"One of the legacies of Steve Jobs is that he's taught us to pay for content," says Adam Bird, director, McKinsey & Company, speaking of the late Apple founder in a presentation on how consumers behave with new technologies.
When it comes to paid-for apps, books, news and magazines are doing quite well, he says. Speaking at a World Newspaper Congress session dedicated to technology, Bird focuses on how consumers are interacting with the new devices.
"If we start to think about technology in general, the only real certainty is that we are going to have more technology," he says. "The sheer volume and pace of change is phenomenal. E-mails per second are up to 2.9 million. There are 20 hours of content uploaded to YouTube per minute. The sheer scale of this is absolutely phenomenal."
What's changing the most? Bird suggests looking at mobile developments as they become more social, more video, more local.
"If we look at it in terms of mobile, if we isolate one thing that will happen, it is that every phone will become a smartphone, and it is absolutely changing how people are using them," he says. "It's almost used for everything but voice communication; we're certainly seeing that trend accelerating. Mobile is becoming a serious advertising platform as well."
