The last day of the event featured the future of industries such as entertainment, especially K-Pop, online education, e-commerce, and retail (offline) post-COVID-19 era.
Entertainment: The Shifting Media Landscape and Opportunities for the OTT Market
Taehoon Park, Watcha Company’s CEO, delivered a meaningful discussion about the media landscape transformations and the OTT market. He is also a KAIST alumnus who established Watcha Pedia, which focuses on personalized content recommendation and Watcha OTT service.
Taehoon discussed the entertainment sector with a vision to create the world’s best personal engine that offers content suitable to a user’s preference. He started the service with automation recommendations based on data collected from various platforms.
According to Taehoon, the present media landscape transformed progressively and exhibited the ability to understand an individual’s choices. “The media is changing from newspaper, radio to TV to the internet to now it’s on mobile. So there is scope for different players at different times.” Taehoon said.
Additionally, he explained how advertisements affect the media landscape. The power of advertisements dramatically influences people’s choices and which could change a program’s set-up. The Korean OTT market would grow exponentially in the future, and data collected from OTT users would help evaluate its entertainment content’s success.
Data and data gathering engines would play a major in shaping the media’s outlook and development.
Panel Discussion: Born Global: What Makes an Entertainment Platform on a Global Scale
The media landscape during this time tends to lean towards OTT platforms, which became more personalized. The suitable type of content often varies with each individual, and with this diversity, OTT platforms improved and developed global outreach.
Moderator Ye Sol Jeong, an investment specialist of FuturePlay, conversed with startup companies involved in different fields in entertainment.
The panelists consist of Steve Lee, co-founder of AmazeVR, a virtual reality concert platform, Ki Jun Seo, CEO and co-founder of Planetarium, a startup pioneering the next generation of open-source, serverless MMO games on blockchain technology, and Sung Moon Cho, Founder and CEO of Chartmetric, a data analytics company dedicated to serving the music industry.
The panelists introduced the nature of their ventures and described their journeys in the entertainment medium. They all agreed that communication and perseverance in performing their passion contributed to their ventures’ successful outcomes.
The panel also discussed the challenges encountered by entertainment startups with regards to content and other matters. Sung Moon Cho of Chartmetric stated that the biggest challenge lies in attracting customers and convincing them for any startup. Ki Jun Seo of Planetarium spoke about standards on how to execute technology in the online gaming industry. Steve Lee of AmazeVR stated that the right team of trusted employees sharing the company’s vision would bring success to the company.
The values of openness, honesty, and transparency could impact and change the lives of many people worldwide through media.
Panel Discussion: New Media Moving Beyond Portal and Social Media
Social Media Platforms and Portal Platforms have become a part of the new mainstream media, affecting an individual’s preferences in various entertainment. In this panel discussion, CEO Tae Yong Kim of Studio EO acted as the moderator.
The panelists included Will Ryu, founder and CEO of startup OXOpolitics, Su Ji Lee, CEO of Things flow, and Da Eun Bhin, founder of NEWNEEK. The panel members talked about the rise of the new media as a form of entertainment.
Each panel member described their entrepreneurship journey, conceptualization, acquisition of funds, attracting customers, and convincing them.
Will Ryu wanted to develop a community forum for politics through technology. Su Ji Lee stated that the digital content that people invest in results from what they find appealing and worth consuming. Da Eun Bhin talked about how psychology influences people in choosing certain content in social media.
The panelists said that once content appeals to consumers, it would encourage more services and paid subscriptions. The new media provides more personalized and interactive content as compared to the media before.
