“If I were 25 today I wouldn’t be sitting in Europe or in the US, I’d be in Beijing or Bangalore,” Martin Sorrell pointed out what he considered the markets of the future. Together with the event’s co-sponsors Herbert Burda and Yassi Vardi, TED founder Richard Wurman and investor Joe Schoendorf, the advertising expert discussed the potential of new markets during the opening panel discussion of the DLD conference.

“India and China are the fastest growing markets. I don’t see a lot of potential for the future in Europe,” stated the head of WPP Group, one of the world’s major media and communications companies. Richard Wurman is also convinced that today’s emerging markets will soon catch up: “At future G8 meetings, we will be seeing only one European country among the participants—and that will be Great Britain.” Never before have there been so many changes as in the digital age: “The younger generation can no longer remember a time without internet.”

Co-sponsors Vardi and Burda agreed:” We live in an age of continuous change. That applies to the music industry, the film market, telecommunications and many other industries,” said the Israeli investor. Publisher Hubert Burda added that the media industry was in the midst of a radical transformation as well. “We have just been negotiating about mobile phone TV. This will bring about a complete change to the advertisement market.”

Between January 21 and 23, over 1,000 experts and pioneers from the industries, media, politics, business, the arts and design met in Munich to discuss issues in digital media. “Uploading the 21st Century” was the title of this fourth DLD Conference.

Mercedes’ brand expert Olaf Goettgens, for example, explained how globally competitive brands could be established in the digital age. “When I was young, we had two TV stations, no remote control. At night, the program finished after the national anthem. Advertising was easy in those days.” Today no one would dream of one-way communication and the greatest challenge was developing cross medial communication for brands and products.

Author Paulo Coelho demonstrated the effects of digitalization on literature: “For the first time in my life, I am able to interact with my readers. We need the internet,” believes the bestselling author who has his latest book, “The Witch of Portobello”, turned into a film by the internet community.

Animation designer David Silverman offered a look behind the scenes of “The Simpsons”: “It takes six weeks to write a sequel and almost nine months to produce it.” Rounding up the first day of the conference, Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute in Boulder showed breathtaking pictures from space and former Benetton photographer Oliviero Toscani reported about work at his creative centre in Italy.

You can find complete information on DLD at www.dld-conference.com. Sevenload and Youtube also carry excerpts and interviews from the conference.