Entries tagged with “facebook” from Tools of Change for Publishing
The Coming Readers' Economy and Data Portability
Mac Slocum
January 23, 2009
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This is a guest post by Mark Bertils.
At the end of last year one event signaled a huge shift in how the book publishing industry will do business. It's not what you think. It was December's launch of Facebook Connect. A land grab for user identities followed. The Web's people economy is coming of age.
Facebook's Squid Tries to Eat the Internet's Whale
The Connect program wasn't new in December. It was announced in May 2008. It isn't even original. But it marks the coming-out party for Facebook's social graph. Users are now free to come and go from Facebook's walled garden. They can bring their Facebook-endorsed identity (and relationships) with them as they travel the Internet. It is a major development for the social Web. It is a further claim on the permanence and importance of these platforms. And it is the clearest marker yet that the social networking boom of the last five years has beget a new Internet-wide folks-economy.
Seemingly overnight online user identity (here I mean the entire Web -- every site, every service) became a battleground between Web giants. Google and MySpace are parrying. The OpenID foundation is the Red Cross. Everyone else is taking sides. Identity politics has never been so interesting.
But this is not simply about portable identities and the single-sign-on Web. It is a fundamental shift in the Web economy. It is a bold stride toward relationship monetization -- where user data exchange becomes the most important transactional unit on the Internet.
Readers Are The Most Important Asset
This is pivotal for book publishers and other creators of digital goods.
It is no secret that infinitely copyable products aren't worth very much, so naturally, value is moving up the food chain. As Softskull's Richard Nash recently wrote at the Harvard Business Publishing blog, in the future, monetizing and organizing relationships -- not products -- will pay publishers' rents.
To some degree this is happening already. O'Reilly Media have made conferences a large part of what they do. Harlequin's on-line role is largely to connect like-minded readers. And the reader economy is alive and well at the myriad of social networks for book lovers. But what of the other houses? How best to make this mindshift? How to redeploy the resources spent managing a supply chain of products to manage a supply chain of peoples' information?
BookDrop facilitates passing product info from one business to another. An analogue is needed for passing reader info between businesses. How is that going to happen? Who is going to do it?
Open Standards. Reader First.
The volunteers at Dataportability.org are already asking these questions. The group champions the unimpeded movement of user data around the Web. That includes user identities but it also extends beyond OpenID to include open address book standards, open calendar standards, and open standards for opinions, ratings and reviews. It is entirely grassroots and focuses on user-controlled, privacy-respecting data portability.
On their wiki, information specific to publishers and media organizations is thin but a need has been identified to standardize and provide guidance to publishers. The call is out for task-force volunteers to identify and report on the unique requirements within the generalized publishing domain.
To get the conversation started I have volunteered to be the interim chairman of the media publishers' dataportability task-force. I am hoping interested parties will step forward to fill the ranks of this group. The end goal is to publish a report that encourages the distribution and adoption of reader-friendly standards. If you, or someone you know, would interested in participating contact me at org.mark atgmail[.]com.
Mark Bertils is a grad student, reluctant technical writer, an aspiring technologist, and a book industry orphan. He maintains a blog at indexmb.com
TOC Recommended Reading
Mac Slocum
October 2, 2008
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The Live Web (Doc Searls, Doc Searls Weblog)
The Web isn't just real estate. It's a habitat, an environment, an ever-increasingly-connected place where fecundity rules, vivifying business, culture and everything else that thrives there. It is alive.
Putting the "book" back in Facebook (Dan Piepenbring, if:book)
Despite the presence of "book" in its title, few critics to my knowledge have construed Facebook as the ultimate electronic yearbook. They focus instead on its broader "social network" applications. That's all well and good, but what is Facebook if not the quintessential model of an electronic book done right? Like its conventional print brethren, Facebook chronicles the lives of a certain network's members. It's teeming with photos and groups; its wall posts are the digital equivalent of those slangy well-wishes from your friends and acquaintances (and maybe a stranger or two).
The Origin Of The CD-Keys, Part Three (Daniel James, Penny Arcade)
Nobody added your business to the list of protected species, despite what your lobbyists and lawyers say. Find a business model that's actually appropriate to the 21st century, and perhaps scale back your expectations of vast profits accordingly (oh, and fire some lawyers and lobbyists, too, please).
Finding Balance Between User Experience and Web Ads
Mac Slocum
September 24, 2008
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In a post at Publishing 2.0, Scott Karp compares the advertising value propositions of Google and Facebook:
With Google, the value to users and the value to advertisers is perfectly aligned. Everybody wins.
With Facebook, if you read between the lines, it's really the same value proposition as traditional advertising -- advertisers forcing themselves on users, in a way that creates little or no value for the users.
As Karp notes, Google found a way to automatically "opt in" users by serving contextually-relevant advertising with organic search queries and individual Web pages. Value is automatically established because readers are seeing ads connected to their chosen topic.
Expanding on Karp's point, there are two aspects of Google's text ads that have always struck me as innovative:
- Simplicity -- On the Web, a short and relevant message delivered at precisely the right moment holds far more power than a flashy ad banner.
- Lineage -- The DNA of AdSense and AdWords is closer to editor-picked related links than the broad brand campaigns of traditional advertising.
Google used algorithms to establish advertising dominance, but the fundamental advertisement-user balance Google employs is a mechanism all content creators should keep in mind as they develop their own ad-based projects. Ultimately, effective Web advertising boils down to one simple question: How can ads enhance the user experience?
News Roundup: Digital Text App Uses Facebook, Subject/Author Sites Better than Brands, Saying Goodbye to Audiobook Cassettes
Mac Slocum
August 1, 2008
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App Mashes Up Digital Text on Facebook Platform
Digital Texts 2.0 is an interesting application for Facebook that lets you group and share digital material. It's intriguing to see cutting edge development occurring in this space. From the Digital Texts 2.0 about page:
Digital Texts 2.0 was undertaken by Dr. Stéfan Sinclair as an initiative to experiment with applying the principles of Web 2.0 to the realm of electronic texts. We intend to preserve and expose all of the existing qualities of digital texts (rich hypertextual associations, refined encoding practices, analytic affordances, etc.), while enhancing them with additional characteristics provided by Web 2.0 and social networking. Thus, it is a preliminary attempt to better understand the phenomenon of social networking and how it might be adapted to benefit the ways in which humanities scholars interact with electronic texts.
Build Sites Around Authors and Subjects, Not Publisher Brands
Michael Cairns at PersonaNonData expresses a desire to see publishers include a more comprehensive picture of authors and works:
Publishers are best placed to build author-centric and subject/theme-oriented websites -- not sites oriented around a "brand" that isn't relevant, but those that focus attention on segments of the business that remain relevant to consumers. Envision the Spiritual segment at a site supported by Harpercollins which has a unique, appropriate and relevant focus far apart from the current 'corporate' approach. All segments are valid candidates for more of a silo approach to marketing publishers' products. And I would go further in recommending that publishers consider marketing within these silos all titles available, rather than just those produced by the publisher. What better way to condense a market segment and become a destination site for Self-Help, Spirituality, Mysteries, Computer and any number of other book-publishing segments. Consumers aren't dumb. Amazon's main attraction is that all the titles in any one segment are available in one place. As long as publishers continue to ignore this fact, they will under-serve the market and under-perform given the investment in their sites.
Last Days of the Audiobook Cassette
In the wake of Hachette's last cassette-based audiobook, the New York Times eulogizes a format many thought was already long gone:
Cassettes have limped along for some time, partly because of their usefulness in recording conversations or making a tape of favorite songs, say, for a girlfriend. But sales of portable tape players, which peaked at 18 million in 1994, sank to 480,000 in 2007, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. The group predicts that sales will taper to 86,000 in 2012.
App Mashes Up Digital Text on Facebook Platform
Peter Brantley
July 31, 2008
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Digital Texts 2.0 is an interesting application for Facebook that lets you group and share digital material. It's intriguing to see cutting edge development occurring in this space. From the Digital Texts 2.0 about page:
Digital Texts 2.0 was undertaken by Dr. Stéfan Sinclair as an initiative to experiment with applying the principles of Web 2.0 to the realm of electronic texts. We intend to preserve and expose all of the existing qualities of digital texts (rich hypertextual associations, refined encoding practices, analytic affordances, etc.), while enhancing them with additional characteristics provided by Web 2.0 and social networking. Thus, it is a preliminary attempt to better understand the phenomenon of social networking and how it might be adapted to benefit the ways in which humanities scholars interact with electronic texts.
Calling Google a Publisher Underestimates its Platform
Mac Slocum
June 19, 2008
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Google has never positioned itself as a publisher, but a recent News.com piece looking at Google's role in Web advertising says the company's 2006 YouTube acquisition moved Google into the publishing space:
Google itself is a publisher, at least in one sense: it offers countless videos through [its] YouTube service. So Google has more incentive than just its DoubleClick division to improve display advertising.
YouTube is certainly content-centric, but Google didn't pay $1.65 billion for all those videos. It shelled out big bucks for YouTube's audience and, more importantly, its platform.
Publishers tend to see the world through singular products -- books, newspapers, magazines, Web sites -- but platform companies, like Google, see these same products as an aggregated stream of general content that needs to be delivered. If you control the delivery mechanism, you can mine it for revenue -- something Google has already done through its AdSense and AdWords programs, which piggyback on Google's search tools to deliver contextual advertising. Now that Google has monetized and claimed the Web search market, the company is expanding its platform into harder-to-crack content spheres: books, TV, and radio. This is why Google Book Search isn't just an archive. It's a content pipe that plugs into Google's overall architecture.
Google clearly recognizes that its platform is only effective if it serves up useful material, as illustrated in this passage from the same News.com piece:
People are consuming more and more media on the Internet but paying less and less, [Google Chief Exec Eric] Schmidt said. "That's bad for Google. We are critically dependent on high-quality content," he said.
Publishers are experts at producing the content Google needs, but incorrectly labeling Google a publisher -- and, ostensibly, a competitor -- obscures the essential relationship between Google and actual publishers.
So, in an effort to keep publishers on target in the platform discussion, here are a few top-level items to consider:
Identify the platforms -- Platform companies are focused on distribution, both through their own Web properties and via underlying delivery technologies. They may own popular Web sites that generate revenue through some forms of content (e.g. YouTube), but their real interest lies in aggregating and disseminating material. Google is the big platform provider, but Facebook and Amazon are both making moves into the platform arena. Even if you ultimately dismiss a particular company, it's still important to competitively -- and correctly -- identify its platform moves.
Consider how your content can be delivered through available platforms -- Look at user patterns. Ask yourself: How do people use these platforms to find and consume content? How are other companies effectively delivering their material? The newspaper industry offers an important case study for this point: It initially relied on subscription models for its Web content, but in recent years many papers have removed subscription restrictions so each article can be discovered -- and mined for ad revenue -- through Google and other search platforms. The industry is finally working with user behavior, not against it.
Look for revenue streams -- We've recently harped on the importance of tie-backs and analytics in digital experiments, and those same warnings apply here as well. If you're going to distribute your material through a platform, you need to have revenue streams in mind. This could take the form of advertising, affiliate relationships, trialware, or links/call-outs to upsell products. It could also be part of a larger branding campaign.
Add open formats to the production process -- Google is a massive platform player, but the Internet's open and distributed infrastructure allows other companies to develop their own platforms. Publishers looking for platform-friendly positioning can take advantage of future platforms -- including those not yet envisioned -- by incorporating open formats (XML, HTML, RSS, EPUB, etc.) into their production processes. There's no reason to gamble on proprietary formats and exclusivity because the big platforms, and the smart platform companies, will use methods that have already been adopted by the widest possible audience. And if a closed format does reach critical mass (iTunes and AAC, for example), commonly used open formats will be incorporated into conversion tools and projects.
These general points require deeper contextualization for particular companies and initiatives, and the business threats presented by large platform companies need to be rationally examined and acknowledged (particularly, centralization and lock-in). Nonetheless, publishers need to recognize that misrepresentations are where the real threat lies. Incorrect platform assumptions limit the significant opportunities.
"Prince Caspian" Gets Read It Before You See It Campaign
Mac Slocum
March 17, 2008
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HarperCollins has a new "read it before you see it campaign" attached to the upcoming theatrical release of "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian."
The marketing program includes a Facebook profile and interactive game (see image above), Narnia trivia, contests, a Narnia widget that can be embedded on any Web site, and book information.
The Facebook and widget components are notable because they represent a clear effort to engage the target audience (kids) on familiar ground (social networks, blogs, etc.). Back in the day, a program like this would have been relegated to a microsite and maybe a few text ads. Now, the openness of Web 2.0 creates all sorts of new engagement opportunities -- both for companies and the audiences they seek.
(Via Shelf Awareness.)
The (Online) World of the Economist
Peter Brantley
February 12, 2008
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In New York for the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference, I had the opportunity to speak with Wendy Elman, the VP of Marketing at The Economist’s economist.com. Ms. Elman’s background is in book publishing, and she joined The Economist in July 2007.
Ms. Elman commented that the driving goals of The Economist are to earnestly seek change, while carefully maintaining a highly-regarded and identifiable brand. It believes that seeking and embracing innovation is the surest way of ensuring its relevance as a destination and a source of thought-provoking dialogue.
The Economist’s web site has been relatively innovative for a publisher many might suppose would be rather conservative; e.g., it offers not only traditional RSS feeds but podcasts; and it is beginning to develop and provide access to video content. They are also cognizant that the world — particularly outside the U.S. — is mobile, and they are enhancing their delivery options to a diverse range of handheld devices.
Interestingly, The Economist recently supported online, moderated debates on the future of education, one of which specifically caught my eye, on the impact of social media on education.
The online debates deepened the magazine’s interest and engagement with its reading community; they were a purposeful entry into online, interactive dialogue. They produced a tremendously enthusiastic response, with well thought out posts from a variety of contributors, with no or very little spam. The engagement was so vigorous that requests for additional functionality were rapidly put forward. Readers, for example, have petitioned for the persistance and continuance of the debates in an economist.com venue, something under consideration.
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