Entries tagged with “digital delivery” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Target, Serve and Adapt: A Simple Model for Audience Development
Mac Slocum
September 29, 2008
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Audience fragmentation is an oft-cited source of mainstream media's ills, but two dissimilar publishers show that valuable attention can still be acquired.
Politico, an on-the-rise political publisher, is expanding while everyone else is contracting. In a recent interview with mediabistro's FishbowlNY, Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei said there's opportunity in niche content models:
I don't think our model can be easily replicated, at least on the print side (unless the federal government moves to another city). John [Harris, co-founder] and I do think there is a very robust future for niche sites online. The new media formula is pretty simple: If you can build a desirable audience that a class of advertisers wants to reach, you have a darn good chance at success. Advertisers want efficient ways of reaching their target audience, and niche sites offer it (if you can build a big enough audience). We have some thoughts on variations of Politico that might work elsewhere -- and we might have more on that next year.
A separate story about a successful hyperlocal initiative from Lost Remote's Cory Bergman reinforces VandeHei's optimism:
... My Ballard has exploded in popularity beyond our wildest expectations, surpassing the weekly neighborhood newspaper in monthly reach (unique users compared to the paper's physical subscription base.) We've even launched similar blogs in surrounding neighborhoods with the help of friends and friends of friends, forming a news blog network covering the core of Seattle's fastest-growing communities.
Politico is geared toward affluent decision makers and information-hungry political junkies while My Ballard is serving up local news to an engaged urban community, but both sites are employing the same simple model: target a promising market, serve it with compelling content, then adapt to the needs of the audience.
Old-guard companies who still believe audiences can be cornered are bound to fail because the exponential increase in distribution channels empowers audiences to form and shift on their own terms. Audience freedom has pushed the publishing industry into perpetual beta, and content firms that acknowledge this -- and work with it -- are best positioned to succeed. That's why there's so much value in the trails being blazed by Politico, My Ballard and other publishers -- including smart "old" companies. These publishers recognize that an ongoing cycle of "target-serve-adapt" is the best way to attract attention from on-the-move groups.
Maghound Customizable Magazine Service Launches
Mac Slocum
September 17, 2008
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Maghound, a customizable magazine service from Time Inc., is now available. From Folio:
The membership pricing is tiered-- three titles for $4.95 a month, five titles for $7.95, seven titles for $9.95, and $1 per title for eight titles or more. Memberships can be entirely managed online, as well as by email and phone, from changing magazine title selections to updating personal information and placing magazine delivery on hold for a temporary period.
Maghound allows customers to mix and match magazines, but it does not integrate with current subscriptions. From the Maghound FAQ:
Maghound is a completely independent magazine service. Ordering through us does not affect any current subscriptions you may already have. So, if you order a magazine through us that you already subscribe to, you will receive a duplicate copy.
Digital Change: "Disruptive and Imminent"
Peter Brantley
May 28, 2008
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Adam Hodgkin lists five reasons why books might go digital, among them: Moore's Law, energy needs, and positive perception of digital content. Hodkin then concludes:
At the moment CEO's and captains of publishing houses feel the need to be cautious and to reassure their markets and their audience that change will be gradual and not disruptive. But if the change is disruptive and imminent the publishing houses who have already geared up for digital distribution and marketing will be at an advantage. I think most CEO's in the business know that, and they also know that they are not too well prepared for it.
Digital Experiments and Useful Analytics Must Go Hand-in-Hand
Mac Slocum
May 20, 2008
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Experimentation without analysis isn't worth much.
It's a succinct and obvious point, but this one phrase was my biggest takeaway from the recent IDPF Digital Book event. Leslie Hulse, vice president of digital business development at HarperCollins, drove home the experimentation-analysis relationship while discussing one of HarperCollins' free audio download experiments. Hulse concluded:
The marketing people would say this was very successful because it got all kinds of attention, but we really didn't see an impact on sales. It wasn't linked to registration, so we didn't feel we got much out of this in terms of something we could use down the road. What we learned from this experiment was: when it's free audio with no DRM and no registration, it's too easy to take it and run. So we need to tie it to registration or use DRM or use a watermark so that we can contact these people in the future or know more about how they're using it.
The merits of DRM are debatable, but Hulse's broader point is important to consider: An experiment launched without a measurement device isn't really an experiment; it's a blind giveaway.
As Hulse noted, a simple registration form can provide baseline metrics and contacts for future products. For more in-depth information, advanced analytics tools (even free ones) can be integrated into experiments to track downloads, page views, unique visitors, user-session times, geographic targeting, forwards/emails and other social components. Privacy needs to be considered in any tracking effort, but a little common sense and planning can easily find the sweet spot between consumer comfort and detailed data points.
"The key thing for us is that all these experiments must be measurable," Hulse said. "We're trying to do things where we can measure the results and move from there."
BN.com Selling Digital Magazine Subscriptions and Back Issues
Mac Slocum
May 7, 2008
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Barnes & Noble is now selling print and digital magazine subscriptions through its Web site. According to a B&N press release, the service contains more than 1,000 magazine titles and 12,000 back issues. Digital editions are handled by Zinio, the company that also manages B&N's "See Inside" book preview tool. M2 Media Group is managing print subscription fulfillment.
Commenting on B&N's magazine move, MG Siegler from VentureBeat questions the utility of digital magazine subscriptions:
The real question here is if people will want to read magazines online? The market this would seem to cater to, people like myself, [who] already spend so much time in front of a computer screen during the day that spending an hour or so more to read a magazine might seem like too much. However, transferring a digital magazine copy to an e-book reader like the Kindle might make [sense], but seeing as Amazon.com, a chief BN.com competitor, makes the Kindle, that probably won’t happen.
(Via Shelf Awareness)
Studio Notes DVD Sales Increase Amidst Digital Distribution
Mac Slocum
May 2, 2008
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Recent developments in the movie world suggest that digital delivery and availability help the bottom line.
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes announced during a recent investor call that Warner Brothers will soon release DVDs and video-on-demand (VOD) titles on the same day. The company -- like all Hollywood studios -- has long employed a multi-week delay between a film's DVD release and its availability through on-demand rental systems. However, interesting results from a Warner Brothers pilot program could mark the end of this staggered system. From The New York Times:
Warner Brothers has been experimenting with the new approach [simultaneous release] for the last few months. It has found that DVD rentals only fell by 3 percent to 5 percent and sales of DVDs actually increased, perhaps because of the increased promotion and fewer used rental discs available for sale.
Apple and other movie studios are already taking note.
A portion of Warners' increased DVD sales could plug in to the "souvenir" purchasing seen in other industries. At its core, this concept is driven by a simple chain of events: digital distribution boosts accessibility, which increases awareness and -- for a subset of the viewing population -- inspires customers to purchase physical copies of a film.
This line of thinking (digital distribution + accessibility + awareness = revenue) drives envelope-pushing initiatives, like intentional distribution through P2P networks. On the publishing side, it's also why the Kindle's killer app resides in the device's built-in Whispernet connectivity, which makes it easy for consumers to find, sample and purchase material. Some of these same people will likely convert into hard-copy customers as well.
The Inertia of Digital Turf Wars
Mac Slocum
April 24, 2008
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Two recent news stories touch upon a core question in the conflict between established businesses and digital creators: what's the point of a turf war when the turf keeps shifting?
First up is a New York Times story that examines the murky relationship between professional sports teams, bloggers and multimedia coverage:
Mike Fannin, the president of the Associated Press Sports Editors and the managing editor for sports and features at the Kansas City Star, said the dispute was the result of traditional news organizations redefining themselves in a changing technological environment.
"Ten years ago newspapers weren't in the world of video and audio," he said. "We were in the world of print. The leagues don’t have a print product. Their view of this is that we entered their world."
That is one point both sides agree on. "I'm all for selling newspapers and magazines," said Bob DuPuy, the president of M.L.B. "What I'm not for is them branching off in to other enterprises."
The second story comes from the publishing world. Author JK Rowling and Warner Bros. sued to block publication of the Harry Potter Lexicon, a book derived from Steven Van Ark's Harry Potter fan site. From the Associated Press:
The author and her lawyers said they were stirred to action by the proposal to move the Potter lexicon from the anything-goes Web, where it was available for free, into book form, where it would compete directly with a Potter encyclopedia that Rowling plans to write herself.
In short, by deciding to sell his material, Vander Ark was stepping across a line. He was no longer just an enthusiastic fan, but a professional and potential competitor -- fair game for the lawyers.
The conflict between digital envelope pushers and traditional businesses will take years to subside (or move on to a new skirmish on a new platform). But isn't there a better way? Rather than throwing huge resources at lawsuits and posturing, especially when you're confronting a gray area, why not allocate some of that time, energy and money toward trial runs and acquisitions? Digital initiatives don't require abandonment of established business models, and the knowledge gleaned from experimentation -- knowledge that could lead to new revenue -- is far more useful than a turf war.
Is Publishing Getting More Comfortable with Digital Brand Building?
Mac Slocum
April 14, 2008
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Niko Pfund, Vice President and Publisher of the Academic and Trade division of Oxford University Press, recently offered answers to frequently asked publishing questions. Pfund's first response touches on the topic of online availability and its impact (pro or con) on print sales. Pfund writes:
The more specialized a book, the more likely it is to benefit from online visibility, and the more likely it is that people will be sufficiently interested in or stimulated by an online viewing that they will purchase a print copy.
Pfund's answer reminds me of Kevin Kelly's "findability" generative and Tim O'Reilly's argument that obscurity is a bigger threat to lesser-known authors than piracy.
This topic also touches on the murky issues of brand awareness in a digital platform. Online marketers are accustomed to detailed tracking reports, but all those click-throughs and ad impressions don't reveal brand recognition. This discrepancy between the comfort of copious data points and the nervousness of brand building seems to be represented in publishing's first moves into free/viral online distribution. As Pfund notes, "... these sorts of things are very difficult to pin down and quantify in any truly conclusive manner, given all the factors at play." Even with the Web's built-in analytics, a digital effort still requires a healthy dose of experimentation.
What's interesting is that folks like Kelly, O'Reilly and Pfund have focused their thinking on specific groups -- in this case, specialized books and obscure authors. Perhaps this shift toward individual application is the beginning of increased comfort with the ambiguity of digital-based brand efforts.
(Via GalleyCat.)
Experimenting for the Sake of Experimenting
Mac Slocum
April 10, 2008
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Satellite radio companies Sirius and XM are both touting aggregated programming that focuses on a popular artist or topic (e.g. the '08 election) for a period of time, then gives way to the next subject. Sirius calls them "pop-up channels." XM dubs them "microchannels." (They'll have to settle on a name if/when their proposed merger goes through ...)
From the Washington Post:
By any name, they [aggregated programs] are a reflection of a changed entertainment and information culture, a recognition that the American audience is shifting from loyalty toward permanent formats to sudden plunges into topics and trends that flash onto the collective consciousness and then flit away as quickly as they arrived.
What I find interesting about this idea is that it tests bite-sized culture without abandoning traditional long-form or channel-based content.
Penguin Books is embracing this same "try it and see" concept with its We Tell Stories project, which uses digital delivery and Web-based tools to play with different storytelling forms. While I'm sure there's a revenue stream surrounding this idea -- and ideas of its ilk -- the real value comes in trying for the sake of trying, as Joe Wikert notes. This is especially true in a digital environment, where the platform minimizes risk. Penguin isn't abandoning its core business in favor of the We Tell Stories project -- it's just testing an idea.
Ultimately, the game-changing idea that revolutionizes publishing could very well be the end result of theses types of experiments.
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