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WORLD SCENARIO SERIES
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COMMITTED TO
IMPROVING THE STATE
OF THE WORLD
Digital Ecosystem
Convergence between IT, Telecoms,
Media and Entertainment:
Scenarios to 2015
Executive Summary
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The views expressed in this publication do not
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Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
Introduction
Introduction
To understand how the Digital Ecosystem could
music. These creations can be original or remixed
plausibly evolve in the coming 10 years, we need to
from existing content. South Korea and Japan, both
look at the critical uncertainties and those factors
considered more mature digital markets, show very
shaping the ecosystem’s evolution.
high levels of involvement and growth in user-
Broadband adoption, technological advances
generated content and community participation
and decreased operating costs have pushed the IT,
(figures 1 and 2). In time, the young and highly
Telecommunications and Media and Entertainment
active contributors to online content will grow older and
industries into a period of great flux. As they
their behaviour patterns will become the standard.
Increasingly we note the fertilization of the
converge, they are forming a space we could call
the Digital Ecosystem.
This emerging Digital Ecosystem is generating
traditional media by the online world. For example,
user-generated content is increasingly seen on
many risks and challenges for government policies,
traditional media channels, such as television
as well as presenting new opportunities for creating
programmes and newspapers. Services are arising
social and economic value. Just as any healthy eco-
to facilitate this – Scoopt, for example, brokers blog
system enables its stakeholders to interact to the
content to news editors and takes a commission.
benefit of all, a healthy Digital Ecosystem will simultaneously enable its commercial participants to create
Figure 1
economic value and deliver well-being to society.
South Korean young internet users actively
contribute to online content
Purpose of using the Internet – South Korea, 2006
The critical uncertainties we focus on are user
Intellectual Property Rights, security and privacy.
80
74
70
60
50
User empowerment
52
48
46
37
40
Digital users are taking control of when, where and
30
how they consume digital content. They are no
20
longer mere consumers: they increasingly participate
10
0
in the Digital Ecosystem in other ways – as contributors
to online communities and as creators and distributors
Community
Home page/Blog
Percentages
empowerment, market structure, market regulation,
22
20
25
13
12
17
11
14
3
Internet
Users
6-19
20s
30s
40s
Age group
50s
60s +
Source: 2006 Informatization White Paper, National Computerization Agency, Republic of Korea
of digital content and services. Communities are also
being created around infrastructure development,
Figure 2
such as when members of a community agree to
share their wireless internet access.
Number of registered users of blogs and social networking services, Japan
March 2005
to specialist knowledge and advice. Communities
also present opportunities for opinions to crystallize.
Most are not industry-led, but rather evolve organically.
Million persons
Through communities, users interact and share
digital content with like-minded people and get access
Japan experiences a rapid rise in users adopting usergenerated content and social networking services
10
8
8.68
7.16
159%
6
4
March 2006
545%
3.35
Their power is growing as pressure from communities
increasingly often influences business decisions.
Increasing numbers of digital users are creating
2
2
0
1.11
Blogs
Social Networking Services
digital content in forms such as blogs, web pages,
photos, videos, characters in games, animations or
Source: U-Japan Policy, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan, October 2006
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Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
Introduction
DIGITAL LEXICON
“The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Digital Ecosystem
“Digital” means any data that exist in binary form.
GOVERNMENTS
An “ecosystem” is an interdependent and dynamic
network of living organisms and their physical
environment. The “Digital Ecosystem” is the space
USERS
MEDIA &
ENTERTAINMENT
formed by the convergence of the media, telecoms
and IT industries. It consists of users, companies,
governments and civil society, as well as the
infrastructure that enables digital interactions.
COMMUNICATIONS
Digital user
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
Any consumer, producer and/or distributor of
digital content or services, personal or business,
for purposes such as communication, information,
entertainment, education or civic engagement.
Digital community (or online community)
A group of people who are connected online, for purposes that include communicating, sharing knowledge
or exchanging content. Many communities are highly cooperative and establish their own unique culture.
Contributors put in significant time for typically no monetary gain, at least at present.
Digital content
Any digital information, such as music, video, text, graphics or games that can be consumed.
Digital services
Any service that assists users in making the most of the digital infrastructure, such as aggregating or customizing
digital content, enabling communication and supporting hardware or software products.
3
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Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
Introduction
Some artists and bloggers have successfully parlayed
Life can make money as they keep the intellectual
their digital creativity into an income producing activity
property rights over content they create. Contributors
or a professional career. Also we find increasing
to YouTube and MTV Flux, on the other hand, give
coverage in the traditional media on events and
up the right to commercialize their content. A middle
celebrities born and bred online, such as the FIFA
way, revenue sharing, is exemplified by Revver, which
Interactive World Cup 2006 and Kamini, a French
distributes user-generated videos along with advertising
rapper who became famous on YouTube, was
and pays the creator half of the advertising revenue.
It is still early days for user contribution and
signed up by a major label and received in about
collaboration through communities. As communities
every television show.
Collaboration enabled by communities, for
mature, who will take the leading role in defining
example wikis, remains largely a leisure activity. But
their operating processes and systems: industry
there is a nascent trend towards commercial online
players or, through an organic process, users
user collaboration, as in open source software
themselves? Will industry capture more of the
community projects. Platforms for user-generated
economic value arising from user creativity or will
content are increasingly supported by venture
grassroots communities increasingly incubate
capital. In the last year, many leading platforms of
commercial innovation as users pool their skills
user-generated content have been acquired by
and resources?
media giants and internet portals: Google acquired
YouTube and Jotspot; Viacom acquired iFilm, Atom
Market structure
Films, iVillage and Quizilla.com; Yahoo acquired
Players in the Digital Ecosystem are moving beyond
Jumpcut, and Newscorp acquired MySpace.
their traditional boundaries. Aggregation and distribution
There are various models for capturing economic
value generated by user creativity. Users of Second
Figure 3
of content are especially hotly contested, as shown
in figure 3.
Players move into adjacent activities and new players emerge
Content
Generation
Delivery platforms
Aggregation
Connectivity /
Transport
Consumer devices
Interface
Content creators
move into delivery
expand into platforms
and services
Device
manufacturers
Network operators
enter into content creation and delivery
Cable & satellite providers
enter the telephony services
Portals
develop content, expand into networks/WiFi/telephony
Attackers
deliver content via new networks
Users Generated
Content Platform Providers
4
Source: Based on McKinsey analysis
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Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
the US; in India under the recent government
delivery platforms, and device manufacturers aggre-
clampdown, companies will not be allowed to use
gating digital content. Convergence services blur the
unlicensed foreign VoIP providers such as Skype,
lines between traditionally separate functions such
Yahoo and Net2Phone. South Korea recently gave
as in the case of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)
trial licenses for new IPTV network services to two
bringing together network and broadcasting activities.
consortia formed by key players from the telecom
Convergence is also driven by new and
independent players with innovative ideas about
and broadcasting industries.
There is also uncertainty about the strength of
bringing together existing technologies to create
governments’ commitment to fostering competitive-
something new. This raises the question of whether
ness in the Digital Ecosystem with the aim of growing
established companies will be able to adapt
the “knowledge economy”. Many governments
proactively and quickly to changing market
promote interoperability and open systems by
conditions. Or, could they fail and die as innovative
enforcing anti-trust regulations and adopting open
businesses take over the market?
source software and open standards in their own
Some providers operate on open standards
and make their products and services available
digital activities.
European public authorities are particularly active
through open systems. Others use proprietary
in promoting interoperability. French legislation, for
systems and closed platforms. Increased business
example, mandates that when digital content is
cooperation could lead to more interoperability and
protected by proprietary digital rights management
common standards, increasing the interconnectedness
technologies, providers must give other software
of networks, IT platforms and devices. But it is also
and hardware developers access to the necessary
plausible that vertical integration will lead to partnerships
technical documentation to make their systems
and consortia delivering exclusive content over closed
interoperable with it. Apple’s iTunes is under scrutiny
systems, with proprietary networks, IT platforms and
both in France and elsewhere in the EU.
devices featuring interoperability only within silos.
Introduction
For example, content creators are implementing
Will policy-makers and regulators be able to
keep pace with emerging technological developments
Market regulation
and business models, and foster an open and
Regulation and licensing are creating headaches for
competitive digital environment?
governments and uncertainty for industry. In most
developed countries, broadcasting and telecoms
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
have traditionally been regulated separately, meaning
Digital content is easier than analogue content
that new services such as IPTV and VoIP are
to share and adapt. Owners of IPR face
competing in the same space without being overseen
difficulties in tracking and controlling how their
by the same regulators. Nine OECD 3 countries have
digital content is used, while creative users do
already established single regulatory frameworks and
not always find it easy to identify and trace rights
institutions, and others are planning to follow suit.
holders. CreativeCommons.org seeks to tackle
1
2
1
Internet Protocol Television
Voice over Internet Protocol
3
Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development
2
Licensing requirements for new services and
these dilemmas by enabling creators to define
networks can also help to determine market structure.
“some rights reserved” licenses that are more
For example, a VoIP provider requires ministry
flexible than the two traditional extremes of “all
approval in South Korea but does not currently in
rights reserved” and “public domain”.
5
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Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
Introduction
Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies
are widely used to protect IPR. Many industry
of a user’s online identity are used to provide them
players are developing competing corporate DRM
with customized services, but there are privacy
platforms. Others promote global open standards
dangers when the organizations who collect or
such as the Digital Media Project, often with the
have access to this data do not behave ethically.
support of public institutions.
Countries throughout the world have adhered
4
World Intellectual Property
Organization
Parental control and other filtering systems are
increasingly used to protect children from harmful
to the WIPO 4 Internet Treaties, the international
digital content, amid concern about information they
framework for copyright in the digital environment.
can access and are providing about themselves.
However, IPR are determined by national laws in
A majority of teens admit to doing things online that
individual countries that differ both in details and
their parents do not know about.
in levels of enforcement. This creates uncertainty.
Cross-border enforcement of laws on privacy,
For example, computer software code is protected
security and protection from harmful digital content
by copyright, but opinion differs widely among
are costly and difficult. Standards differ among
national jurisdictions on whether business models
jurisdictions, and to enforce national regulations
enabled by software’s functionality should be
requires international cooperation and human
patentable.
investigative resources. Furthermore, what is
The Digital Ecosystem’s stakeholders need to
balance the interests of rights owners and the public.
Will intellectual property laws be able to ensure that
considered to be harmful is strongly influenced by
local values and political regimes.
Are the industry and public institutions able to
creators can commercialize their work and protect
cooperate and build the required trust of users in
it from plagiarism, while also providing a framework
the Digital Ecosystem? Or, will it descend into an
that encourages creativity?
anarchic and uncontrolled state?
Security and privacy
For the Digital Ecosystem to create an enabling
framework for economic and social development,
the online environment must command trust in terms
of privacy, security and protection from harmful digital
content. Identity theft and fraud are increasing,
despite advances in technologies to protect users
and transactions; in addition, public awareness of
online security and privacy issues is low.
Tracking techniques such as Radio Frequency
Identification and location detection systems will
add further to the information users already reveal
about themselves through their consumption of
6
digital content and services. Data about the behaviour
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Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
Executive Summary
Executive Summary
The Digital Ecosystem is forming as the Information Technology, Telecommunications, and Media and
Entertainment industries converge, users evolve from mere consumers to active participants, and
governments face policy and regulatory challenges. Its stakeholders are questioning the shape and
size it will take. They are aware of their inter-dependencies necessary to enable the Digital Ecosystem
to evolve into a healthy environment that both creates economic value and adds well being to society.
The key questions for the scenarios
When reflecting on the future of the Digital Ecosystem, two critical questions stand out:
1. Will social and economic value creation be industry controlled and led,
or organic and community-led?
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC VALUE CREATION IS
INDUSTRY CONTROLLED AND LED
• Processes and systems by which users
contribute and communities operate are
defined by industry players.
• Aggregation of products and services is
performed by industry players.
• Users contribute to value creation but
most valuable digital assets are
commercialized by industry players.
• Innovation is mostly industry-led.
ORGANIC AND COMMUNITY-LED
OR
• User and community contribution occurs
through independent, open platforms.
Members of the communities set the rules
for the underlying processes and systems.
• Aggregation of products and services
is performed by users and/or their
communities.
• Users and communities contribute significantly to value creation and successfully
commercialize their products and services.
• Communities are incubators for innovation
through an organic process in which skills,
competences and resources are pooled.
DIGITAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT EVOLVES TOWARDS
2. Will the digital business environment evolve toward a more open
or closed system?
8
AN OPEN SYSTEM
• Interconnectedness of networks, IT platforms and devices enabled by more interoperability
and common standards.
• A constellation of players.
• Regulatory environment that supports openness.
OR
A CLOSED SYSTEM
• Closed systems with proprietary networks, platforms and devices; interoperability
within silos.
• Vertical integration between content, services and conduits.
• Regulatory environment that limits openness.
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Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
•
The extent to which established companies will be able to adapt proactively and quickly to
changing market conditions;
•
Executive Summary
Other issues are also key to how the Digital Ecosystem will evolve in the coming years:
The degree to which stakeholders will cooperate – businesses amongst themselves, with
users and with government – to build an ecosystem where all stakeholders can thrive;
•
Whether the industry and public institutions will be able to cooperate to build trust in the
Digital Ecosystem and ensure the robustness of the internet infrastructure;
•
The level to which intellectual property rights and patents can be exercised and protected
without losing the richness of incremental distributed innovation;
•
The intent of governments to foster market competitiveness and harmonize legal
frameworks and cross-border enforcement.
Guided by these issues and key questions, three scenarios emerge for the Digital Ecosystem.
The different paths for the Digital Ecosystem through to 2015 are shown in figure 4.
Figure2.1
4
Figure
Digital
Ecosystem:
Scenarios
Digital
Ecosystem:
Scenarios
to 2015to 2015
Youniverse
ENVIRONMENT
OPEN
Middle Kingdoms
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC VALUE CREATION
ORGANIC &
COMMUNITY-LED
Safe Havens
CLOSED
BUSINESS
CONTROLLED &
INDUSTRY-LED
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Safe Havens
Safe Havens describes a digital world in which online
security concerns create a clamour from consumers,
businesses and governments for virtual safe havens. Industry
Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
responds by vertically integrating to create secure walled
environments that provide all digital services. Because they
operate on closed standards, growing numbers of users start
to feel constrained by the walls of their safe havens.
The scenario is written as a special, feature-length editorial by
an outspoken business correspondent of an online magazine
belonging to one of the vertically-integrated digital service
Executive Summary
providers. The author reflects upon the forces that shaped the
Digital Ecosystem between 2007 and 2015.
Middle Kingdoms
Middle Kingdoms describes a digital world in which
consumers, governments and forward-looking businesses
push for interoperability, enabling a bewilderingly wide array
of niche offerings to become viable propositions – and a
Digital Ecosystem dominated by intermediaries that
effectively connect users to like-minded individuals and to
the highly specialized suppliers that can best meet their
needs. In the middle of the space between consumers and
suppliers lie the kingdoms where the power lies.
The scenario is written as an official company blog of a
leading intermediary in which the company founder reflects
in a series of blog posts on how the Digital Ecosystem’s
evolution enabled his business to grow from being a start-up
in 2007 to a powerful global player in 2015.
Youniverse
Youniverse describes a digital world in which the rise of
organic grassroots communities as powerhouses of economic
value creation turns traditional business thinking on its head.
This leads to the rise of new organizational structures and
to digital experiences that are highly personalized. Some
companies find ways to capitalize on this distributed
innovation – they survive the period of uncertainty and change
to see a new day dawn in the digital world; on others the sun
sets for good.
This scenario is written as extracts from a community website
between 2007 and 2015. The community is set up for
members of the tech-savvy young generation to discuss the
Digital Ecosystem’s evolution after the website’s creator finds
this scenarios document lying on her boyfriend’s kitchen table.
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2013-2015: Sophisticated young tech-savvy users,
frustrated by limits on their creative freedom, step up their
disruptive activities. Conglomerates retaliate through the
courts, but “Independent Online Communities” (IOCs)
become more numerous and influential as mainstream
consumers increasingly believe that industry control is too
powerful. Governments remain supportive of digital
conglomerates, but are no longer so public about it.
2007-2008: Consumers demand open and interoperable
products and services; governments actively support open
systems and competition. This joint pressure moves the
Digital Ecosystem inexorably towards more openness. This
is a time of great dynamism, competition and
experimentation as businesses prioritize harnessing usergenerated content and community involvement to improve
the development of services.
Executive Summary
2009–2012: Amid apparent stability, digital service
conglomerates offer a broadly similar range of bundled,
customized services based on proprietary platforms that
lock users in. Governments gain much-needed control
through cooperating with a few powerful providers in
national-level regulatory forums and licensing new converged
services. Less tech-savvy users appreciate advances in
convenience, privacy and stability. However, disruptive
innovation outside the walls quietly gathers momentum.
Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
2007-2008: An unstable geopolitical environment and a
series of highly publicized breaches of data security leads to
a sense of concern engulfing the digitized world. The public
demands virtual gated environments. Governments react by
de-emphasising antitrust concerns and developing close
working relationships with dominant players. Consolidation,
mergers, acquisitions and exclusive deals gather pace.
2013-2015: Stability and choice become established
features of the digital world. The value network is organized
around a few large and powerful intermediaries – whose
success is determined by their expertise, quality of service
and brand identity – and a fragmented market of specialized
providers. It becomes easier to exercise intellectual property
rights and more consumers start to earn revenues from
industry platforms.
2009-2012: Amid a stable geopolitical environment,
industry-government co-regulation establishes common
standards on privacy and security. Intermediaries become
the de facto leaders of the digital world as a virtuous circle
emerges that mutually strengthens the need for
intermediaries and the viability of niche products and
services.
2007-2008: In a context of geopolitical stability and
government support for open markets, fundamental change
is underway in the Digital Ecosystem. There is an unstoppable
push from a small but highly active and influential segment
of digital users and communities to take control of their
digital experience. Consumers become dissatisfied with
traditional industry offerings. Grassroots communities grow
in power and pose fast-developing threats to businesses that
do not ride the wave of user and community participation.
2013-2015: A new paradigm emerges based on
interoperability, open systems and common standards.
The line between users and producers is further blurred
as open-source supporting software and collaborative
community structures become more sophisticated and
back-office support services increase efficiency and reduce
costs. The internet becomes extremely decentralized.
Community connectedness creates focal points for common
interests, and spurs distributed innovation across the world.
2009-2012: Established businesses face a stark choice: find
ways to attract a community or face obsolescence. Novel
organizational structures and price differentiation models
emerge. Distributed innovation models, leveraging
community strength, become mainstream in software, media
and entertainment. Traditional aggregators are superseded
by Personal Digital Agents that collate the opinions and
experiences of friends and specialist communities.
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Middle Kingdoms
Youniverse
Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015
Safe Havens
Comparing the three scenarios
This table compares some of the most import aspects of the scenarios.
Executive Summary
12
Safe Havens
Middle Kingdoms
Youniverse
Global environment
• Unstable global geopolitical
environment spurs protectionism.
• Societies unite around their local
distinctiveness.
• Global geopolitical stability fosters
international cooperation, understanding
and openness.
• A worldwide culture and sense of
global community grows.
• Global geopolitical stability fosters
international cooperation, understanding
and openness.
• There is global connectedness
and collaboration around common
interests.
User empowerment
• Industry accepts user and
community involvement as part of
corporate strategy, but tightly controls it.
• Industry succeeds in capturing most of
its economic value.
• Grassroots communities play a fringe –
but growing – role.
• Industry embraces user creation
and competes for it, albeit under rules.
• Community activities remain largely
social. There are limited but growing
opportunities for economic value creation.
• Users take the driver’s seat: they
determine the rules of their participation
and collaboration, and personalize
their experience.
• Organic communities are
economically significant.
Market structure
• Locally and regionally based large and
vertically integrated consortiums
dominate, offering end-to-end
customized bundles on proprietary,
closed and incompatible platforms.
• New entrants face huge entry barriers.
• Distinct Digital Ecosystems
emerge, both regionally and within and
outside industry control.
• Value network is organized around
a few large and powerful
intermediaries and a huge variety
of specialized niche businesses.
• Low switching costs and low barriers
to entry.
• Open standards and interoperable
systems lead to a globally unified
Digital Ecosystem.
• Value network is fragmented,
volatile, highly innovative, entrepreneurial
and dynamic, harnessing the power
of communities.
• Specialized offerings targeting
niche markets dominate.
• The Digital Ecosystem is diverse
and bottom-up, based on open
standards and modularity.
Market regulation
• Anti-trust concerns and non-discrimination
by service and content providers are
de-emphasized.
• Networks and convergence services are
subject to licensing.
• Governments actively support open and
interoperable systems, and intervene
to guarantee market competition.
• Responding to the lobbying
power of users, governments
foster the self-governance of digital
communities, take a minimum
interventionist approach to licensing,
and support incremental innovation.
Intellectual Property
Rights (IPR)
• Industry players implement corporate
proprietary IPR technologies.
Infringement is energetically pursued
through legal channels.
• Exercise of IPR is facilitated:
– interoperability of digital rights
management technologies
– advances in identity and content
management systems
– global collective management
organizations
– effective international cooperation.
• IPR are diversified. Open source
and “Creative Commons” licensing
become mainstream.
• Businesses adopt interoperable digital
rights management technologies and
refrain from heavy IPR enforcement.
Security and privacy
• Close cooperation between
governments and industry players
leads to more control and security.
• Limited privacy as consortia track all
a user’s digital activities.
• Industry players self-regulate to maintain
brand equity.
• Government-industry co-regulation
improves cross-border enforcement.
• Third-party identity banks give users
increased control of their digital identity.
• Successful public-private initiatives
reduce fraud and increase digital security.
• Self-governing communities
become commonly accepted.
• Users own and manage their digital
identity.
Innovation
• Innovation takes place inside the
consortia and focuses on distribution
infrastructure and packaging services.
• Limited grassroots disruptive innovation.
• Innovation is industry-led and
focuses on harnessing community
power, personalization, and the
development of niche services.
• Innovation is community-driven,
distributed, and highly incremental.
• Businesses experiment with
organizational structures to exploit
user and grassroots innovation.
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g
y
g
,
,
COMMITTED TO
IMPROVING THE STATE
OF THE WORLD
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international organization committed to improving
the state of the world by engaging leaders in
partnerships to shape global, regional and
industry agendas.
Incorporated as a foundation in 1971, and based
in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Economic
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