eContent

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eContent
European Digital Content on the Global Networks

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Context and Background

• political background

economic importance of content

• eEurope Action Plan
• A cheaper, faster, secure Internet
• Investing in people and skills
• Stimulate the use of the Internet

Sheer size 4 million employees 412 b - 5 of
the EU GNP Growth rate Up to 20 per year Job
creation engine up to 1 million new jobs by 2005
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Rationale

• Political imperative Improve Europes presence
  on the internet more, better and more diverse
  content
• Economic imperative Enhance competitiveness and
  export
• Facilitate design and production of global
  (localisable) products reduce cost shorten
  time-to-market
• Enable provision of services tailored to
  national and linguistic communities
• Enable implementation of think global, act
  local strategies

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Technology Take up 2000

• Internet users
• 407 million
• Mobile telephony
• 253 million subscribers in the EU
• Penetration rates over 60 moving towards
  saturation
• GSM used by over 300 operators in 130 countries
• PCs worldwide
• 365 million worldwide, 50 penetration in the US
• Optical media
• DVD replacing the CD-ROM a content hungry
  standard!
• Digital TV
• 35 million subscribers (Europe)

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Content Industries
Global market share print publishing
Global market share electronic publishing
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The eContent Programme

• Objectives
• Improve Europes content presence on the global
  networks
• Increase information supply
• Use of public sector information
• Support start-ups and innovative SME 
• Enhance competitiveness and export
• Enable the implementation of think global, act
  local strategies
• Enable provision of services tailored to national
  and linguistic communities
• Reduce cost and shorten time-to-market
• Time frame Jan 2001 - Jan 2005
• Budget 100 MEURO

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A market oriented programme

• develop solutions based on available technology
• focus on partnerships and mechanisms for adding
  value and innovative and cost effective
  customization strategies, wider market
  penetration and exploitation prospects,
• experiment with new business models and
  partnerships
• focus on a structural outcome, e.g. increasing
  awareness of and access to available capital
  markets for entrepreneurs.

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Working definitions
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Intended scope

• Target groups
• private- and public-sector content providers
• content aggregators and distributors
• network operators and IT vendors
• suppliers of internet translation/localisation
  services
• providers of e-commerce and globalisation
  solutions
• business angels and incubators, associations
• Online content, interactive services
• web, mobile and broadband (video) content
• global design, localisation, personalisation
• business and revenue models, quality vs. cost

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Main thrust

• Stimulate business innovation, search for new
  business models, sharing of good practice
• Build transnational and cross-sectoral
  partnerships
• Foster technology take-up insofar as it helps
  enhance business capabilities
• Improve awareness and lower barriers to the
  entry of new players

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3 intertwined action lines

• AL 1 Improving access to and expanding the use
  of public sector information (40 - 45)
• AL 2 Enhancing content production in a
  multilingual and multicultural environment (40 -
  45)
• AL 3 Increasing dynamism of the digital content
  market (10 - 15)

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Action lines

• AL1 sublines
• Promote private-public partnerships
• Establish European PSI data collections
• AL2 sublines
• Foster new partnerships and strategies
• Strengthen infrastructure (skills, tools and
  data)
• AL3 sublines
• Bridge the gap between content industries and
  capital markets
• Stimulate online, cross-border trading of
  multimedia rights

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AL 1 - Context The market barriers

• Public Sector Information is hardly exploited in
  the EU
• No common legal framework for re-using the
  information
• No experience of public-private collaboration
• No common principles for storing the information
• No common meta-data
• Strong competitive disadvantages vis-à-vis the US
• Public sector information important basis for
  the American digital industries
• A clear and comprehensive policy on access and
  exploitation

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Action Line 1 Public Sector Information

• Increase the supply of EU content on the net
• Encourage partnerships between the public and
  private sector
• Support early experimentation
• Experimental projects
• Pan - European Data Collections
• Strong link with the political actions
• eGovernment

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Action line 1, overview
Concrete examples of public/private partnerships
and digital data collections
The infrastructure Meta-data and data-sniffer
tools
The basis Policy actions
The basis Policy actions
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AL2 context

• a market of 370 million
• customers
• - different languages
• - different consumers habits.
• How to bring access ?

web users stay twice as long and are three
times as likely to buy from sites presented in
their native language ( Gartner sept. 2000 )

• A multilingual and multicultural strategy can
  make the difference !

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AL2 Main Scope

• Fostering new partnerships between the content
  and language industries
• Design, production, distribution of high quality
  content in a multilingual and multicultural
  environment
• Stimulate business innovation and disseminate
  best practice

A process and best-practice orientated programme
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AL2 - Tailoring the Language Infrastructure to
the market needs

• customisation tools
• Segments
• IT Tools
• Softwares tools (workflow, versioning ...)
• cross-lingual content search/gathering/gisting
• Players
• suppliers of language and localisation services
• (including subtitling and dubbing)
• IT developers and integrators providing
  multilingual
• technology
• Providers of IT solutions and tools for workflow
  automation and quality control management
• Implementation means
• Demonstration projects

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AL3 The problem

• Gap between venture capitalists and content firms
• High-tech investments in the EU less than in the
  US
• Non-mature risk culture - but capital abundant
• EU wide IPR trading still a major issue

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AL3 -Increasing dynamism of the digital content
market
Action enabling the market to function

• Bridging the gap between digital content
  industries and capital markets
• Rights trading between digital content market
  players
• Developing and sharing a common vision
• Support actions
• Dissemination, web, conferences, showcasing,
  strategic studies
• Overall 10 - 15 of the budget

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eContent the first call
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eContent the first call
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eContent the first call
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eContent the first call
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eContent the first call
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eContent the first call
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eContent the second call
The main themes

• Public Sector Information
• Focus on public-private partnerships
• Multilingual multicultural content
• Focus on mobile and broadband
• Open subline on broadening the knowledge base
• Increasing the dynamism of the content market
• Bridging the investing gap
• Multimedia rights trading