The activities in Next Media are based on tasks in which groups of companies co-operate with research parties in order to resolve a specific business oriented research challenge. Tasks can go on for one year or they can extend over several years depending on the complexity of the problem. Tasks are selected on ground of main business goals of Next Media. Next Media consists of three work packages which all have several companies participating with a common pre-competitive business goal with a time span of 3-5 years. The research work has been divided into three research themes, the area of which cover the research challenges of Next Media from media content access to operative processes and to business models as well as user experience. Research themes are stationary and they cumulate the findings from separate cases together for the use of the parties. The tasks in the work packages have been divided into three groups, each reflecting the content of one of the three research themes. The three work packages are: • WP1: eReading, chargeable editorial content on digital platforms • WP2: Personal Media Day, extending the media services to mobile day-time use • WP3: Hyperlocal, local media transforming into local communities The three research themes are: • Media Business: business models, advertising, service concepts • Media eXperience: User research and consumer research, engagement • Media Technology: automation, HTML5, profiling, big data, …
In addition to these work packages WP0 handles project management and reporting. Next Media aims at long-span research work in the respective themes and changing company projects that live their own life cycle in work packages.