In my Wall Street days, one of the first uses for real-time information feeds into PCs devised by investment banks was to pump them into spreadsheets, which would in turn calculate information that could be republished out to the investment community. It was a very cost-effective way to accomplish a key publishing function without having to rely on armies of programmers to set up these relatively simple functions that a spreadsheet could handle fairly easily.

Labels: apps, business, enterprise, fm publishing, foreign currency, Google, programming, spreadsheet

Amongst other things that I was checking out during my book-writing sabbatical was Amazon's Kindle portable reading device, courtesy of the Westport Public Library's lending desk. I checked out the unit for a few days, which actually turned into about two weeks due to a bad cold that caught me unexpectedly, but it was long enough to appreciate the ins and outs of this increasingly popular device.

A Kindle starts up easily enough by sliding a slim switch on the back of the unit, though its being next to a switch that activates the unit's wireless networking capabilities makes this something a bit awkward to do by habit. You have to flip the Kindle unit over to make sure that you're hitting the right switch most time. There are a lot of little ergonomic issues like this in the Kindle, ideas that look good in the design phase that perhaps could have been better thought out in real life. The keyboard of a Kindle falls into that category also, being barely usable for hunting and pecking but with a slippery and ambiguous feel that makes it unthinkable to use it for more than a few must-do tasks.

Overall, though, many of the key features are remarkably easy to use. The unit boots up quickly and its basic page turning functions are remarkably intuitive, with large broad keys on each side of the unit for turning forward and backwards. A Kindle will boot up to where you were last looking at content, so it's not always necessary to bookmark where you were last reading - same when you return to a specific book. There is a small scroll wheel at the bottom of a thin channel that parallels the main screen: scroll the wheel and a kind-of cursor will move up and down next to the screen and allow you to select from pop-up menus or to click on links. I thought that this would be a really inconvenient interface but you get used to it fairly easily. I can see how its steadiness will be useful in bumpy environments like subway trains. So for basic functions and navigation control you can give it a "weird but usable" rating for the most part.

The eInk display was somewhat disappointing in that the background was rather grayish rather than whitish, which made many illustrations almost impossible to make out clearly and made it a little more difficult to use in dim light. But in spite of this the display was remarkably readable for text - especially when the font size was bumped up a bit. Whew - for those of us who rely on reading glasses or progressive lenses, this is a blessing. There are plenty of great books that I'd love to pore through that have bitsy little print that wears my eyes out very quickly. With a Kindle you don't get print fatigue or the fatigue of looking at a backit screen. With bumped-up font sizes there's not that much information on any given page but the ease of turning to a new page of content makes up for that mild inconvenience easily. I found that I really enjoyed reading materials on the Kindle once I got settled in for a good sit-down.

The early Kindle models now available do provide Web access, but except for a handful of Web sites well adapted to the unit it's largely an exercise in fumbling through awkwardly formatted content - and also a feature that led to the unit freezing twice. A push of a bent paper clip into the unit's reset hole got it back to good order, but this is not a unit meant to replace mobile units with more robust Web browsing capabilities. Still, for a quick sneak peek at the headlines, it beats going back to the PC sometimes. The wireless service was quite good at my home, so chances are it will perform reasonably well with its network connectivity turned on wherever broadband services perform well. However, leaving the wireless connection does drain the batteries far more quickly than normal local -only reading would. In reading-only mode the Kindle batteries last for many days of typical use.

It's certainly a unit that I would consider as a convenience for future book purchases, especially given Amazon's pricing that enables one to purchase both a printed book and a Kindle-compatible copy for one purchase price, or get a Kindle-only copy for an even steeper discount. But what of gift books - or, for that matter, the huge library of printed books already at my disposal? The huge gap in Kindle's market strategy is a lack of "hooks" to keep people attached to their existing libraries and to be able to move on to new books once their usefulness has run their course. There's no real concept of a "used" market for Kindle books, much less the ability to add significant value to them in a way that could be onpassed to others.

More importantly there is little ability to use a Kindle book to activate online content. For example, if I am reading a passage and would like to research a specific person or historical event mentioned in the book, there are no "hooks" to online content that would make that easy - nor any way to store that research with my Kindle book copy for future reference. It's still a fairly unimaginative approach to book marketing. This may reflect the generally conservative approach to book packaging and marketing that still grips many publishing houses, but this conservatism now competes with a demographic curve that is racing against the clock.

Like the music industry print publishers have locked in their future to proprietary technologies to protect existing business models, but in the process of doing so they may have sold away their futures. With an explosion of different kinds of portable devices reaching the marketplace today and the promise of an even more complex array of devices fitting people's lifestyles in the future, why on earth would an entire industry select a proprietary platform to develop their future revenues? In a few years I believe that we will look at experiments such as the iPod and the Kindle much as people today look back on proprietary electronic content services such as Compuserve or the original AOL and ask themselves, what were we thinking?

The future of book publishing will rest on more open publishing platforms that enable book content to move to the contexts and popular devices in which it's valued most far more effectively and that will enable others to add value around a given book independent of its initial publisher. Book publishers already are more aware that their best strengths lie in talent management, providing services that leverage as many aspects of an author's value as rapidly and as effectively as possible through the lifecycle of a given work of authorship. But expect that more nimble companies who see the ability to manage talented authors more effectively through a variety of publishing media to challenge traditional publishing houses over the next few years, especially those who are best able to leveral social media outlets to build and maintain loyal communities of readers and commenters. The Kindle is a nifty little device, but it's just a hint of where the future of book publishing could take us in the not too distant future.

Labels: amazon, books, eInk, fm publishing, kindle, review, Trends, usablity

While Silicon Valley figure Mark Cuban mutters that the Internet is dead the real concern should be about how United States markets for Web publishing have begun to stagnate in recent years as overseas markets are gaining steam. While broadband Web access is available to about half of U.S. residents according to recent research, nations such as South Korea and Finland have been much more aggressive in pushing for universal access to broadband services., with China coming into its own rapidly. This gap in access is accentuated in mobile markets, where U.S.-based media producers have tied up with various telecommunications companies to license content through mobile carriers' private channels. In focusing on these short-term deals publishers lost momentum towards more widespread access to their content via mobile channels that could have added significantly to their audience base.

The Federal Communications Commission hopes to undo some of this backwardness by creating consumer-friendly rules for the radio frequencies being freed up for broadband wireless Internet access when analog U.S. television signals go off the air in 2009. USA today notes that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing new rules for this newly auctioned spectrum to use any wireless device to download any mobile broadband application, without restrictions. In other words the new mobile broadband coverage would preclude private deals for the distribution of intellectual property based on networks and mobile devices. Private deals would still be allowed via existing mobile channels, but the generally open framework of the Web would finally be available via mobile devices in the U.S.

This is a very positive move for the publishing industry, one which will accelerate rapidly their ability to reach audiences electronically and to broaden their market reach rapidly. With revenues dwindling rapidly in print publishing for all but the most esoteric or base interests publishers are faced with a widening gap in their top and bottom lines as online markets fail to grow penetration into a full-blown marketplace. Universal mobile broadband access will eliminate the barriers of entry into mobile markets for publishers, enabling them to push more aggressively into many of the lifestyle niches being abandoned in print format in favor of mobile content and to reach less affluent markets that will be able to use mobile devices as their primary Web access point if in-home access is not cost-effective.

It's appropriate that these frequencies being readied for new uses were the original backbone of the broadcast television industry. Just as broadcast television created vast new opportunities for entertainment, information and marketing the new broadband wireless capabilities will enable the U.S. to create a new universal access medium for enabling communications with its citizens. And unlike the broadcast television era the advent of social media will enable people to reach out to one another as well as to merchants and services providers as never before. Broadband wireless access has already enabled this for people in select locations on select networks, but the establishment of broadband wireless Internet access as the common denominator for American communications promises a bright future for all.

Labels: broadband wireless, FCC, fm publishing, government policy, Internet

CNET News chronicles Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's assertion that the software and services giant would be making a big noise in online advertising - an assertion that's been backed up by two short-term deals and likely to be followed by other major announcements. Forbes covers Microsoft's deal with social media portal Digg to use Microsoft for most of their online advertising, a deal that displaces John Battelle's FM publishing in large part for now - though based on John Battelle's upbeat assessment of the deal FM is gaining some inroads into Microsoft. Such a deal would be good for both partners: FM has done well with a number of major social media properties but has lacked the ability to fill available ad inventories effectively oftentimes, whereas Microsoft, ever late to the game, needs to start finding some leverage in social media as soon as possible. Both deals could presage exit plans that result in Microsoft acquisitions, but Microsoft may be learning from Google that it's more important to own the context than the content.

The other deal announced by Microsoft is the acquisition of ad auctioning technology from AdECN, a capability that should enable Microsoft to succeed more effectively against self-service ad placement services such as AdSense. AdECN is modeled after stock exchanges used in financial securities markets, requiring matching sellers' inventories against offers from advertisers, dealing only with existing ad networks as its members. So in effect demand for advertising coming in from one ad network could flow over to match inventory on another ad network, with each network receiving a portion of the buyer's ad fee proportionate to their role in the brokered transaction for the end publisher's sold inventory. AdECN takes a proportionately small piece of each transaction as a processing fee, in addition to up-front membership fees to cover basic infrastructure costs.

One can see how AdECN can be used by Microsoft to match inventory from ad networks such as FM Publishing to a greater universe of advertisers being glued together by Microsoft, giving FM-affiliated properties a broader universe of buyers without having to expand its direct sales presence. One can also see how this will enable Microsoft to enable traditional publishers and advertising agencies to gain access to a wider array of online properties without having to resort to the legwork required to cut deals with an ever-expanding universe of online niche market players and advertising networks. This will become increasingly important as more micropublishers begin to service niche markets more effectively online in B2B and consumer markets. So Microsoft can play "middle man" now with any number of media players, making easy money in the process and developing more direct sales and marketing relationships where it is most profitable for them to do so.

Given Microsoft's relatively late moves into trying to dominate online advertising a brokered market approach is a good strategic move. It enables Microsoft to gain the benefits of broad market penetration while enabling advertisers and publishers to work directly with the ad networks that make the most sense for their industry profiles. Given the increasingly niche-oriented nature of online advertising this may offer Microsoft more flexibility than a one-size-fits-all network like Google's AdSense network or its potential acquisition DoubleClick. The main weakness in this strategy is that it doesn't help Microsoft reach the "long tail" of advertisers as effectively as Google and Yahoo straight off, but in time Microsoft is likely to make inroads there as well. As its software revenues from tools that create content weaken Microsoft has little choice but to seek revenue from the content that's created by publishing tools. It's early days but expect Microsoft to develop some increasingly savvy solutions for ad buyers and sellers in search of the most premium online content markets.

Labels: adecn, advertising, Deals Partnerships and Sales, fm publishing, john battelle, Microsoft, steve ballmer