Digital Innovators’ Summit calls upon AI, Blockchain and open web

"The best answer to Fake News is more Unfaked News, Editorial Media, professional, independent journalism,”Stephan Scherzer.

The slogan of the DIS was "Take back control". Stephan Scherzer, Chief Executive of VDZ said - "Artificial intelligence, blockchain and machine learning will open up tremendous opportunities for publishers to attract readers and advertisers in the near future."

Traditionally, the international DIS community, along with deep insights into current trends and the presentation of best practices, values ​​the opportunity for intensive networking. For this purpose, the congress visitors had their own meeting area, in which contacts were established and a trusting exchange of ideas took place.

As Stephan highlighted in his speech, one of DIS's key messages was: "The best answer to Fake News is more Unfaked News, Editorial Media, professional, independent journalism."

Thematically and conceptually, the industry event has firmly established itself in the calendar of international conferences. This year renowned speakers such as Troy Young, Global President, Hearst Digital Media; Gary Liu, CEO, South China Morning Post; Guido Bülow, Strategic Partner Manager, Facebook, Greg Piechota, Google Digital News, Maureen Hoch, Editor, HBR.org at Harvard Business Review; Pauli Aalto-Setälä, CEO, Aller Media Oy; Ingo Rübe, Chief Technology Officer, Burda; Breton Fischetti, Senior Director of Commerce, Business Insider; Chris Boos, Founder and CEO; Dr. Andreas Wiele, President Classifieds and Marketing Media, Axel Springer; Vivian Schiller, Executive Editor in Residence at Weber Shandwick and Director at the Scott Trust; Bernhard Glock, Senior Vice President, MediaLink, and Donata Hopfen, CEO attended DIS and shared their vision with others.

In its many impressive case studies, the DIS brought together how media houses are refining their content into more formats, using distribution channels that they can control, and how to make their valuable content more personalized. Customers are willing to commit themselves permanently to contracts such as subscriptions if they are smart and flexible. "Readers would definitely have to pay for content in the future, either with their data or with real money," says Juan Señor. And the paid content models continue to evolve away from the rigid inflexible to smart payment systems. The publishers benefit from the know-how transfer of the large platforms, as Matthew Monahan illustrated with the example of the Washington Post, which was bought by Amazon.

One of the speakers at DIS, that concentrated on Blockchain was Ingo Rübe, CTO at Burda Magazine. He introduced the history outline of the open web, and gave a detailed explanation on its development and creation of intermediaries, that match consumers and producers. Starting from 1995, this economic model became really big today. “Four out of the five biggest companies in the world are Internet intermediaries, which underlines it as a good business model. They operate on the open web,” added Ingo. “This is where we live as publishers. The open web is life insurance for publishers. Some companies are starting to build closed web platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and some websites. If we lose that direct connection to the consumer we are dead,” - argued Ingo. “We should fear the closed web as the closed web destroys whole economic sectors. ”

"The combination of journalistic content and innovative technology is strategically important. Blockchain, AI, the collaboration between people and machines will trigger the next innovative push," predicts Stephan Scherzer, CEO of VDZ

Gagik Yeghiazarian, Contributor