The changing role of the end-user
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- Jean-Philippe Vanot (right), senior executive vice president of innovation and marketing at Orange, agrees with p2pnet.
Our thesis is: the first time in history, ordinary people have acquired a voice so loud it can’t be ignored.
It’s called the Internet, and it’s the great equaliser. It gives the people everywhere the ability to talk with each other no matter where they are, or who they are, spreading information and opinions, in the process completely bypassing the traditional media which hitherto had been almost entirely responsible for what we saw and heard, and even what we thought.
No longer are we mere, mindless ‘consumers’ consuming anything and everything shoved in front of us. We’re customers again — discerning buyers with free choice.
And the customer is always right.
“The changing role of the end-user is changing the landscape for telcos,” Vanot told Broadband World Forum Europe in Paris, says total telecom.
“In the past the customer played a passive role,” says the story. He had to ‘consume content such as defined by the operators.
” ‘[But now] the customer can really be at the controls,” said Vanot. “The user is an active node.”
Or put another way, we’re in active mode.
However, his views, delivered in a keynote speech on innovation and the role telecoms and IT will play in the global economic recovery, weren’t a build-up to to a suggestion that the times, they have a-changed to the extent companies, including telcos, must now start treating the people who keep them alive like intelligent beings who want to be informed, not scammed.
Instead, it’s about advertising and regulation, according to Vanot.
The telecoms industry could create more then one million jobs in Europe by 2015, but to do so, “we need an appropriate regulatory framework,” said Vanot.
“The regulatory framework frequently lags behind and sometimes it’s far behind.”
And it’s the “changing role of the end-user” that’s changing the landscape for telcos, he said, going on:
“Our physical networks are changing to meet the demand of human and virtual networks. [But the] free-of-charge model raises the question of fair remuneration for the players.
Enter advertising and, said Vanot, in 2008, “$10 billion in online and advertising revenues crossed the Atlantic from Europe to the U.S., to the benefit of companies like Google.” And that’s set to grow to $20 billion by 2012, he estimated.
Telcos must change, “and make the most of the online audience and of advertising” because, “content [is the] the oxygen of our networks,” he said, adding: “We do not make content, we buy it instead.”
Not only but also, “Our competitors are not only the big telcos,” he said. They’ll soon include TV manufacturers.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
total telecom – Orange calls for fair regulatory regime in Europe, September 7, 2009
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