Last week, Google had its Big Tent held in collaboration with the Institute for Media and Entertainment in Madrid, where discussions were held on the future of the web, the digital environment and journalism.

“I cannot predict the future, I’m too old, the tools are too new,” said Jeff Jarvis, American journalist and one of the speakers. Jarvis, a professor at New York Graduate School of Journalism, outlined some of the features of journalism of the future.

“Journalism should stop seeing masses and focus on personal relationships,” he said. It is crucial that new digital media provide different content for each of its readers, and treat them as individuals with their own values and interests. Only then can value be generated.

These are some of the ideas thrown up by Jarvis on how journalism might look like:

1. It is not the content, it is the service. Publishers should change their metrics — they must measure their success on whether or not the content helped readers. “Fifty-five per cent of pages are on the internet are abandoned within 15 seconds,” Jarvis said.

2. Specialisation and with specialisation comes value.

3. Listen to the public. The public knows what it wants to read.

4. Since there is no mass, there is no individual. Jarvis narrates an example: “In a city, use an application for traffic. This application has specific information about it to give better service. The newspaper, however, gives you the same 300 news that it gives the rest of the community. The newspaper sees me as part of a mass ... Google sees me as an individual.”

5. With the web comes efficiency. Jarvis repeats an idea: “You do not have to do everything for everybody”, so you gain time and you do what you do and do it well.

6. Technology is the future, but needs freedom. Jarvis explains why he rejects the limits set on Google in Europe. “They want to kill the link.”

7. It is too early to limit the internet. Jarvis said that the newspaper did not come until 150 years after the invention of printing. The internet is just beginning, so too early to set limits, It has to have room to grow.

8. Given the enormous volume of information, journalists should add value. The journalist has to bring something more, specialisation or context.

9. The inverted pyramid method of writing news is dead. “If you want to understand, you’re going to The Economist and the Financial Times.”

10. If you do not do, someone younger than you will do. Jarvis wants to see a push for innovation in getting quality journalism on the web. “If you do not do it, it will be made by a guy in a garage.”