Few knew what to expect when Inmaculada Martinez of Stradbroke Advisors took to the stage to talk about 'Positive Deviants and the Agents of Change' but what followed was a lively canter through media predictions and Generation Y – the generation that grew up with digital and which in 2010 will outnumber the baby boomers. 90 per cent of them have joined a social network and with that social media has overtaken porn as the number one activity online. Martinez points out that YouTube was thought to be the future of TV but 100 million videos later it is actually up against Google as the second most popular search engine. She also pointed out that entering into new media is like a student going to the student bar for the first time “you just try to behave like others and fit in.” Good journalism has often found its home in the fringes according to Martinez who cited the examples of Vietnam war coverage in the sixties finding a platform in Playboy and Rolling Stone. “What's happening with the web is no different.”
And her vision of the future? “Books will not disappear, computers are great, but the thing that will be massive in five years is mobile. The way my parents bought papers was based on ideology that's why some chose the Times, others the Guardian. My generation doesn't give a damn about ideology, just the experience.”
