Summit Notebook

from MediaFile:

GlobalMedia-3D? After some thought, News Corp COO likes its future

To our surprise, News Corp President and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey, whose studio released the highest grossing movie of all time in 3D, hesitated when asked about the future of that technology.

Carey, speaking at the Reuters Global Media Summit in New York, was asked whether he rated a series of technologies "long" or "short" and raced through most of the list without hesitating until faced with 3D.

"Ummm ... (pause) ... long, but long with limits," Carey said of 3D. "I don't think it's (high definition), so those who sort of think it's the second coming of HD, I think it is an event medium that's for films, for sports events."

Twentieth Century Fox film studio released "Avatar" last year with new 3D technology, grossing $2.8 billion globally. However, clunky 3D glasses are one thing many believe will hold back the technology's acceptance in the home.

"(3D) will be out there, but until you've tackled the glasses thing I think people aren't popping home at 7 o'clock at night, 8 o'clock at night and popping on (3D) glasses to watch TV," Carey added. "The richness of that experience is real, but I think as long as it's got the glasses it becomes an event, so somewhere where it becomes more seamless without the glasses so we should probably just say long." 

For the record, Carey, who addressed the future of MySpace, was also long on tablets, social media and apps. Meanwhile, he was short on gesture interfaces like Microsoft's Kinect, physical media like Blu-ray DVDs and bypassing cable or pay-TV subscriptions by watching everything on the Internet.

(Reuters photo)

Is Rupert Murdoch toast?

Rupert Murdoch may have a sprawling empire and may be one the media industry’s last moguls but sometimes a small trust-owned outfit can show the big guys how it’s done. And what does that say about the future? Read for yourself. “The Guardian has been a fanastic innovator online, absolutely amazing innovator,” said David Levin, Chief Executive of United Business Media UBM at the Reuters Media Summit.”The big debate is how does Rupert Murdoch’s approach, saying I’m going to try and come off the search engines play, contrast with what the Guardian may or may not do. The Guardian is at the other end of the spectrum. So, you got people who are webcentric and those who say well, ooh, I don’t like that web thing, I will somehow go off line…they’re toast.” Rupert Murdoch take heed.

WSJ reporters get, dig change

We and the rest of the media world that covered News Corp and Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of Dow Jones & Co had no shortage of reporters at The Wall Street Journal telling us how bad life was going to get. Among the complaints was the paper’s increasing focus on politics and non-business news. Wasn’t this “diluting the brand” as they say in mediaspeak?

Not so, according to Robert Thomson, the former Times of London editor who now edits the Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. Business news now is concentrated in the B section of the paper (B for Business, yes, it works.), and Journal reporters are not only with the program, they’re showing a willingness to try things differently.

“It’s been fascinating. There was a presumption that people would be unwilling to change,” Thomson told us at the Reuters Media Summit. “There has been an innate enthusiasm to develop the paper, particularly to develop the relationship between the paper, WSJ.com, Dow Jones Newswires and Marketwatch.”

It’s also a good attitude to take when nearly every other news outlet you might work for is cutting jobs.

(Photo: Reuters)