Online Industry Summit – Arthur Goldstuck
Eric Edelstein introduces Arthur (World Wide Worx).
Arthur:
“The Internet in South Africa needs to be a dialogue”
“We’ve just come back from CES – content and strategy big themes along with the normal gadgetry / electronic focus”
“Content isn’t king, content is a king maker”
“Tech and content go hand in hand in the Internet space”
“Big trends in the subtext of CES – ‘place-shifting’ (I think)”
On to Arthur’s Preso:
Less than 10% growth in over past 3 years in Internet users
2007: 3.75 million? (predicition)n – stagnation?
Internet users with 5 years experience a more helpful (relevant) statistic
Lots of stats on lots of slides…
The online industry as a whole shows a healthy, profitable status
Online retail in SA 2006: R 688 million, 2008 expected to break R 1 bn – (online ticket sales not a factor, considered an anomaly)
Online retailers are seeing the benefits of broadband – better sites thanks to better connectivity
In 2006 20% growth was forecasted, but 30% growth was evident – a surprising jump
The key factor in the blip – broadband
“Web 2.0 is happening thanks to broadband”
Lots more, big elements covered.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Placeshifting is more of a buzzword than a reality, but is about accessing the same content – whether tv programming, live broadcast sports event, dvd collection, spreadsheets, etc – or content stream from place to place and device to device. The technologists have a vision of business travelers logging on to their home entertainment via the Internet from their hotel rooms, and having a seamless experience of their personalised or preferred content. The reality will no doubt me more mundane, less seamless and more around social networking than pre-packaged content. I’ll blog on it sometime sane.
I just can’t believe that figure from Arthur, that this year, 2007, we will only have 3.75 million Internet users. At the end of 2005 his estimate was 3.6 million users. Which means in more then 12 months we’ve only had 150,000 new users?! In his broadband report from 2005 he estimated about 250,000 to 270,000 broadband users. Now surely many of these broadband accounts have more then one user. And for a long time I’ve also suggested that when he finally includes users from the hundreds of Internet cafe countrywide that will add a few hundred thousand users.