SiliconLIVE! Forum 2006 Report
Jul 6, 2006
YAMAGATA INTECH Corporation, as a cooperator of the SGI-initiated VizImpress, took part in the "SiliconLIVE! Forum 2006" opened on Jun 28. The following is a report of the panel discussion on the topic "The contents of VizImpress Initiative will take the leading role -- new generation of digital contents creation will change business".
Panel Discussion
The era when contents take the leading role
New generation of digital contents creation will change business!
The figure of "new generation of contents" in media-mix era that stood out in relief
The key of new generation of contents is "attracting eyeballs"
The contents of this report are the portion of panel discussion at the first session of "SiliconLIVE! Forum 2006", on the topic "The contents of VizImpress Initiative will take the leading role -- new generation of digital contents creation will change business".
Participants in the panel discussion included: Mr. Yukio Makino -- principal and chief director of the No. 1 Performance Planning Department of Aoi Advertising Promotion, Inc., Mr. Mamoru Tachibana-representing director/president of Experience Co., Ltd., Mr. Kiyoshi Nakano-representing director/president of Digital Niche Archiving Inc, and Mr. Kazu Shimazaki -director of System Management Department of YAMAGATA INTECH Corporation, totaling 4 persons. They represent "CM", "Internet", "Presentation", "Printing" respectively, and discussed the prospect of contents based on current experience.
Firstly, the meeting coordinator Mr. Shigeru Morita -- deputy director of SiliconLIVE System Department of SGI Japan, Ltd. proposed the panel discussion subject -- "The manner of new generation of contents". Every panel discussion participant made a self-introduction and also introduced his own study on current project and content.
The first speech to the question was made by Mr. Makino from Aoi Advertising Promotion Inc. renowned as one of the top enterprises in television CM industry in Japan.
"Our corporation mainly produces 15 sec or 30 sec TV commercials, but recently besides CM, production related to network content and video contents such as sitcom contents or movie contents as well as MP-oriented video content are increasing. It's said that the most important thing in making 15 sec or 30 sec CM short movies is attracting everyone's eyeballs onto TV programs in the living room. So I believe: the "attracting eyeballs" method of making contents initiated by SGI Japan, Ltd is crucial to CM." said Mr. Makino, and then he also introduced some CM short movies made by himself.
During this speech, he also introduced new CM form -- interactive short movie CM communicated via Web, and thereby we can get to know the new trend in CM industry.
TV shifting to Web -- a trend more and more obvious
Followed was Mr. Mamoru Tachibana from Experience Co., Ltd., who made a speech starting from Internet, and he appealed the current status that Web value as a contact point is increasing as follows.
"In recent years, as Flash, Ajax, VISTA and other new technologies advanced day after day, Web's expressive forces also achieved rapid development. We are gradually coming into an era when rich contents are developing continuously in mobile phone (MP). Moreover, if we look at the proportion taken by broadband access, we will find that of all network visits recently, 95% are done via broadband, which realizes the integration between developers and users who share the environment of rich contents.
And according to statistics from Nomura Research Institute, it shows that: in respect of Web's media positioning, about 6 tenth hardware (HD) recorder readers now don't watch CM any more. It's said that four years later this kind of HD will become common among 50% families, that is to say, in the near future, we will come to an era when more than 6 tenth families will discard CM. On the other hand, Web as a media used for selecting commodities, it has become No.1 many years ago, and people's web surfing hours is enough to compare with their TV watching hours."
Mr. Mamoru Tachibana listed specific data, and at the same time concluded that "Customer's portfolio of budget is changing, and the era is coming for further investment in Web". He also introduced the status quo that slim and soft voices can be presented via network, and CM movies corresponding to high-quality Web featured by fresh pictures, CG, voice and other factors.
Ideal State for Interface Manual
Followed was Mr. Shimazaki from YAMAGATA INTECH Corporation who made another speech.
Mr. Shimazaki at first made a brief introduction of his own corporation, "Our corporation is a printing company, it's cautious and conscientious from the very beginning of production, and it's specialized in printing introduction manuals which is rare in the same industry. About half of the mobile phone service manuals sold on the market last year were produced by our corporation. Moreover, we are also committed to automobile service manual, professional maintenance service manual for broadcasting machine." Subsequently, he also made the following introduction of the questions for discussion in this field.
"As the operation becomes more and more complicated, previous making of paper manual becomes more and more difficult, for example, MP manual can be heavier than the MP itself. Moreover, previous paper manual was only one of the accessories to commodity, but now manual becomes interface of the commodity, on one hand, it's the interface sending manufacturer's will to consumer, on the other hand, it's also the interface for consumer to feed information back to manufacturer. So, we believe manual will become interface in the future."
Based on this consideration, this corporation will more actively project an image of the concept "The Interface Provider".
Then Mr. Shimazaki displayed the music player "m:robe" released by Olympus last year. In promoting this product abroad, this corporation made the operation manual contents for this product in order to introduce its functions to salesperson and sales agency.
"Operation manual comes from design engineering process, so our members keep close track from the planning stage. We discuss the shape of product based on minutes of the meeting each time and ultimately make up its contents as a digital prototype. This enables us to materialize the product's functions on PC and pick up a problem from manufacturing process to sales at stage", said Mr. Shimazaki stressing that the important is making "dynamic specifications" which is not only oriented to end users but also able to deliver the main feature of product to product-related person.
Then he also pointed out that "The era when contents are made for sole purpose, for example, instruction manual is made before product is delivered, is already over. In all the procedures within an enterprise, all these digital contents can be utilized flexibly." Here, Mr. Shimazaki explained and verified the opinion of SGI Japan, Ltd, that "It's important to dig the contents within an enterprise and put it into circulation".
Task of Contents Making in Media Mix Era
The last was Mr. Nakano from Digital Niche Archiving Inc which is "a company using large-sized display to make and store interactive contents" (said by Mr. Nakano). The company has been using this technology from the early stage of developing "VizImpress"-- a dialogue-style rich contents solution of SGI Japan, Ltd. Mr. Nakano talked about "making various kinds of contents by use of the image display structure of VizImpress", he made specific introductions of various contents already realized in exhibition facilities in many enterprises, public bodies, universities/colleges or museums. In addition, he expressed: "In principle, with media mix, we create digital recipe contents that are more intuitively and easy-to-understand by replacing static images in printing data of recipe manual to animated images".
After all speeches by the above four were over, another discussion was made on the theme of "action assignments in contents-making".
In this regard, Mr. Makino from Aoi Advertising Promotion Inc. expressed that: "As indicated by Mr. Mamoru Tachibana, in current situation that the number of people watching TV CM are decreasing, it's necessary and desirable for an enterprise to decide where to release the information", Mamoru Tachibana spoke: "I think although network does not overwhelm broadcasting, there is a problem 'whether or not to keep up the current amount of CM investment'; in the past, if we had advertising budget of 100 million yen, about 9 tenth would be expended on TV commercials, and now this situation is certainly changing".
Then he continued to speak: "It's also an important problem on how to resolve the shortage of developing staffs even if we came into this era", hereby, he pointed out the problem of shortage of developing staffs.
Mr. Shimazaki from YAMAGATA INTECH Corporation which represents the whole printing industry said: "Every field needs contents convenient to explain. In order to transmit information from enterprise to customer, it's necessary to use flash, voice, including embodiment or abstraction and all other kinds of methods applied by our corporation. On the other hand, specialists of this field in our corporation now starting from developing programs take part in planning and making manuals. This method will also spread among consumers. In the future, specialists of this kind will become more and more indispensable".
In respect of this problem, Mr. Nakano spoke: "Certainly, we have to consider quality requirements, but as long as we make greater efforts, we can make contents of a certain level without expending that much fund", and meanwhile, he also listed several particular works.
Subsequently, the topic of panel discussion involved the basic difference among all media, scenarios used to present contents and other problems, as well as cost of contents making, effect of contents-making investment and other problems. At last, it's concluded that: the trans-industrial expertise and know-how represented by the cooperation between broadcasting and communication will be increasingly important in the future.
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