Hi! We are the first contact point and innovation support for the media and digital industry in Hamburg.

Community

We connect established companies, start-ups, institutions and universities as well as content creators.

Programs

We promote and support new teams, ideas, products, business models and entire companies.

Topics & Themes

We sit down with experts and talk about the important topics of the future.

Visibility

We make Hamburg visible as the digital media metropole.

Community

We connect established companies, start-ups, institutions and universities as well as content creators.

Programs

We promote and support new teams, ideas, products, business models and entire companies.

Topics & Events

We sit down with experts and talk about the important topics of the future.

Visibility

We make Hamburg visible as the digital media metropole.

Prototyping Lab Kick-Off

Together with three partner companies and twelve students, we launched the Prototyping Lab 2022 on October 20. Over the next three months, the teams will solve challenges from the content industry with AI applications. The challenges were set by RMS Radio Marketing Service, Carlsen Verlag and Jahreszeiten Verlag. Read more about the three challenges from this year's Prototyping Lab here.

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Innovator Circle

Two days of exclusive sparring for the content industry - the second edition of the Innovator Circle will take place on November 8 and 9 in Hamburg with the topic "Rethink your Audience". Together with the participants and selected speakers, we will be addressing various questions relating to the topic of "audience" in the content industry. Register here now!

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City of Content-Tour

Come with us on a tour through the City of Content and visit five Hamburg companies that were successfully founded in the Hanseatic city: NDR, Podstars by OMR, Rocket Beans and two other Secret Stops. Our bus tour on November 25, 2022, offers you the opportunity to get exclusive insights into the companies, expand your professional network and exchange ideas with other content creators. Apply now!

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Storytelling Funding

Our Storytelling Funding moves into the second phase! Creative projects with a focus on sustainability, social business or digitalization are invited to apply. You can expect a funding of 6,000 - 7,000 €, which you can invest with the storytellers from our storyteller pool. They will help you to make your project digitally successful with good stories. Apply now until November 21!

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nextMedia.Session #6

Are synthetic media our future? We discussed this at our nextMedia.Session on Tuesday, September 20. The sixth edition of the session was held in cooperation with MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein. Tatjana Anisimov from RTL Germany and Pascal Schröder from Gipfelstürmer Film gave exciting talks with concrete use cases. You can read the results of the session here.

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Survey about influencers

Influencers are polarizing: Some stand out for their well-researched content, such as YouTubers Rezo and maiLab, while others are more likely to cause scandal. We have taken the discussion about influencers as an opportunity to gain insight into what the audience expects from influencers with a representative survey. If you want to know more, check out our blog!

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Media Lift Graduation Pitch

With the Graduation Pitch, we celebrated the conclusion of the 4th batch of our incubator Media Lift on Monday, September 12. The five teams showed what they have worked on in the last months and how they have developed their business models. We would like to thank everyone who attended. You can find a review of the Graduation Pitch here.

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Advisory Board

For almost two years now, we have been working with over 30 influential players from the media and digital industries to further develop Hamburg's innovation ecosystem. Yesterday, we met with our advisory board in the beautiful premises of Carlsen Verlag. With the help of working groups in the advisory board, we were able to work out the needs, challenges and wishes of the content industry and develop our programs accordingly.

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scoop Award 2022

Jack Riley is the recipient of the 2022 scoop Award. As VP of Business Development & Revenue Strategy at HuffPost and BuzzFeed News, he has excelled in digital pioneering and entrepreneurship in the media business. Over 2020, Jack has helped HuffPost grow profits by 21 percent with new revenue streams. We're looking forward to Jack Riley and his keynote at this year's scoopcamp. You can secure a ticket here.

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New Leaders’ Forum

On August 18, we invited young managers to the New Leaders' Forum. The topic "How much attitude do media need?" was discussed, using climate communication as an example. Ulrike Penz, Chief Sustainability Officer at G+J, provided exciting input. Read more about the New Leaders' Forum and Ulrike's keynote here.

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We made it in Hamburg!

We tell the success stories of diverse companies that have made it in Hamburg's content industry. Whether it's Podstars by OMR, Rocket Beans TV or NDR’s talk show format deep & deutlich, we take you on a journey through the City of Content.

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scoopcamp – Save the Date

This year's innovation conference for media will take place at the beach club "Del Mar" in Hamburg's harbor on September 8, 2022. With a full-day program, the scoopcamp is dedicated to three exciting focus topics around the future of journalism in an increasingly digitized world: Digital Revenue, Audience and Creator Economy. You can secure your tickets here.

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Content Foresight 2022

Two days of workshop on the topic of content and commerce: We successfully launched our Content Foresight innovation program. Together with the five participating companies we worked out what the potential for innovation of digital future technologies for commerce looks like. In August, we will continue with the second module - we are already looking forward to it!

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Songtradr takes over musicube

Good news from our former Media Lift team musicube. The Hamburg-based start-up has been acquired by Songtradr, the world's leading B2B music company. musicube's music AI solution provides comprehensive metadata for music labels, publishers, rights holders and others looking for song discoverability tools.

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Content meets Commerce

In our 2022 Content Foresight program, we are working with Carlsen Verlag, Pilot, Blish, RMS Radio Marketing Service and Stein to develop the content of the future at the interface to commerce. Livestream shopping on Instagram, trying out products with augmented reality or buying NFTs of the new collection - there is enormous potential for innovation in digital future technologies for commerce.

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Four prototypes that are changing the content industry with AI

After three months of interdisciplinary collaboration, the 20 students in this year’s Prototyping Lab presented their findings at the Reveal. With the support of their partner companies, they have developed remarkable prototypes.

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Programs

We support start-ups, develop prototypes and strengthen innovation skills and knowledge.

Media Lift

The Content & Tech Incubator

Start-ups from our previous batches

musicube

musicube is revolutionizing the search for music with artificial intelligence. The start-up has developed a semantic music search that can be used to answer very individual and almost any search queries.

BotTalk

Publishing in the voice-first world: With its text-to-speech technology, BotTalk supports news publishers in their audio strategy and enables them to place their content and digital products as audio on their website.

Prototyping Lab

6 universities, 12 students and 3 partner companies

Prototypes from our previous labs

KI

A music prediction machine, a filter to identify fake ads and an intelligent database for recipe searches. Students from four Hamburg universities have developed impressive prototypes for SPIEGEL, N-JOY and Bauer Media.

XR

At the first Prototyping Lab, students worked on virtual & augmented reality applications for newsrooms. One of the three teams produced the 10-minute VR live experience “Behind the Moon” for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, which was published on Spiegel Online.

Content Foresight

Developing the content of the future together

Projects

Health

Together, MaibornWolff, BKK VBU and Carlsen Verlag took advantage of interdisciplinary collaboration and developed an impressive prototype in a very short time: an AR-based app that playfully and individually encourages children to exercise more and adopt health-conscious behavior.

Mobility

A virtual city tour, a seamless travel experience and an utopia of the mobile world in 2034 – the project results of the first edition of Content Foresight show how content consumption could change in the coming years due to changing mobility offerings.

Storytelling Funding

We help make your project digitally successful.

We promote selected projects and companies and match them with suitable storytellers from Hamburg. The goal is for the projects to become digitally successful through good storytelling.

Innovator Circle

Two days of exclusive sparring for the content industry

We bring innovation drivers into a trusting exchange, offer inspiring impulses and a framework for individual development. At our Innovator Circle, you can make relevant contacts, gather lots of ideas for new business models and products, and get practical suggestions on how to successfully position yourself and your company for the future of the content economy.

Funding Rounds

#ClimateAction

We are currently looking for journalists, start-ups, content creators, innovators and all those who make climate protection a top priority in their companies and contribute to sustainable climate communication.

#PaidContent

In the second round of the funding program, our fast movers worked on creative revenue strategies. One of the results was a online marketplace for the (hyper-)local publisher Eimsbüttler Nachrichten.

Events

At our events we develop ideas and discuss topics surrounding the future of the media industry together with international experts and important players in Hamburg’s media and digital scene.

nextMedia-Event

nextMedia.Starter - Product Owner

In each nextMedia.Starter edition, we focus on a new career field and introduce you to three fascinating people from Hamburg’s media and digital scene and their career paths.

19th

of January 2022

Blog

Network

Media innovations – and the industry as a whole – thrive on an open, cooperative network. So do we. Here is a selection of our partners and supporters: