While executives around the world sit in their offices and puzzle over the viability of new media, a group based out of Hollywood is trying to get everyone to simply sit down and think together about the future of digital entertainment. The New Media Council, announced Friday at Variety's ShowBiz conference, boasts a hefty list of charter members that range from executives at Mattel, the American Film Institute, PBS, and MGM Interactive, to AOL's Greenhouse Networks, SGI, Netscape, and MSN.
"There's a lack of connect between content people and technology people in terms of what's driving the industry," explains Steve Berman, the council founder and a new-media attorney in Hollywood. "We really need a forum to attempt to build a new-media industry together instead of pretending that just one company is driving it."
It's somewhat questionable, however, whether creatives across the new-media industry can put aside their competitiveness to openly discuss overarching concerns.
"While on one hand I want to create an open environment, people are initially going to be guarded. No one wants to reveal corporate secrets," says Berman.
The council will serve as a think tank in which heavy-hitters in any of the related industries meet regularly to discuss how to talk together, write papers, and host events. Not surprisingly, the first issue on the table is going to be just how to make money out of new media. Additional concerns are how new technologies, platforms, and distribution methods affect the shape of the content itself.
As charter member Leon Silverman puts it, "The people who make things need tools, and the people with the tools need to learn how people make things."
This isn't the first time that Hollywood has assembled an independent council to discuss issues of emerging technology. The Technology Council, co-founded by Silverman in 1989, was established by a group of Hollywood creatives to discuss how technology is affecting content; unlike the New Media Council, however, the Technology Council focuses only on technology for TV and film.
