As we wrote about President Bush’s address yesterday, IOI is spending two days at the President of Israel Shimon Peres’s Facing Tomorrow conference.
While yesterday’s events centered around political issues, today’s festivities focused more on the business environment in Israel. Google (GOOG) founder, Sergey Brin kicked off a panel focused on the future of the Internet and new media. In a somewhat disappointing and disjointed rambling, Brin said that he was amazed at the corporate growth he’s seen in Israel in just a few years since his last trip. The search giant has two operating research centers in Haifa and Tel Aviv. (see our coverage of what’s going on here in Israel for Google).
Brin said that the evolution in both web and cellular technology augers for a future in which we’re even more connected, that we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg so far. This evolution of technology, according to Brin, is just an extension of the human spirit working toward quality of life improvements.
Next up was Sue Decker, president of Yahoo (YHOO). In an engaging talk, Decker looked at where we’ve come from and where were headed. Her thesis was that the more things change, the more they really stay the same — amidst all the enabling going on, the more consumers just want to simplify and connect to those people who are important to them. She said while 1.3 billion people currently use the Internet monthly, it leaves a lot of growth ahead of us. Technology according to Decker is helping to bring borders down.
Decker quoted some figures:
- Did you know that 12% of recent newlyweds in the US last year met online? I didn’t. That’s an amazing, staggering figure.
- We send 9 trillion emails per year
- Yahoo has 10 billion reviews on Yahoo Music.
As to the future of media, Yahoo’s president said we’re moving from mass media to my media to our media while individual consumers are becoming their own content monarchs. Transparency is becoming more important to publishing agendas. In an interesting aside, Decker said that with 500m users per month, Yahoo is the largest social network although not nearly the most useful. Because of this, Yahoo is focusing on bringing all their disparate properties, content and activities and trying to bring them all together with one button. Yahoo will be focused on 3 things going forward: 1) creating open platforms where consumers define how, when and where they consume content, 2) really personalized content filters, and 3) establishing a stronger linkage between online and offline worlds.
News Corp (NWS) CEO and media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, spoke to the crowd about freedoms. He believes tech destroys obsolete business models. Murdoch really feels that we are on the cusp of a golden age of information with the human element becoming more and more important. He spoke about the importance of building strong human capital, part of his motivation for investing in NDS (NNDS), previously News Data Systems. He said it was started by four guys in a Jerusalem apartment and now NDS employs over 1,000 in Jerusalem along and is the largest R&D center in Jerusalem.
Terry Semel, previous CEO of Yahoo, closed the session. He described the differences in Silicon Valley work culture to the boardrooms of Warner Bros. boardrooms which he resided over during his 20 year career in the media industry. “Facilities of the past” were nowhere to be found in a more equal work environment in the Valley. On his first day at Yahoo, he had no reserved parking space and no private dining room and chef. He cited a famous memo sent in the 1950s by Jack Warner who advised his employees to steer clear from the nascent television guys. 9 months later another memo went out explaining Warner’s desire to be the biggest in TV. Semel praised his ability to see the bigger picture and not fight change. He too thought we were entering the best years for both premium content as well as for user-generate content (UGC).
Disclosure: Author’s fund has no position in any stock mentioned as of 5/14/08 but author and his family own GOOG stock.
