"To have internet access from different devices is one of the opportunities for social development of information"
Sebastián Muriel is director-general of red.es
In your opinion, is a society really 2.0 still far off?
The data that we are currently analyzing and that we see in Observatory, Telecomunications and the Information Society at red.es, is precisely that the behavioural pattern of local and Spanish users is much more sophisticated than in other countries. That is to say, here we have started later in a lot of areas but now we are using it intensively and in a sophisticated way, with a desire to share and beyond using it to search uniquely. I believe we are moving on the right track, especially the youngsters, who in Spain are using absolutely “disruptively” technology, something that in other countries isn’t happening at the same speed.
What balance do you draw from the last time FICOD took place and to where are the digital and hi-tech business models directed? What level of coexistence or integration can they have in the sphere of P2P?
Ficod, marked the start of a long and medium-term project, which was trying and tries to create a networking centre in common for both public and private agents working in the industry. A place where, at least once a year, to meet up to identify what our strengths are as an industry, our potential for exporting all of this knowledge and especially gaining an important position within what is the world audiovisual sector. We should also get the most out of the big audiences that there are out there with countries with whom we share culture and language. These audiences allow you to generate economies of scale and implant new business models.
Business models that are still to be defined in many areas. At Ficod we talk about music, audiovisual, cinema, television, interactive advertising, new publication models... These days you go on seeing how new business models in many of these industries are failing, beyond the moment in which we live, as a result of which I believe that there is a structural defect evident in these industries.
As a country we should move closer to these new business models in a professional way and anticipate many of these changes. This is what should try to be generated or at least be debated at events like Ficod, which has much in common with Citilab as a result of the audiovisual nature of research development and new ways of conducting internet.
Will mobile broadband prove the greatest entry-point for advanced services?
Mobile broadband is the internet for the future without a shadow of a doubt, it is the ability to really have access to all those services that, besides, are no longer located on one single piece of equipment, but are increasingly on different devices, or even not physical ones. The ability to really have access at any time, but on top of that, from any place, is evidently going to provide new uses for people who have to approach internet, and who up to now perhaps could not exactly see the use as a result of having to be in front of a terminal like a classic PC, something unknown or which did not suit them.
To have access to internet via distinct devices is one of the strengths and opportunities that we see in the face of the social development of information for all, for people who know how to get access and use traditional or classic equipment, like a PC, but also for people who merely need a terminal which intuitively gives them access to information. There is a lot of work being done on this and all of the agents in the industry are developing devices that are either touch or very intuitively enable access to information.
The other day I was commenting with someone from one of these big American multinationals how near we are already to be able to interact with these devices via the voice. We are not far off being able to make their use really widespread and that is going to be, without a doubt, another revolution: not depending on the keyboard, nor touchscreen, but simply on the voice in order to interact with internet and enjoy access to information.
What does the Citilab model bring to the environment of open innovation promoted by red.es?
Citilab, as a pioneering experience in Spain, enables the differential to be integrated on which a project of open innovation is to be built: build a mass audience of the citizens at large, integrating from the youngest right up to the most senior person. That is to say, to manage to implant in the same place everything belonging to the entrepreneurial segment and the ability to feed and relate people to one another as we all have a lot that we can learn from these other segments and other agents. As an initiative what we have to achieve is, not only consolidation, but also being capable of feeding and being a motor so that similar ideas appear in Spain, that they connect with each other, learn from one another and also have international projection. I believe that we are well on the way, and the truth is that Citilab is a reference for our times in this so complex ecosystem of ours.
