Seybold speakers tout human touch

These are all technology companies, to be sure. However, the respective keynotes dwelt less on new technological developments and more on how professional publishers get the job done.

Take Microsoft's Brass, for instance: Starting off with a quote from Thomas Jefferson and positioning the Microsoft Reader for e-books as the logical next step after medieval manuscripts and the Gutenberg Bible, Brass spent a major portion of his speech talking about the complex issue of digital-rights management and the necessity of copy protection for e-books.

Taking the occasional shot at Napster, he then moved on to announce a partnership between Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc., which will result in an Amazon e-book store. Yes, you guessed right: The preferred e-book reader for this new venture will come from Microsoft (msft). And, yes, Microsoft will offer readers on a variety of platforms, (including the Macintosh) -- thanks for asking.

The big question about e-books, however, isn't the one most often asked; of course people will increasingly take to e-books. What's less clear is whether people will stop using traditional books at comparable rates, and the jury is still out on that issue.

Quick question: would the Harry Potter books be a comparable phenomenon and have a similar impact on their audience if they only existed virtually?

The next speaker was Meyrowitz of San Francisco-based Macromedia (macr). Meyrowitz outlined some of the underlying trends in media usage we are witnessing today -- such as the trend from passive audience to active participant and the trend from narrowband to broadband -- and illustrated each with a cutting-edge example of site or service. (Of course, each case history was produced with Macromedia technology.)

Practically all the demos were conducted live and online. Meyrowitz even went so far as to compose and order a custom-made bag from Timbuk2 for a member of the audience and had it delivered before the end of the keynote speech.

Other examples demonstrated how the Web and broadband access could be used for interactive game shows happening concurrently online and on TV, as seen on WebRiot at MTV.

Akamai's (akam) Seelig centered his speech about the underlying issues of delivering content through a distributed-server model, which has been the company's forte for several years now.

While all three speakers headed in totally different directions, the morning's proceedings underscored one basic fact: The emerging media landscape, which has been driven by tools in its first phase, is now increasingly centered on practices. Technological problems are much less the problem than underlying issues linked to the challenges of the digital world.

And while this is happening, we all have to learn to protect our own investment in content as much as protecting our users' rights, privileges and personal data.

At the end of the day, the amount of change that will really occur in the overall use of technology will also depend on how much we are all willing to redefine our own use of media. And that's when it becomes clear that these changes are much harder to engineer than better technology solutions.

Andreas Pfeiffer is an industry analyst and editor in chief of the Pfeiffer Report on Emerging Trends and Technologies. SAN FRANCISCO -- Seybold San Francisco kicked off Monday with a special "visions of the future" keynote speech delivered by Dick Brass, vice president of technology development at Microsoft Corp.; Norm Meyrowitz, president of Macromedia Ventures; and Jonathan Seelig, vice president and co-founder of Akamai Technologies Inc.

These are all technology companies, to be sure. However, the respective keynotes dwelt less on new technological developments and more on how professional publishers get the job done.

Take Microsoft's Brass, for instance: Starting off with a quote from Thomas Jefferson and positioning the Microsoft Reader for e-books as the logical next step after medieval manuscripts and the Gutenberg Bible, Brass spent a major portion of his speech talking about the complex issue of digital-rights management and the necessity of copy protection for e-books.

Taking the occasional shot at Napster, he then moved on to announce a partnership between Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc., which will result in an Amazon e-book store. Yes, you guessed right: The preferred e-book reader for this new venture will come from Microsoft (msft). And, yes, Microsoft will offer readers on a variety of platforms, (including the Macintosh) -- thanks for asking.

The big question about e-books, however, isn't the one most often asked; of course people will increasingly take to e-books. What's less clear is whether people will stop using traditional books at comparable rates, and the jury is still out on that issue.

Quick question: would the Harry Potter books be a comparable phenomenon and have a similar impact on their audience if they only existed virtually?

The next speaker was Meyrowitz of San Francisco-based Macromedia (macr). Meyrowitz outlined some of the underlying trends in media usage we are witnessing today -- such as the trend from passive audience to active participant and the trend from narrowband to broadband -- and illustrated each with a cutting-edge example of site or service. (Of course, each case history was produced with Macromedia technology.)

Practically all the demos were conducted live and online. Meyrowitz even went so far as to compose and order a custom-made bag from Timbuk2 for a member of the audience and had it delivered before the end of the keynote speech.

Other examples demonstrated how the Web and broadband access could be used for interactive game shows happening concurrently online and on TV, as seen on WebRiot at MTV.

Akamai's (akam) Seelig centered his speech about the underlying issues of delivering content through a distributed-server model, which has been the company's forte for several years now.

While all three speakers headed in totally different directions, the morning's proceedings underscored one basic fact: The emerging media landscape, which has been driven by tools in its first phase, is now increasingly centered on practices. Technological problems are much less the problem than underlying issues linked to the challenges of the digital world.

And while this is happening, we all have to learn to protect our own investment in content as much as protecting our users' rights, privileges and personal data.

At the end of the day, the amount of change that will really occur in the overall use of technology will also depend on how much we are all willing to redefine our own use of media. And that's when it becomes clear that these changes are much harder to engineer than better technology solutions.

Andreas Pfeiffer is an industry analyst and editor in chief of the Pfeiffer Report on Emerging Trends and Technologies.