At this year’s Web Summit in Lisbon (07.-10. November 2016), 53,056 visitors from 166 different countries were represented. With more than 600 speakers, founder Paddy Cosgrave has created the largest Web Summit ever, where 1,500 start-ups met 7700 CEOs. The theme spectrum covered everything that is currently relevant in the digital industry: virtual reality, social media, big data, content, etc. We would like to briefly report on some interesting topics and trends from the Web Summit.

One of the 600 speakers at the Web Summit was the CTO from Facebook, Michael Schroepfner. He started briefly and concisely and put special emphasis at two topics: Firstly, a major goal for the next ten years is to enable all people in the world to access the Internet. The idea behind this is to bring the voices of these people to the Internet so they can “join us” with their thoughts. The second major step, which is relevant for Schroepfner in the near future, is the expansion of intelligent machines. Virtual reality, robots, voice assistants, and artificial intelligence are just some of the key words on that subject.

Communication has changed

Another inspiring talk at the Web Summit came from Gary Vaynerchuck. With his enthusiastic speech he tapped the audience and illustrated the current situation in the digital world. Above all, he motivated the start-up scene and gave his forecast about the future of content creation.
Communication has changed, that is certain. How much becomes clear when you realize that some people are already stressed when you call them. The reason for this is simply the time. Nowadays there is the possibility to send an SMS or e-mail. The receiver then calls back but on your time and not on his. That this principle works out shows for example the provider netflix. Often people are confronted with advertising in a similar way as in the call example. On more and more channels, the consumer encounters advertising and is sometimes flooded so that there is no time and attention for the offers that he is really interested in. To get the attention of the consumer it needs a new type of advertising and that is according to Vaynerchuck: Storytelling. But not only a change in content will bring the attention back also the right channels are decisive. 2016 the TV is the radio and the mobile phone is the new television. Mobile is the right channel. It is therefore important to find out how to create the best shows and to spread the best stories in different networks.
The next big point was creativity and content. According to Vaynerchuck, the market is a mixture of math and art – creativity is the key to success.
Everyone tries to create content, but in the next ten years there it will be less about creating and more about documentation. With a smartphone in their hands, everyone can be a small media company.
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