Investing in European Digital Content

摘要

On May 1st, 10 countries joined the European Union's exist-ing 15 members, increasing the EU's GDP by 5% to EUD 9.6 trillion, its population by 20% to 454 million, and its official languages by 82% from 11 to 20. While taxpayers in existing member states may have mixed feelings about the growth, the added fragmentation and complexity does present opportunities for multicultural and multilingual digital content providers and associated software developers. To sweeten the opportunity in content segments that rarely attract private funding due to their public nature or complexity, on February 13, the European Commission proposed a EUD 163 million budget for the eContentplus program (2005-2008) to the European Parliament. eContentplus will fund projects in four content segments: public sector information, spatial data (combining geographic with other information), elearning, and cultural content. Projects funded are intended to facilitate the accessibility of the content, improve its quality by establishing best practices, and reinforce cooperation between stakeholders, preferably based in different EU member states.