When publisher Hubert Burda stepped on to the stage of the DLD conference yesterday, photographers and camera teams were pushing each out of the way. The Munich media conference is one of the highest-profile media events that take place in Germany.
Executives from Facebook, Google, Bing and LinkedIn attended the conference as speakers or guests, as well as entrepreneurs such as Niklas Zennstroem of Skype, or Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, alongside journalists such as Guardian columnist and online journalism professor Jeff Jarvis and US technology writer Dan Gilmore.
"What we are trying with the DLD at the beginning of each year is to discuss with the best minds what will come," said Burda's DLD founders, Marcel Reichart and Stephanie Czerny, in their introduction. And more than 1,000 people came to listen.
For Reichart and Czerny, 2010 marks the beginning of a new decade, which they emphasise with this year's motto, "Let's map the future". Singer Donovan reminded visitors that it might not be so new with a T-shirt reading "The social web is the new Sixties".
DLD: Hubert Burda. Photograph: Mercedes Bunz
Burda isn't really in the mood for jokes. For publishing houses these are serious times, indeed. In his keynote he stressed the historical moment, comparing the internet to fundamental changes that were triggered by the advent of the Gutenberg press.
However, he was eager to see both sides: "The internet, like the printing press, has an incredible upside and a incredible downside. With the news magazine Focus we were among the first who printed information directly from computer to plate. Experiencing this I immediately knew that computerisation would change the whole Gutenberg world."
Burda's publishing house is doing what a lot of news organisations do: it cross-invests the money, to stabilise their core companies via other investment.
"Newspapers and magazines will not go away, but they have to change incredibly," he said. "In my company we have taken all the profit and invested it in a digital holding. We invested it in more than 40 companies and activities, that produce a revenue stream of €600m a year."
"For new organisations, online is still a lousy business, but we can find other places where the business is. Focus Online is profitable but through ecommerce and not through advertising. Maybe the marketing network Glam.com is something totally new."
Finally he stressed his concerns about Google – which are different from those of Rupert Murdoch. "All the advertising is gone to Google and we make a long face," he said. Burda is eager to learn. Google sent some top executives to the DLD, among them the vice-president of search product and user experience, Marissa Mayer.
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