research

Two reports for the EU Interreg-funded Irish, North-Irish & Scottish creative cluster project Honeycomb. The first looked at producers & market activity across animation, film & TV, music and interactive media; the second at the commissioners of content, across tourism, advertising & health/education.

In 1997, Kevin Kelly in Wired Magazine set out twelve rules for the new economy. Rule five was the 'Law of Increasing Returns: Make Virtuous Circles – the idea that you could create positive ripples that self-sustain themselves: as a networked platform becomes useful, it gets users, therefore is more useful, so gets more users, ad infinitum.

This project was motivated by the struggle producers and distributors have to make a return on their work. With online revenues for films still uncertain, exhibition income is more important than ever, as it remains one market where people are happy to pay for content - and the market is healthy and growing. The music industry has weathered many of the challenges of the digital transition thru a resurgence in festivals, touring and concerts, which overtook sales of singles and albums in 2009, as the biggest earner.

by Tom Fogg and Nicol Wistreich, for Market Tracking International and the Art & Antiques Gazette.

by Adam Thomas and Nicol Wistreich, for Market Tracking International and Theodore Goddard