Nov 08
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From The Sydney Morning Herald Dec 28th 2000
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My wife just came across an old newspaper cutting – an article from The Sydney Morning Herald, with some future predictions from technology entrepreneurs… I was among them.
This is what the article attributes to me (interesting from 8 years into the future to see what punditry I was up to then!):
Chris Gilbey, a 20 year veteran of the music industry and author of the book, The Infinite Digital Jukebox, launched Big Fat Radio in June. Despite a star line up of former ABC DJ's, investors pulled the plug five months later. Gilbey says he is now a business development consultant.
“We found that when the investment market turns it can do 180 degrees a lot quicker than most CEO's can change their business models. The only killer app is email. B2C needs a bricks and clicks partnership. Internet entertainment needs wide broadband access; and good intellectual property in the form of patents holds true value. Venture capitalists will ask for and get a lot more equity for their buck. Cybersecurity will become a bigger issue. Government support for innovation will be accellerated. Online companies that have cash will find that they need to deliver profits now, regardless of what time frame the original business plan provided and will find the only miracle cure will be to buy existing businesses with strong revenues and numbers in the black. A bunch of smart young guys will probably go and live in the US where there is a lot more optimism and cash. Those companies that can weather the storm will do incredibly well. Streaming will be big.”