I’ll attending X Media Lab Global Media Ideas 2011 today, the Sydney outing of the global digital media and ideas conference and workshops. For many years Brendan Harkin and Megan Elliott have been gathering together the world’s most interesting thinkers and do-ers in the world of digital media. I’m hoping to live blog some of the sessions, but will be stepping out for some to film a series of videos for Creative Industries Innovation Centre.

After a welcome on behalf of the traditional owners of the land, and from the NSW deputy premier Andrew Stoner, the first presentation for the day was given by Tim Chang, principal of the Silicon Valley venture investor Norwest Venture Partners.  The firms is managing about US$4 billion in assets, and raised its last US$1.2 billion fund in 2009. The firm has funded more than 500 companies n its 50 year history, with 70 active companies in its portfolio today. Chang talked about the basis of venture investing, which represents the early-stage, high risk/high return part of the investment cycle. He talked about the VC sector has heated up significantly in the past couple of years, with some investors now looking to get into hot deals at any price. There are fewer stock market listings today though in comparison to the dotcom boom, and many companies do not have the equity to buy out VC-backed companies. This has created more space for a secondary market for companies like Digital Sky Technologies and Softbank, who are helping founders achieve liquidity earlier than they might otherwise. He also talked about the rise of the super angels who have moved beyond private investment to create their own investment funds for earlier stage investment, particularly in consumer-focused Web start-ups, and are filling in the gap as VCs have moved up into larger deals. His main message was that the traditional roles are changing, with half of today’s VCs having disappeared within five years as super angels step up.

He also talked about what VCs talk about after the pitch. He cited the three Ts – team, traction and tier-one co-investors. One of the questions he asks entrepreneurs is do they want to be rich of famous – meaning do they want control, or do they want to create shareholder value. Someone who wants to be rich may be more willing to step aside for someone more qualified. early stage VCs are talent scouts with cheque books. Later VCs chase momentum, and may push an investment to an early exit.

He also gave tips on what entrepreneurs should ask VCs, who are really just selling capital. Can they help build a team, can they bring in advisers and directors, do they know the market, can they help with product and positioning and open doors. Can they give some branding to attract follow-up funding. And most importantly, can they help manufacture an exit.

What’s next? Chang said we are moving from Web 1.0 to the idea of the Web being dead – the silos are going away, and layers are emerging in mobile, social, game mechanics, and so on, and the emerge of platform brands such as Facebook, AdMeld, FreeWheel, Zynga, Hulu, Tumblr, Groupon, Gilt, Mint, Lending Club and Fund DNA, and many more. Who to invest in? Look for who is selling the tools to enable these platforms to work. Content is kind, but distribution is God Almighty. Apps are moving more and more to a freemium model, with in-app monetisation now the preferred strategy. It is also worth looking at the Seven Deadly Sins as a source of motivation. Chang is also a big fan of game mechanics as a means of motivating people towards a desire outcome – beating a high score is a strong motivator. What would your life or your busienss look like if it was a game? The new acronym is MoSolLo – Mobile Social location.

What is not hot – systems and infrastructure; enterprise software; consumer and Internet site such as ad-only sites  and early social gaming ideas, group buying services, and Facebook, check-in and Twitter extensions.

If you’ve not got yourself a ticket for X Media Lab’s Global Media Ideas conference day being held at the Sydney Opera House on June 10 then get in quick. For many years now XML has been the premiere event showcasing Australian and international digital creativity. Speakers this year include leading Silicon Valley investor Tim Chang, Human League and Heaven 17 founder Martyn Ware, Google Earth co-creator and Emdigo CEO Christopher Tanner and Gowalla business development manager Andy Ellwood. Hope to see you there!

I’m speaking at the CeBIT eGovernment forum later this afternoon, so I’ve decided to catch as many sessions as possible while also going for a wander around the show floor later.

The first speaker for the eGovernment forum was the federal Special Minister of State, the Hon. Gary Gray, whose presentation who talked about the role of technology in driving productivity gains, including his own experiences in his home in regional WA. Gray also referenced the National Digital Economy Strategy launched by the National Digital Economy Strategy launched by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator the Hon. Stephen Conroy.

Gray was followed by the Australian Australian Government chief information officer, Ann Steward. She opened by referencing the McKinsey Global Institute report of May 2011 which includes some interesting statistics regarding the important of the Internet to various developed economies, and talked about the ongoing role of AGIMO in driving the eGovernment agenda. She also talked about the government’s work with numerous agencies on benchmarking, to ensure that the investments being made are delivering productivity gains. Government spending on IT has been stable for the past three years while service delivery has improved, and the government has been encouraging telepresence within government departments. Other topics covered were the need to progress the data.gov.au strategy of making government data available to external parties, and AGIMO’s cloud strategy to provide a new platform for IT procurement. And finally she discussed the government’s strategy for managing location-based information, with the goal of ‘spatially-enabling’ the Australian government.

The final session at KANZ 2011 that I attended today was given byLeo Jun (@uberlab), director of the media platform diviosn in the personal media business at Korea’s SK Telecom. His presentation, Screens are everywhere, what about your content?, focused on SK Telecom’s hoppin service, which seeks to solve the problem of consumers being bombarded with too much content.

It’s solution is to enable users to move their experience for watching content from one device to another – ie, a program being watched on a mobile device can seamlessly be transferred to another screen as suits the consumer. The service can also make recommendations to consumers to help them find content based on their user behaviour, and they can also search based on emotional keywords such as ‘horrific’ or ‘heartwarming’.

The service also enables the mobile phone to be used as a settop box, with the TV just acking as a big, dumb screen. Using a cradle the phone basically takes over the TV with content automatically reformatted. It is also possible to get content information sent to your tablet PC as you watch.

The first session after lunch focused on digital media and entertainment, with the first presentation given by David Gurney, co-founder of Blue Rocket Productions. David talked about the company’s history developing multimedia entertainment, and how the economics of production have become harder as the media has become more advanced.

He also talked about the difficulty inherent in looking into the digital entertainment industry’s future.

“We are in a market where it is getting harder to tell the true innovators from the people who are just good marketers, and audiences are moving away from channel loyalty to brand loyalty,” Gurney said. “Audiences are slipping away from television into Facebook, or into World of Warcraft. So the advertisers know this and are pulling their money and putting it into online where they can quantify their results through use of metadata. So that leaves the broadcasters with less money for commissioning, which means the audiences are offered less and are moving even more online. As content producers we are constantly wondering how we can monetise a space that is becoming more and more fragmented.”

Furthermore, the new gatekeepers have not come from a traditional TV background- they are telecommunications companies and device makers.

There are upsides however.

“The future, particularly with faster broadband, will enable us to exchange ideas very quickly with international partners,” Gurney said.

The second presentation was given by Evan Manolis, group senior product manager for AV at Samsung Electronics Australia. He discussed the company’s three year process to bring convergence technologies and content to televisions. He said the television is now very much an entertainment hub, and his company has partnered with some of the biggest content partners in Australia. Moving forward about a third of Samsung’s televisions will be Internet-connected smart TVs.

He also talked about the Your Video function that is now embedded into TVs.  The service has access to tens of thousands of videos that can be bought as you please on a pay-per-view basis. In  Australia however there is a lack of content providers, can tie into freinds’ recommendations through Facebook, and also integrate your own video content.

He also described Samsung as one of the new gatekeepers described by Gurney. The company has brought sport to its TVs through its tie-up with Telstra Bigpond, and is signing up other content details across Australia. Eventually Samsung will enable Australians to watch foreign television stations live on its television over the Internet.

I’m currently attending the annual Korea-Australia-New Zealand (KANZ) Broadband Summit in Hobart, and tomorrow morning will be giving the breakfast address.I’ll be blogging selectively throughout the day, and it is also being streamed live.

After a brief welcoming address from Professor Mike Miller, emeritus professor at the University of South Australia, the opening speech was given by Australia’s Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy. The Senator talked about the long history of friendship between Australia, New Zealand and Korea, and the partnerships that have been formed, including one between Korea and CSIRO. The Australian animation company Crewjo also got a mention for its alliance with a Korean company for the production of educational content. He also talked about the partnership between Australia and New Zealand to reduce trans-Tasman mobile roaming charges.

He also talked about the start differences in the deployment of broadband between the three counties – Australia and New Zealand being in the middle of their next-generation broadband deployments, while Korea is recognised as a world leader in broadband. He said it was fitting that the conference be held in Tasmania, where the National Broadband Network first went live.

he also talked about how Australia’s productivity performance has slowed to 1.4 percent, from almost double that in the previous decade.

“Ubiquitous high speed broadband is the key to the nation’s economic and social future, and the key to participating in the digital economy,” he said. “(High-speed broadband) drives productivity. It will connect Australians to each other, and the world.”

His address was followed by one from Mr See Joong Choi, the chairman, Korean Communications Commission, who talked about the changes the have occurred in Korea as a result of the introduction of broadband technology into Korea.

“Our three nations have a common goal of pursuing economic development and the advance of digital culture with high-speed broadband infrastructure,” he said. “The Korean government has established three mid to long term development projects since 1995 to roll out an ultra-fast broadband network.  These network upgrading projects will not only support the expansion of a smart society, but lay the foundation for the development of a digital economy.”

He also discussed the idea that unless Korea develops a culture of being able to capture the benefits of these network developments – it is the applications and services that are vital, and they must be the focus of ongoing development. Society must als be educated as to the issues of cyber-safety as more and more of its actions move online. Finally, he talked about the role that broadband can play in reducing greenhouse emissions through the use of ICT for energy saving activities, particularly the use of cloud computing.

The final opening address was given by Hon. Steven Joyce, the New Zealand Minister for Communications and Information Technology. Mr Joyce talked about New Zealand’s Ultra-Fast Broadband network deployment, which is occurring in partnership with the private sector and aims to deliver high speed broadband to 75 percent of the population by 2019.  The country is also deploying a rural network, the Rural Broadband Initiative, for high-speed access in regional areas, which aims to give at least 5 Mbps to more than 80 percent of regional areas. Altogether the two networks will give high speed broadband to more than 90 percent of the nation’s population.