Lara M. Ayoub, portal manager of Jordan’s ‘AlGhad’ newspaper, and Stephan Philips, managing director of the UK’s Archant group, will illustrate this cultural convergence by co-chairing Beyond 2010. 

As every year for the past 18 years, Beyond 2010 will take a close look at what is happening in the digital media area. Lecturers from all over the world will meet an international audience to give an update on the latest hot topics.

WAN-Ifra says that in several areas, 2010 will be characterised by unprecedented experimentation. After a costly race to attract audience without genuine gains in online advertising revenue, the interest is rising in new business strategies. This year, many have attempted to charge for their contents. How do they fare if they are not the ‘Financial Times’ nor the ‘Wall Street Journal’? Patrick Lenehan, chief technology officer at Ireland’s Independent News & Media, will be one of the lecturers who will share his company's first results.

Another highly interesting contribution is likely to be that of Madhav Chinnappa, former BBC News' head of development and rights, who earlier this year joined the Google partnerships team for Europe, the Middle East and Africa as strategic partner development manager, "with a specific focus on helping publishers get the most out of Google News".

Beyond 2010 will deal also with other topics and investigate, among other aspects, the impact of social networks and the consequences of the change in the behaviour of Internet users for the advertising market.

For an updated version of the conference programme visit: www.wan-ifra.org/beyond.