix to show which movies were most popular in what areas.

His underlying message was that as more data becomes more machine-readable, it also becomes more useful, enabling us to create more mash-ups and compare more and more data points to make better decisions.

“People constantly are trying to answer questions and respond to their immediate situation,” Hatch said.

As the author of the book Marketing in the Age of Google Vanessa Fox’s presentation focused on search marketing and the way it has changed how we gather information and become the primary tool for navigation of the Web. She suggested that site publishers should really be thinking about what consumers are actually looking for and begin to cater to this as a means of either driving traffic or providing value back to those consumers. She gave the example of a search “What time does the Superbowl start” where none of the search results led back to the NFL.

“With search being the primary tool for navigation on the Web, every page on your site becomes the home page,” Page said. “You really need to make sure that that page not only answers their question … but engages them and pulls them in based on what you want them to do.”

The first speaker at Digital Directions 2011 was Anthony Rose, former CTO at YouView and future media controller at the BBC. Rose talked about his worked in launching the iPlayer at the BBC in London, including his decision to push iPlayer out to a range of devices, starting with the Nintendo. Today it is available on almost every connected TV in the UK – 2 million now, or 6 million by the end of this year.

Rose said there are two audiences – the ones who are mainstream, and the blogosphere, who are the ones that help to create the audience. This is changing the dynamics of television, particularly the deployment of television ‘apps’ that are controlled by non-traditional broadcasting companies. He said the TV manufacturers for instance saw themselves as the new gatekeepers and take revenue as a result. And consumers don’t necessarily want to go chasing apps.

Hence there is a need for a content mall, which led to Project Canvas (which has become YouView). He described many of the attributes of YouView, such as the focus on live television and its augmentation, rather than just on-demand content.

He described the remote control of the future, with just five buttons – ‘Me’, ‘Friends’, ‘Browse’ and ‘More’, with ‘Select’ in the middle. Me is for the individual, Friends makes television social by enabling people to ‘share’ what they are viewing.

“Who is the taste-maker is vitally important,” Rose said.

Browse takes the view to the content mall to browse by category, while More will show you contextually-related content with augmented information. It could also lead to ‘Channel Me News’ put together by a server to suite what you want to watch. The question is whether that is owned by a publisher, or aggregated by a third party.

Today I’ll be (almost) live-blogging from the Digital Directions 2011 conference in Sydney. An initiative of Fairfax Media and X Media Lab, Digital Directions gathers some of the world’s foremost media speakers to present on the evolution of the global media industry.

After an introduction from Fairfax’s Jack Matthews the day was kicked off by recently-appointed Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood, who stated that Fairfax has to be immersed and has to contribute to the digital transformation of media. Fairfax Digital will soon to be the second largest revenue earner in Fairfax Media.  The company has more than 1 million apps downloaded, 200 websites, and twice the mobile traffic of its largest competitor, News Limited. He also reiterated Fairfax’s commitment to quality journalism.

Most media companies are exploring the concepts of audience, a few like Fairfax, are taking that one step further and thinkingg about audience in terms of experience,” he said. “We have an understand of what is driving people to access news, views and content, and why and when they are using the various devices they are using. The key to this is high quality content.”

He also talked about art, with the meeting of science and art being where the giant leaps are made.

“In the media landscape we must embrace left and right brain thinking” Hywood said.