So the year is really off and running. It’s only mid January but the WebsEdge team has already been on the ground in Boston and Chicago producing Historians TV as well as covering the Joint Mathematics Meeting – the world’s largest gathering of mathematicians. And next week we have a team in Washington DC for the National Council on Science and the Environment.

This is our first year producing JMM TV but our fourth with Historians TV. And as always there was a really interesting mix of pre-made films and coverage of the event itself. All put together into a television programme shown at the conference venue and in the delegate hotel rooms. And as always a lot of positive feedback – which is always good. Just don’t test me on my algebra!

Whilst we’re always tuning the model the basics of that programme formation and distribution haven’t really changed over the last few years. But this year there was one major difference – the use of video via social media. B2B media – be it video, magazines or even events – isn’t always the first place you find innovation in social media. And whilst Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been ever present among consumers for quite a while now they have been slower to take hold with events.

But all that is beginning to change. We saw two trends emerging last week.  First, more and more people are joining in the twitter conversation using the conference hashtag. But what’s interesting is that whilst many of these are at the conference a sizeable proportion isn’t. Enabling folks not at the event to actually take part in the conversation.

Second, people are embedding the videos we made at the conference into tweets using YouTube. I think that’s a really interesting development for two reasons.  It allows people to have a conversation around the videos rather than just watching them. But even more interesting is the effect this has on mobile media. Because YouTube videos can play on most devices the video clips of that days conference can now be carried around with you in a form anyone can access on any device. And for business to business media that’s really a first.

There’s no doubt these are tough times for the media industry. Advertising revenue for both newspapers and television companies is substantially down with forecasts of a 20% reduction in one year is common.

In truth it is hard for these companies to survive and we’re witnessing both a haemorrhaging of jobs and significant closures of titles. And bizarrely we’re all able to watch this play out on the new media that was in line to save these venerable organisations. Employees can be seen blogging and twittering away on their last days at work.

And the cause of all this isn’t difficult to see. Despite the cuts the cost bases of these traditional media houses are too high. On-line advertising just hasn’t filled the gap caused by the decline in revenues and people simply don’t want to pay for news – be it on or off-line. And despite what the clever people tell you a ‘free’ economic model is never going to pay the bills.

But there’s an underlying issue here that goes far beyond this recession. And if we’re going to be honest with ourselves it needs to be addressed if we’re going to come out of it. Is the industry we work for meeting the needs of the audiences it serves?

The danger here is that our major media outlets are driven more by their cost models than the needs of their constituents. We’re too keen to distribute what we want to produce rather than what people will pay to receive.

And there lies the rub. Interestingly all our research shows that people – both personally and professionally – have a much greater need to communicate than they did before. And if we actually listen hard and work to meet that need then the economic model will follow.

Examples aren’t hard to find from iTunes through to journal subscriptions people will pay for what matters to them. So lets put our efforts into making sure that the ‘new’ media economy that comes out of this recession is fit for purpose and not just a re-hash of 19^th century ideals.