I had the opportunity to hear Jeffrey Cole of USC's Annenberg Center for the Digital Future present earlier this week at the FT Global Investment Series forum in Seattle.

He did a really nice job covering the current state and future of media.  Here are some highlights:

• Newspaper circulation begins to decline when Internet penetration gets to 30%.  For comparison, India is currently at 14% Internet penetration.
• The iPad is the "4th screen" in an evolution of TV (1st screen) ->PC (2nd screen)->mobile (3rd screen)->iPad/tablet (4th screen)
• Television and its captive audience have escaped the home with mobile consumption and no longer a predictable audience.
• The amount of time we spend "in front of a screen" has increased from 15 hrs per week in 1975 to 36 hrs per week today and will go to 50 hrs per week two years from now.
• 80% of mobile phone users sleep within arm's reach of their device (I use mine as an alarm clock – do you?)
• On-line news needs to be between 30-60 seconds old requiring constant production.  No more printing the paper and distributing it hours after news breaks.
• We don't lose our mobile phones because we rarely get far enough away from them to forget them.

I also met some really nice folks and definitely appreciated the invitation to attend.