'E&P' Media Conference Keynote Speaker: Quality Content is Most Crucial

By: E&P Staff During his keynote address today at the E&P/Mediaweek Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas, Neil Ashe, executive vice president of strategy and development at CNET Networks Inc., spoke about how technology is driving dramatic changes in media consumption, particularly among young people. The pace of change, said Ashe, demands new approaches from businesses, especially from media companies.

"The historical media experience has to fundamentally change," said Ashe, speaking to several hundred content providers, advertisers, and media executives. "Young people today expect to control their virtual world in the palm of their hand."

He said that the key to understanding this phenomenon was to consider the media experience of people between the ages of 20 and 25 who are now finishing college and coming into the workplace. These young people, he said, have grown used to ubiquitous wireless Internet access at college, have posted a lot of personal information to social-networking sites like MySpace, and are accustomed to being connected, voracious consumers of various forms of media on various platforms all the time.

Ashe said that media companies should start thinking of audio, video, text, and photographs all just as "content" and break down the barriers that have existed between the different media in the past.

"It's the content that matters to users, not the way that we distribute it to them," he said. "Quality content is what's important. The more we invest in quality content, the longer our relationship with the user will be."

While he acknowledged the growing trend of user-generated content and blogs, he again asserted the importance of the editors and writers who create high-quality content. He noted that YouTube, where users are empowered to upload video clips, only really took off when users started posting high-quality videos of "Saturday Night Live" sketches on the site.

Ashe said he was optimistic that online ads would soon be able to support original local content and newsrooms in the future. He warned, however, that all Web sites should pay attention to the integration of advertising and content, because if the two do not mesh, each could kill the effectiveness of the other.

"Advertising is part of content and content is part of advertising," added Ashe. "How you integrate ads matters. As positive as a good integration can be, it's as damaging to the brand if the match doesn't work."

Looking to the future, Ashe asserted that the changes in media consumption will more and more be defined by users' desires and habits.

"We no longer control the form of distribution," said Ashe. "As we move into the future, the form will be defined by the user. ... Fundamentally, the expectations of the consumer are changing."

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