WORLD TELEMEDIA 2012: That was the show that was

This year’s World Telemedia in Marbella once again showcased how the telemedia sector is growing and, while booming maybe putting it too strongly, there is cause for some cheer.

What the event showcased was that there is still plenty of money to be made in ‘traditional’ telemedia services, as well as offering an insight into how new opportunities around publishing, TV, social media and all things m-commerce are all starting to offer some lucrative new markets.

According to David Ashman from AIME’s state of the nation address charity, virtual goods through the likes of Facebook and other services and international payments are all growth areas, helping propel PRS earnings, according to PPP figures at least, to nearly £1billion in the UK alone.

In Germany, virtual goods are worth some £139.3million while the UK is not far behind with £93.1million. The UK has the largest average spend of some £19 per person who spends on virtual goods, which the French have really embraced it spending £28 per person.

Facebook is, unsurprisingly, leading the march, with some 15million of its European users purchasing virtual goods, of which three quarters are doing so via Zynga games.

But, as Ashman pointed out, as Facebook has announced a phase out of its Facebook Credits and the cancellation of its Facebook Wallet, there is now a huge opportunity for telemedia billing services to mop up here.

But the traditional markets are also doing well. According to AIME figures chat and dating is a £1billion market, and accounts for some £33.5million of UK PRS revenues and is expected to grow by some 57% in 2012, making it potentially the soaraway success of the PRS market, if it can be capitalised on effectively and scams and bad press are avoided.

Adult is also a rich area for PRS, generating some £125.7million in the UK.

Psychic however seems to be on a downward trend, showing a 4% drop in PRS revenues this year against the while PRS industry largely being up by an average of 9.5%.

The other potential growth area for all content types – including the psychic sector – is in delivering in-app billing for developers. Many are following the freemium model, offering free ‘lite’ versions that either generate revenue through in-app purchases or upgrades to richer versions from within the app. This is starting to be a growth area for the sector, with Payforit ideally positioned – and it has form here, as we saw last year – to help offer this to non-iOS store apps.

To this end, AIME is developing a PRS flow model for Payforit in apps and is working with MACH to deliver these services through 2013.

But all of this is nothing without balanced regulation, argued Square1’s Mark Birkett. Complaints about PRS services are up, he said, but that is largely down to closer scrutiny by the regulator and the apportioning of ‘blame’ across the whole value chain. This, Birkett believes, is a good thing, but PPP has to have balance in how it adjudicates, since we are seeing some very high fines being levied for issues that previously would have attracted much less censure.

So what does the coming year hold? There are issues of media fragmentation several speakers warned and the industry has to be keen to look at how different billing mechanisms suit different people in different circumstances depending on how they are looking to consume media and services. This is something that has to be addressed through the coming year – and something we shall see a lot more of at the next World Telemedia in 2013.

There will also be an increasing focus on m-commerce, video services and cross-media offerings. The industry is also seeing a smattering of new start-ups which is encouraging, said Shawn Brown from Converto, He believes that we are going to see a lot more clever applications and monetisation around mobile social commerce offerings.

That is true, said Graham Halling from Spoke in his opening keynote, but the industry and the new start ups face the challenge of developing the right business models to support an growing amount of interactivity across media types. Brands, TV companies, print and charities are all looking at how to generate monetisable interactivity and new services are emerging, but working out how to monetise them is a challenge.

The good news is that these verticals need guidance in how to do this, and that is something that telemedia business can help them with.

One challenge that the whole business is going to face, believes Halling, is the emergence of Me-tail, where brands and retailers slowly start to become media outlets for relevant media and content around what they sell, either as advanced marketing or as a revenue stream. This is going to be very challenging for the established media, but also presents an opportunity for the telemedia sector.