To borrow a phrase from New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, 2006 is shaping up to be the tipping point for digital content on multiple platforms. And as such, organizers of nextMEDIA: The Future of Digital Content, are looking to establish the conference as the new media event for the content industry.

‘We’re pretty focused now on digital content and the creation of digital content. That’s our unique selling proposition,’ says nextMEDIA producer of content Mark Greenspan of the conference, which runs June 9-11 at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel, just ahead of the Banff World Television Festival.

With major players such as Alliance Atlantis gambling on the viability of multi-platform distribution to the extent that AA has shelved plans to unload its film and TV distribution units, indications are the timing is right.

‘All of 12 months ago, the subject of video on handheld or direct broadcast to handheld was very much a dream,’ says Will Hodgman, president and CEO of Seattle-based M:Metrics, which measures the consumption of content on mobile phones. Hodgman, who will participate in the panel Show Me the Value: Funding and Valuing Digital Content, says the world’s largest content creators and broadcasters are clamoring to get their heads around this burgeoning field.

‘They don’t understand it at all, but they want to understand it immediately,’ he says. ‘[nextMEDIA] is probably the most well-positioned [event] for digital content and distribution and trends in that direction.’

It’s no coincidence that nextMEDIA and the Banff TV fest are running back-to-back, as Banff is run by Achilles Media, which also owns and operates nextMEDIA.

Achilles is betting that this year’s theme, The Multi-Platform Distribution of Digital Content, will attract an increasing proportion of content producers and broadcasters. In addition to Alliance Atlantis, expected attendees include reps from NBC, MTV, HBO, Global, Astral Media, Corus Entertainment, Discovery Communications, Barna-Alper Productions, Haddock Entertainment, Vérité Films, as well as the CRTC.

‘Traditional TV is still the big economic model that works,’ says Patricia Douey, nextMEDIA’s COO, ‘but these markets are really developing – and very, very quickly – and there is a really keen interest in looking at what is working, how it’s working and what the business models are.’

To that end, Douey and colleagues have lined up a who’s who of participants from the world of new media, starting with keynote speaker Stewart Butterfield, recently tapped by Time magazine for its 100 most influential people list. The founder of online photo management app Flickr.com and director of product management for Yahoo! plans to share tips on how to engage users on multiple platforms and, crucially, making those relationships profitable.

As with the Banff World Television Festival, nextMEDIA is built around formalized networking opportunities. This year it will offer initiatives such as a short-form multi-platform content pitching session, Interactive Exchange Sessions, the Commissioning Editors Program and Digital Delivery Briefings. ‘One of the most exciting things is the fact that it’s a marketplace,’ adds Greenspan. ‘That’s not seen so much at these types of events.’

In fact, longtime attendees may not recognize the TV industry shmoozerama nextMEDIA has become since changing its moniker from the Baddeck International New Media Festival – after the Nova Scotia town in which it was founded in 1997 and held for the first few years. The conference used to be a techy love-in – a little bit about gaming, interactivity and other applications with a somewhat tenuous relationship to the then-nascent multi-platform world.

The name was changed to nextMEDIA and the conference brought under the purview of the old Banff Television Festival in 2002. Achilles Media took over nextMEDIA and the TV festival in 2004, and the following year brought the new media confab out to Banff.

‘Both are focusing on the creation of content, because there was a lot of interest in new media and digital media in the TV community, and it made sense to put the two together and take advantage of the synergies between them,’ Douey says.

nextMEDIA is much like the Banff of the good old days, in that its subject matter is relevant enough to attract the major players, but the conference, with 200 to 300 attendees, is still intimate enough for delegates to get plenty of face time. And since there are no concurrent sessions, attendees get to take in the program in its entirety.

www.nextmedia2006.com