Page 148 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

Cultural business models on the Internet1485. data cultureThe digital economy is based on the manage- ment, processing and exploitation of data. Data-based decision making has surpassed the boundaries of the business environment and is even being embraced by the field of creation. Companies such as Netflix and Pandorahave incorporated data processing in orderto improve their knowledge of users’ habits, which allows them to anticipate their tastes and demands. Netflix, a company that offers online video and has created successful series such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, has developed a complex system of labelling the different audio-visual genres that allows it to anticipate consumption trends based on users’ tastes; while Pandora, the most popular online radio station in the USA, can recommend, based on big data, different types of music depending on the device being listened to, the time of day or the user’s tastes.Using big data, the entertainment industry can measure its consumers’ tastes and habits in order to make recommendations.The traditional publishing sector, for its part, is facing a serious problem. It is lagging behind the rest of the entertainment industry in gauging consumers’ tastes and habits through data analysis. On the contrary, new actors such as Amazon, Apple and Google have a massive amount of information – how long they spend reading, their tastes, what they underline, even how fast they read – that grants them a hugecompetitive advantage. What is more, new platforms are emerging such as Copia, Kobo and Coliloquy, which have established gathering and analysing data as new models of which the traditional sector should take note. 4Furthermore, when we speak of big data we can also speak of an approach from an open-data perspective which is offered by institutions and administrations that are generally public. In this regard, we should underline the possibilities that linked data offers the so-called memory industries, such as libraries or other cultural institutions. To quote Todd Carpenter, executive director of NISO (National Information Standards Organization),5 “While [the moveto a linked data model] completely alters the way we have always described and cataloged bibliographic information, it offers tremendous opportunities for making this data accessible and usable in the larger, global web community.”The digitisation that is transforming everythingDigitisation has led to the redesign of the value chain in many sectors, especially that of content. The introduction of new tools and technologies is altering from creative processes to business models. Tools such as Protools in music, for example, have opened up new testing ground and spurred developments in creation by lower- ing entry barriers. Meanwhile, technologies such as streaming have transformed the distribution and sale of audio-visual content, as a result of which in many cases traditional agents have been relegated to a secondary role if not gradual- ly forced out of the picture altogether.The challenge of the digital transformation of the culture industries