In the few years since the 2005 Digital Strategy, we have seen changes in the ways people communicate, interact, do business and experience their histories and cultures. Today’s digital technologies are enabling new expressions of New Zealanders’ sense of identity and community on screen and online. New business models are emerging, disrupting the old. Citizen-centred transactions have the potential to transform government. Smart digital technologies are enabling us to do things faster but with fewer resources.
It is time to respond to the digital revolution, the challenges it poses, and what it means for the future
of our country. The refreshed digital strategy will be the product of this national conversation. It will be the yardstick to measure our progress towards our digital future over the next few years.
The internet generation
The internet generation are those young people born since the World Wide Web was created in 1989. In the past three years, this generation started entering tertiary education and joining the workforce. They have new ideas and different values. They play, shop and communicate using digital technologies with an ease older people can only admire. They are our future innovators, creatives and leaders in the digital space. Those with skills and talent of an international standard will be highly sought after in the global jobs market. We must give them good reason to stay connected to New Zealand as their nation of origin.
The participative web
With the coming of broadband, the internet has rapidly shifted from a network of largely static webpages and email to a network characterised by rich content, user interaction and real-time participation. In the participative web, nicknamed ‘web 2.0’, upload speeds have become as important as download speeds, as users create, remix and share their own content while communicating online with social and extended community networks. People share their own photos and videos with friends and family through free web services like Flickr and YouTube, while blogs, forums and wikis have become tools of choice to build online communities.
Digital broadcasting
In 2007, public broadcasting made the shift to a digital platform, launched as part of the Freeview consortium. In 2008, high-definition digital television has been launched. Given other countries’ experiences, we can expect other digital platforms such as game consoles, media centres and 3G mobile phones to become more popular as on-demand digital content sources. As well as creating and sharing their own content on the internet, New Zealanders are gaining access to an unprecedented amount of audiovisual content from across the globe.
Digital culture
With an entire generation now having grown up with the internet, mobile phones and digital music, content not accessible in digital form risks being ignored or forgotten, while volumes of overseas digital content can potentially drown out our home-grown products. Digital technologies are now enabling many opportunities for New Zealand creative and cultural expression in the fields of music, the performing and visual arts, film, television, radio, literature and design. However, content creators and those charged with maintaining our cultural memory are grappling with the emerging need to ensure New Zealand’s non-digital content can still be discovered, while improving the use, visibility and management of locally produced digital content for New Zealand audiences.
Converging technology markets
Once operating as distinct businesses in very different markets, broadcasters, phone companies and internet service providers today are rapidly converging, offering integrated services and competing for content and customers. Mobile devices have become an important connection point to the internet, while voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and internet protocol television (IPTV) can be expected to grow. The government’s regulatory reforms in the telecommunications sector are also stimulating competition, enabling small, innovative companies to offer services with affordable start-up costs.
Digital business and the ‘long tail’
We are now seeing a new kind of kiwi firm that does business digitally and uses the internet as its only channel to market. Hosted storage, middleware applications and Software as a Service (SaaS) are growing business areas. Such firms can be based in New Zealand and operate in the global marketplace, as long as they have access to fast, affordable broadband.
There are many examples of smaller enterprises transacting globally from New Zealand and taking advantage of what writer Chris Anderson in 2006 termed the ‘long tail’ – the market economics of many small niche businesses offering consumers a huge range of choices.
We now understand more clearly how digital technologies can raise economic productivity by improving business processes. Digital technologies have driven growth in many OECD countries and will be a powerful tool in New Zealand’s economic transformation. At the same time, these technologies can help capture commercial opportunities arising from the strong and ongoing pressure for environmental sustainability.
|
GROWING DIGITAL BUSINESSES //////
Xero is a good example of a New Zealand firm that has recognised the benefits of SaaS. Xero offers an accounting tool to customers around the world without them having to buy the software, host it and have on-site information technology expertise.
Such diverse businesses as adventure tourism and landscape photography are taking advantage of the long tail made possible by the internet. Photographer Andris Apse may live in Okarito on the West Coast but he sells archival prints of his landscape photographs from a library of 25,000 images on his website. |
Copyright in the digital domain
The protection of intellectual property creates complex issues for policy makers worldwide. Before the digital revolution, it was easier to protect the rights of copyright owners from unlawful distribution and sale of their works. Commercial content distributors are now experimenting with new revenue models for online distribution in order to reduce illegal downloading, while Creative Commons licences have grown popular for a lot of non-commercial content use.