Category: CEO

19
Aug
26
Mar

Understanding the “Mobile First” Strategy of Google

During the Abu Dhabi Media Summit 2010 Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google Inc. hold a keynote and talked about the key strategy of Google “Mobile First”.

Here are some of his key statements during his speech:
United Arab Emirates & the middle east is the region with the fastest growing internet penetration with our 100% per year. One third of the population is under the age of 14 years, so five years from now they will play a major role for the digital industry.

When Google recently launched new social products the most relevant and interesting elements and features were on the mobile version. Our smartest engineers, who are building our applications, are starting with the mobile part of the application rather than the desktop part. Google calls this trend “Mobile First”. That’s a huge shift for our generation, executives and corporations.

Mobile Web adoption is growing eight times faster then the adoption of the desktop internet ten years ago. So it is not even bigger, the change is even quicker. There are more smartphones right now than there are personal computers. Half of the internet connection are on mobile devices. And in many countries Mobile is the primary way to access Google, e.g. Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria.

18
Mar

twofour54 is building a media empire in Abu Dhabi

twofour54 is an Abu Dhabi government initiative and an integral part of its 2030 plan, which seeks to diversify the Emirate’s economy and establish the Emirate as the cultural capital of the Middle East. twofour54’s vision is to establish a sustainable Arabic media and entertainment content creation industry in Abu Dhabi; a regional centre of excellence which is internationally renowned. The aim is to stimulate creative and professional partnerships in the television, radio, film, publishing, online, mobile, music, gaming and animation industries.

At the Abu Dhabi Media Summit 2010 I talked with Tony Orsten, CEO, about how to build a media industry from scratch.

The company provides a collaborative and supportive ecosystem that will allow the establishment of a world-class media industry for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The focus is on developing Arabic media and entertainment content by Arabs and for the Arab audience. twofour54 delivers its advanced cohesive infrastructure through three key pillars: twofour54 tadreeb (the training academy), twofour54 ibtikar (innovation and support) and twofour54 intaj (state-of-the-art production facilities) supported by business enabler twofour54 tawasol (one-stop-shop).

twofour54 has already attracted several of the region and world’s largest and most influential content creation companies. By the start of 2010, twofour54 had more than 60 partners, all of whom have recognised the vast opportunity that the Arab world represents for growth and has committed significant investment and resources to business initiatives that will be led out of twofour54.

And by the way the name twofour54 is taken from Abu Dhabi’s geographical coordinates, which are latitude 24 north, longitude 54 east. This name was chosen to symbolise Abu Dhabi’s strategic position within the Middle East, which makes it the ideal location for the centre of excellence for content creation in the Arab region.

About Tony Orsten
Chief Executive Officer, twofour54

In this role, Tony provides strategic leadership for the business in order to deliver on its mission of creating an ecosystem that will allow the content creation industry to flourish in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Tony has more than 30 years experience in the UK and international creative content industry. He is an academy award winning television director, channel executive and innovative programming expert. At London Weekend Television, he won his first academy award with Network 7, a breakthrough TV format which put “serious” television back on the agenda for the youth audience. Tony joined the Abu Dhabi Media Authority in December 2007, taking a major role in the Abu Dhabi Government’s initiative to create a media and content creation industry in the Arab region.

Prior to joining twofour54, Tony created, developed and launched successful television products and entertainment channels for Paramount Pictures Inc across Europe in Spain, Italy, Poland and in the free TV market of Germany, which serves 34 million homes.

In September 2006, Tony joined the founders of Skype to launch Joost, the world’s first broadcast-quality television platform on the Internet. He led the UK content team from the Joost UK London offices. Previously, Tony was the CEO of MTV Networks International’s portfolio of entertainment channels including Paramount Comedy UK and Paramount Comedy Espana.

18
Mar

Tom Stewart: Is Abu Dhabi Going for Growth?

The inaugural Abu Dhabi Media Summit 2010 presented a discussion about “Going for Growth”. Tom Stewart, Chief Marketing & Knowledge Officer of Booz & Company, moderated the panel and was joined by H.E. Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of Twofour54, Ari Emanuel, Co-CEO of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, Maurice Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, James Murdoch, Chairman & CEO of Europe & Asia News Corporation and Hartmund Ostrowski, Chairman & CEO of Bertelsmann AG.

After the panel discussion I talked with Tom Stewart about the key topics and results.

The panel was about the combination of leapfrogging technologies and emerging markets. This powerful combination creates new markets which are much larger than they ever were and an rapid expansion of media markets. At the same time we have dramatic changes in media technologies moving from print media to digital media. This development does not only offer unthinkable opportunities, but also creates much more risks.

The panelist mostly represented “established money” while H.E. Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of Twofour54 best represented the emerging markets and new growth.

During the panel discussion James Murdoch, Chairman & CEO of Europe & Asia News Corporation, said that News Corp. is preparing for a “Revolution of Reading” due to eReaders, tablets and digital media. In our future vision video “Mobile Future 2020” we estimate 2016 as the year of digital newspapers, but maybe News Corp. is driving these new markets even faster then we thought.