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| Tuesday, January 26, 2010 |
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SIIA Information Industry Summit 2010: eBooks: Will They Endure or are They Just a Steppingstone?
Moderator: Jan Palmen, SVP, Publishing Services, Innodata Isogen Panelists:Nick Bogaty, Senior Business Development Manager, Adobe Systems, Inc. Christopher Brown, Director, Pearson Larry Schwartz, President, Newstex, LLC
What is an ebook? The panel offered various opinions, I liked Larry Schwartz's perspective, noting that he is distributing blogs in the same format as ebooks in some instance. Larry noted that 47 percent of ebook readers had viewed them on computers, with only a small percentage of these on ebook readers, and the ebook market overall still being a small percentage of the book market overall. The big issue for ebooks today, though, is not so much it total audience as it is how to get the market as a whole to grow across platforms. Nick Bogaty of Adobe still sees Amazon's Kindle as the leading platform, even as others enter the fray (it will be interesting to see what happens on the 27th with Apple's expected tablet announcement, rumors of a tie-up between Barnes & Noble and Apple are flying about). Chris Brown of Pearson noted that they are trying to balance focusing on users as authors along with working with traditional publishers.
Larry noted that this period of ebooks as one that is still very early days with non-color displays, he sees Apple's iPhone and soon Apple's tablet may help markets for ebooks to grow rapidly. He notes that everyone want the "holy grail" device, they don't want to travel with just another device. If you're on your couch, that's one thing, but for a business person it's different. Nick noted that customers have demonstrated that much demand for ebooks in trade, but in higher education and education in general there is much stronger demand. Christopher underscored this point, though he points out that the ebook reading devices are quite limited today for educational purposes. Asked later in the session if he thought that Apple's tablet would be an effective platform, he said simply, "I don't know."
Multimedia offers new opportunities for book publishers in this environment, he notes. However, when you are trying to distribute syndicated content through the day onto an ebook reader, though, Larry noted that the limited bandwidth available on Kindle's wireless network for downloads makes multimedia and blog distribution on Kindle and other devices that package in "free" wireless access impractical. However, there is a gadget "blip" in the short term for ebooks, Larry said, where new ebook reader releases tend to be followed by bursts of downloads of paid content onto the devices. However, this isn't really going to lead to long-term success if people aren't engaged with the content once it's downloaded. Christoper observed, rightly, I believe, that the people who said "content is king" and failed to adapt their products to mobile platforms effectively are now having to think differently.
Nick Bogaty noted that this is likely to be the year of the iSlate, but then interestingly noted that there would be many tablets will be coming out this year, emphasizing the importance of content portability. This means Adobe as a solution to Nick, but Jan Palmen noted that perhaps the issue is not so much portability but what a book really is at this time. Perhaps content aggregation is no longer going to be defined by publishers but consumer-based, at some point. Eleanor Haas noted in a comment that she advises customers to refer to their books as "titles" for their books, so that they can find them as products, but to lose the term "book" as a marketing tool. I think that this is a good approach. The "title" may be user-defined, but my sense is that the book publishing industry as we know it today will split into those who will enable user-defined collections of content from any number of sources, including self-published ebooks that have gained an online publishing, and on the other hand those who will look at the "best of the best" opportunities arising from online content packaging that can be given packaging for more permanent and broad distribution, be it through print or online models. The latter business will have great revenues, but the online model will be the one with better margins.
Color content is a promised new frontier from Apple's iSlate for ebook and emagazine content, but I think that this is another false hope for traditional publishers. We have had a color ebook reader for years; it's called a personal computer. What about an iSlate that is going to persuade publishers to commit to packaging on this new platform other than the obvious one: an online store with proprietary rights. As Larry Schwartz notes, Apple's announcement may be important as a catalyst to move publishers into ebook-style models, but unfortunately for these publishers their customers have been spending most of their time with other forms of online content for decades. Kudos to Apple for devising a seductive way to allow media companies to feel that they have surrendered to online markets with dignity, but ultimately that battle was lost long ago when HTML started forming readable content on millions of PCs around the world. It's great to see the market for ebooks developing rapidly, I hope that it grows based on Web standards that allow traditional editorial staffs to do what they do best while enabling premium packaging specialists to do what they do best as well. Labels: amazon, apple, barnes and noble, books, content, e-books, ebooks, kindle, markets, nook, platforms
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posted by John Blossom at 12:49 PM -
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SIIA Information Industry Summit 2010: Where is the Money in Custom Publishing
Moderator: Gregory Brown, Senior Director, Strategic Development, DataStream Content Solutions (DSCS) Panelists: David Prichard, President & CEO, Ingram Content Group, Inc. Matt Turner, Senior Consultant, Mark Logic Corporation Steven Alperin, Entrepreneur in Residence, MyWire, Consultant ABC , MyWire, Week's Best
Skip Prichard highlighted some of the tailored publications that they produce, one unit at a time. Their average run is 1.8 books. They find customers from both major players like Amazon and major bookstores but also small local retailers. Either way they're making money. Matt Turner was asked by Gregory about custom publishing beyond print. They can feed single-unit print cycles, but they have done far more with partners such as Wiley enables publishers to replace back-end operations that are used to create books more cost-effectively. Mark Logic sees custom publishing as pervasive, moving into workflow products also on electronic platforms. Steven Alperin came from a mass media background, but now focuses at MyWire on how to access audiences in ways that help them be more engaged with content on a personal basis.
What does it take to enable technology to get content to work effectively in a custom publishing environment? Matt noted success needs to be hinged around a company invested in the idea of custom content, the technology is there, but there's a mind shift that needs to occur. In terms of what needs to be invested in, Skip noted that you can't invest in everything, but tools like VitalSource can help publishers not only to package content but to offer feedback on usage and, via social networking tools, feedback on the content itself to refine the product constantly. Matt noted that the investments are largely there, now, with the trend towards customizing being driven by the opportunities being revealed by platforms that are already good at repurposing. "Content that wants to be expensive tends to be really, really narrow sets of content that custom publishing can reveal," Matt noted. Investigating your usage data is one of the key opportunities to understand custom publishing opportunities and to define them, noted Steven.
I agree with the panelists that custom publishing needs to be elevated radically from a sideline to a core rationale for premium publishing. Recently I received a post card invitation to an upcoming publishers' conference. Not only was the card tailored to me personally but the conference organizers had created a custom Web address personalized for me to explore the content that was printed on the card. That's highly targeted marketing that's a cross between the capabilities of custom print and online technologies. This is the key to driving publishing today, be it in print or online.
I do think especially that print-oriented publishers are missing many opportunities to develop custom markets for print as they fret about how to protect existing mass distribution models. Why focus on dwindling margins on rights-protected content when you can help people to add value to printable materials by opening up printable content to customization by partners and individuals? People can talk about eInk, tablets and other electronic display all they want, but cost-effective custom print is going to be a key factor in the renaissance of print publishing over the next several years. This rebirth may not result in an industry as we know it today, but it will still offer a very powerful value-add channel for most publishers. Labels: books, custom publishing, enterprise, magazines, marketing, media, online, print
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posted by John Blossom at 11:08 AM -
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SIIA Information Industry Summit 2010: Ken Auletta on Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It
Author Ken Auletta recounted a discussion with Bill Gates back in the 1990s when the former Microsoft CEO noted that his greatest fear was someone in a garage developing a new technology that could surprise him. Many years later, here we are, Googled around the world. The global aspect of Google is perhaps one of the key factors in its disruption, enabling people to use their Google searches as their default textbooks on the world. But Ken's focus on Google as not just a world changer but a media-changer is a key factor in his outlook on the company. In an interview with Larry Page and Sergei Brin, he noted that he thought that he would like Google to become the first $100 billion media company - twice as large as the largest one today. Their banknote down on this bet? The trust of its worldwide users, which they provide with accuracy, neutrality and speed - attributes that are not strangers to publishers through the years, but reframed through the profitability of its ad networks tailored to cost-competitive ads. Most importantly, the $20-plus billion that Google makes in ad revenues, more than all TV ads in the U.S., has been forged in 11 years based on democratic access to these services. The democratization of content, you might say, has been build on a platform of democratizing marketing.
Auletta noted that Google's approach to solving problems is key to their success. Early on, they recognized that what my people were calling "information" was in fact a media business. They rather denied that early on in their investor and media statements, of course, but as they have had more of an indisputable position in media they are less shy about using the "M" word. Auletta related a story of an ad salesperson trying to sell SuperBowl TV ads to Google, and Google couldn't figure out why they would want to buy something that had such poor metrics. Google may be "messing with the magic" of advertising, but in an online world based on trusted relationships rather than seduction, the mascara running off of the face of the old magic was inevitable.
Google's strength, Auletta noted, was also in the "why not" factor in looking at opportunities in the content industry, such as with its news search engine and book scanning project, concepts that came out of Google's commitment to allowing employees to spend 20 percent of their time working on new "why not" ideas for content products and services. Why not cloud computing services, why not Android, why not...well, you get the picture. In the meantime, Auletta notes, media companies were "blind," investing lightly in digital technologies early on. In an interview with Intel's Andy Grove, Grove noted that a company has to plant their flag on the moon and stay there, assuming that you'll get some benefits. He believes that media companies also erred by placing engineers were down in the belly of most media companies, not near the top of typical media organizations. Instead, they farmed out technologies to companies like IBM and Microsoft.
Do you sacrifice your existing business for a "may be" business? Often, Auletta said, media companies were unwilling to take the big risk on new opportunities. In the short run, he sees that Google is doing great things for people, lowering the cost of advertising and information access for the average person. In the long run, though, he notes that if news becomes a free or very cheap commodity, the question becomes how talent rises to the top through the recognition offered by major media organizations. Thinking about the great expense of a typical TV episode, usually around $6-8 million, user-generated content from outlets such as YouTube is not anywhere near that level. Even Google recognizes that they need more professionally-produced content, knowing in part that ads cannot be their only major source of revenues from content. This came to light fairly recently in Auletta's interviews with Google's executives, coming in part in light of the economic downturn. Auletta sees more of a push by Google to enable paid content, with metered approaches, "firewalls" and so on.
Even Google has to fight the commoditization battle, Auletta observes. A stat he mentions; the average reader on nytimes.com spends 30 minutes a month on the site, versus the average reader of the paper edition spending 30 minutes a day engaged with their content. The battle is necessary, but not easy. Auletta sees the Googles of the world and traditional media companies coming together to try to build ways that can "save" them. But in his interviews with Google's leaders they revealed that they knew that it was important for Google to allow traditional media outlets to be independent, a factor highlighted by recent issues with government involvement with content distribution in China.
When will the unique leaders of Google move on to other things? Auletta observes that Schmidt and Brin have sold off some stock lately, perhaps to enjoy life, but it does raise the question of what happens to Google in the long run. Thinking of the inefficiencies of search engines and the personal efficiencies of social media, Auletta wonders whether there may be a connection here. "They don't know how to manage emotional intelligence," he said, relaying a story about Brin asking why he wouldn't publish the book for free on the Web. Auletta responded, would you ask a teacher to work for nothing? Who would pay him to come out to speak to them? Who would edit it and market it? Brin changed the subject quickly. Auletta saw this as an instinctual attitude towards copyright. I am not sure that I agree with him on this point, I think that it's more of an instance of what happens when that "engineer in the boiler room" makes it to the C-suite. Technical people have different attitudes, and that's generally neither right or wrong, good or evil.
If, as Auletta notes, even people in Silicon Valley see the Internet as the most disruptive technology the world has ever seen, then you have to confront the speed of change. It took 70 years for electricity to reach half of the U.S. people; it took the Web 9 years to reach half of the people in the U.S., and only five years for Facebook. "It should scare the s**t out of you," says Auletta. From my own perspective as the author of Content Nation, I am not scared at all. I say this from the perspective of someone who used to work at Bell Laboratories in an era in which major corporations invested heavily in new technologies to feed their futures. Companies that invest in the future help economies; companies that milk the present steal from our futures. While the winners in today's publishing world may not benefit from everything that Google has done, the average person in a village or in a flat in a major city in a developing nation has far more to gain from Google's right-brain approach to publishing. Thinking back to comments on Galileo from Elsevier's Hansen at the opening of this conference, I can't think of a time when scroll publishers were wanting to burn printing press developers at the stake. Technology is a medium, not a social or economic threat in and of itself.
I think that Auletta is a great journalist, and he's done an excellent job of helping us to gain insights into Google's inner thinking. However, there is ultimately in his outlook the elitism that has lead to the publishing industry's very vulnerability to Google's strengths. In a Q&A I asked him about the concept he raised about having an engineer at the right hand of a media company's CEO as a desirable idea. But he couldn't quite accept the idea of it being okay for that engineer to be the head of that company. There is a "they" aspect to Auletta's outlook that is, ultimately, not shared by the 3-plus billion people using the Web and mobile services to consume and publish content via Google and other services. Should people be afraid when the world becomes a nation of publishers? Perhaps so, in the sense that the changes put in motion by Content Nation are definitely shifting bases of power globally. But if the world as a whole gains more power through more people being more efficient and effective publishers, then the ultimate shift in publishing's power base to a wide global base of empowered publishers, including professional publishers, then the world as a whole is going to benefit doubtlessly. The media houses of New York nearby this conference are not likely to resemble the empty factories of my New England childhood any time soon, but understanding what being "Googled" is all about will be necessary to prevent that from happening. Thanks, Ken, a great presentation. Labels: author, books, google, journalist, ken auletta, Siia information industry summit 2010, speaker
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posted by John Blossom at 8:34 AM -
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| Wednesday, January 30, 2008 |
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SIIA Information Industry Summit 2008: Luncheon Keynote - Andrew Keen, Author, The Cult of the Amateur
Andrew's view of the Internet and the media was changed by writing his book The Cult of the Amateur, still in favor of authority, likes standing on a podium above the crowd, this isn't the Internet. Was a mid-90's Internet entrepreneur after being a music journalist, classic old-fashioned writers, paid them a lot of money to write about jazz and classical music, but were right in the middle of the Web action. Was greedy, founded his own company, was exciting then for media people to put high-quality content on the Web quickly and efficiently. Wasn't disintermediation of existing outlets or empowering individuals, was exciting to distribute as an entrepreneur. VideoCafe failed, but remained an evangelist, continued to drink the Kool-Aid. In 2004, in Sebastapol north of San Francisco, Tim O'Reilly was the leading evangelist of Web 2.0, "FooCamp," Friends of O'Reilly, FooCamp is an unconference, no heirarchy, no formal structure, everyone spends the weekend with sleeping bags and a vision of a new world. Represented a sneak preview of Web 2.0 anarchy. Went from being a digital believer to a digital skeptic. We weren't just talking about the new media, we were the new media, everyone was simultaneously broadcasting themselves but nobody was listening. Digital Darwinism was dawning, no authority, everyone talking simultaneously. First book to attack Web 2.0, not a professional journalist, professional journalists say they're glad to hear it. Author wanted the subtitle "How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture," he doesn't think it now. But the more user-generated content there is, the less they read a paper and go to the movies. People invest less in high-quality and professional content. MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia replacing high-quality professional content. But the Internet can't kill anything, the Internet is not a person, doesn't have a mind of its own, it's just technology. Not surprising that you get a countercultural movement out of San Francisco via this technology, was an outgrowth of 1970s culture. More people think that they have something to say, it's an authority issue. It's a premonition of something more profound, the people are rising up, they want to be the author, they want to be the source, you can't blame the Internet for that, it was already in place, the Web simply unleashed it. Now traditional media has to cope with the rising of the people. Left and right bash The New York Times, it's actually the 1960s 2.0. Put myself in the most dystopian mood possible, future could be both "Brave New World" and "1984". I think that I was wrong to be deeply dystopian, but it's just a moment, a moment that will pass away. People are already bored with this stuff, the Lessigs and other crazy people in Silicon Valley still talk but most people are realizing the dangers in user-generated content. People are coming to their senses, entrepreneurs are coming to their senses also. The Web 2.0 revolution has ended in Silicon Valley, met Jason Calacanis, he expressed same sentiment, said that Web 2.0 wasn't going anywhere, can't monetize, too much content with dark forces behind it, he founded Mahalo, a curated search engine, employees are real people putting good content into search engines. You need hierarchy, you need authority. Citizendium takes on Wikipedia, e.g. The new, new thing is professionalism, no value economically in amateur content, it's a scam, Facebook's a scam, 15 billion valuation is a scam, this year is the year of the professional, the year in which authority will make a comeback. Don't get swept up by the Silicon Valley garbage, when the Lessigs come argue back. The probem in this country is that authority is afraid of the people's revolution. Professional media needs to unapologetically take charge. Colbert said he is an elitist, he said yeah. Without that media we're in the deepest s**t imaginable. Things may not be as bad as they may seem. Need to fight anonymity, the ability for old to become young, to deny our physicality. . QUICK TAKE: Well...where to begin. I agree that the ability to curate user-generated content is a key growth area this year, but it's clear that user-generated content is becoming authoritative in more ways than we can imagine. Professional authors need to come to terms with this more deeply. The ability of content to collect an affirming and trusted community is as important in many instances as the ability for people in an hierarchical structure to declare content to be authoritative. Social media underscores the need for authority to flow from people who have to live with the consequences of authority - democracy, in other words. Democracies have designated, trusted representatives, administrators and leaders, and this will continue, but inherently it's the market's responsibility to seek out its own view of what is authoritative content if we are to have the efficiences to cope and thrive in a rapidly changing global economy. More at Content Nation and in my upcoming book. I am not saying that Andrew's view is all tosh, but I do find it interesting that he sidestepped all of the highly positive, high-quality and monetizable initiatives that publishers have taken on in social media. It's an appealing position for traditionalists, but the money is not in the traditionalists' models any more. They need to redeploy their editorial staffs to manage quality user-generated content more effectively. Labels: books, SIIA Information Industry Summit 2008, social media
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posted by John Blossom at 9:18 AM -
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