Is publishing's obession with the Kindle and the iPad elitist? That is the question posed by Publishing Perspectives :
http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/04/publishings-obsession-kindle.ipad-elitist/
Edward Nawotka writes that " Recently I have heard several digital publishers across Latin America and South East Asia argue that the ongoing obsession with Kindle and the iPad is shortsighted at best, elitist at worse. These publishers feel that the readers in their nations, be it Columbia, India or Indonesia are just as avid consumers of digital reading material as those in other nations, but the high cost of the Kindle and the iPad make them inaccessible to most consumers. This, as well as an outright lack of content, means coming up with an alternative distribution strategy. Typically, this means focusing on devices that the vast majority of people already own or are likely to continue owning in the future: the simple feature phone. The phone is cheap and nearly ubiquitous all over the globe. Could focusing on developing for feature phones--or at least channeling content through an appropriate API--offer a greater number of people, not all of them in rich nations, greater access to the world's intellectual wealth?"
In a tablet-giddy age this is a brave thing for Mr. Nawotka to say. Speaking from a magazine perspective, I don't think the focus on the tablet, for example, has anything to do with elitism. In my opinion it has much more to do with the prevailing magazine business model. Although the larger US magazine publishers in particular have vowed to generate more of their total revenue from content, most still get 70-80% of their revenues from advertising. Thus the need for a screen size, rich color display and functionality that would offer a high CPM universe for prospective advertisers and a sticky space for consumers. And to date consumers seem to be spending more time in a magazine app than in the print version. Advertising on the tablet shows enormous promise but one wonders what happens when device manufacturers provide the opportunity to measure user analytics in the softwear. Adobe/Omniture has hinted at this or more than one occasion.
I think it a little one-sided to downplay interest in the iPad outside the US and Europe. The tablet is becoming very popular in China, for example. Nonetheless, we cannot underestimate the importance of the feature phone, the smartphone and the "superphone"--these devices exist along a continuum as consumers increasingly demand more features and functionality. We need to address the content needs of the more than 1.5 billion mobile phone users worldwide.
It might be easier to develop premium content units or templates for a range of mobile devices in countries outside the US, at least in the beginning. In most regions, including Europe, publishers generate much more revenue from content than from advertising (There are some exceptions, including Italy). While the publishers in question are no less interested in brand integrity than their brethren in the states, they have a long history of repackaging and mashing up content, as does the long tail of mid-size and independent publisher in the US.
The German magazine Focus has reported some success in selling high-value, article-level content through Google's One Pass. Given the abundance of mobile devices there is no reason a similar article-level approach that includes personalization, location-based features and relevant context could not be developed for the increasingly sophisticated mobile device. Viyya Technologies, a New Jersey-based company, is developing such a business.
Such an approach to mobile content distribution would not only be good business; it would be consistent with current dynamics in the device and carrier eco-system. At the end of the day even the finest premium content is still, well, data and therefore a predictable, scaleable revenue stream.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Magazine Publishing Tool from Apple?
In 2009 when the Kindle and other ereaders were introduced, senior magazine executives made a determined effort to get out in front of this wave of new devices. They quickly learned that the quality of color available on or promised by these first-generation devices, including Kindle, Plastic Logic,and a bevy of second tier offerings, were not ready for prime time, whether it was for Vogue, Time Magazine or House Beautiful. The rise and fall and sale of Skiff suggested this would not be a tidy and predictable marketplace.
By late 2009 and early 2010 rumors about the Apple tablet were repeated often enough to be true. In the meantime the larger publishers, including Meredith, Time Inc., Hearst, Conde Nast and News Corp., established Next Issue Media which was to create a digital storefront (and channel) for the sale of print, digital, and bundled subscriptions, among other services. The sub-text of this launch was that a focused and well funded organization would also present a united front in dealing with device manufacturers, carriers and digital storefronts, including iTunes. In other words: the eco-system that is bombarding them now. But the leit motif of this narrative was that NIM would serve as a counterweight to Apple, plain and simple. The imaginary conversation would have gone something like this. "We have in the aggregate an addressable universe of, say, 200 million homes. Let's make a deal."
The blessed iPad came quickly and perhaps a little too fast for magazine publishers who were not given much notice by Apple. But there is no doubt the iPad changed thr digital conversation in magazine circles, enfranchised editors and publishers, and offered a display and form factor that promised, deep, rich consumer engagement and prospects of an advertising CPM that might even exceed print. It was certainly a breakthrough when Wired magazine announced that its June 2010 issue enjoyed iPad downloads that exceeded the number of copies sold on newsstands--80,000+.
This was a breakthrough number and event and demonstrated that the tablet could be a channel of consequence. But for publishers the early, heady bloom is off the app rose. It's early, of course, and everyone is trying to figure out price, subscription offers, in-app navigation and ways to take some of the labor and design costs out of the app creation process. Then there's the increasing and worrisome device, form factor, and OS fragmentation. Most publishers are placing strategic bets but no one can afford to cover the table.
The love affair with Appple came with a price. The 30% share that the company took did not sit well with publishers, nor did the lack of consumer data or the inabiility to sell full-term subscriptions. Apple's recent announcement that graciously gives publishers 100% of the revenue if the consumer came from their sites. But the other terms, including giving consumers the choice of where they want to purchase the app subscription and whether to share data, puts Apple right in the middle of the publishers' business model under the wonderful guise of transparency. This is the reason we are hearing the sound of one hand clapping.
Recently Anthony Morganti at Gadget Daily News surmised that Apple might be developing a magazine publishing tool for developers (www.gadgetdailynews.com/home/2011/13/11), driven in part by reported user interface problems with many magazine apps: "The main problems users report are that magazine interfaces aren't consistent from one magazine to another and these interfaces generally aren't intuitive." The talk is that "Apple is developing a magazine template that will be in a future release of their developer environment and toolkit--Xcode."
"The publishing template will create a familiar consistent user interface. It will also facilitate in-app purchases for subscriptions and back issues. Another benefit Apple anticipates is that there will be a plethora of new magazines on the iPad. They believe that anyone will be able to create a magazine relatively easily and have it published by Apple and sold through iTunes."
Understandably, there are concerns, if this scenario is indeed accurate, about whether such magazine templates would stifle creativity. I spent some time with Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, particularly the design process for creating apps. I was surprised that the document was so readable. I was also surprised how much focus was placed on the needs of the consumer. The instruction to avoid feature cascade might get to the heart of some of the challenges facing publishers: "If you are developing a single application, it can be tempting to add features that aren't wholly relevant to the original intent of the program. The feature cascade can lead to a bloated interface that is slow and difficult to use because of its complexity."
The newspaper and magazine industries will soon have digital storefronts on every corner. Next Issue Media is expected to have a soft beta offering this spring. Google announced its One Pass program in January, an online interface for subscription sales. Journalism Online just found new life and a partner and owner in RR Donnelley. The Nook color Android store will be coming in April. Amazon just launched its application store for the Android mobile OS. The New York Times has announced its long-awaited--and somewhat byzantine--"paywall."
Magazine publisher say with straight faces that they will have llittle allegiance to digital storefronts that don't scale, don't share consumer data, and don't offer a fair revenue share. Unless they do.
Then there's Apple.
By late 2009 and early 2010 rumors about the Apple tablet were repeated often enough to be true. In the meantime the larger publishers, including Meredith, Time Inc., Hearst, Conde Nast and News Corp., established Next Issue Media which was to create a digital storefront (and channel) for the sale of print, digital, and bundled subscriptions, among other services. The sub-text of this launch was that a focused and well funded organization would also present a united front in dealing with device manufacturers, carriers and digital storefronts, including iTunes. In other words: the eco-system that is bombarding them now. But the leit motif of this narrative was that NIM would serve as a counterweight to Apple, plain and simple. The imaginary conversation would have gone something like this. "We have in the aggregate an addressable universe of, say, 200 million homes. Let's make a deal."
The blessed iPad came quickly and perhaps a little too fast for magazine publishers who were not given much notice by Apple. But there is no doubt the iPad changed thr digital conversation in magazine circles, enfranchised editors and publishers, and offered a display and form factor that promised, deep, rich consumer engagement and prospects of an advertising CPM that might even exceed print. It was certainly a breakthrough when Wired magazine announced that its June 2010 issue enjoyed iPad downloads that exceeded the number of copies sold on newsstands--80,000+.
This was a breakthrough number and event and demonstrated that the tablet could be a channel of consequence. But for publishers the early, heady bloom is off the app rose. It's early, of course, and everyone is trying to figure out price, subscription offers, in-app navigation and ways to take some of the labor and design costs out of the app creation process. Then there's the increasing and worrisome device, form factor, and OS fragmentation. Most publishers are placing strategic bets but no one can afford to cover the table.
The love affair with Appple came with a price. The 30% share that the company took did not sit well with publishers, nor did the lack of consumer data or the inabiility to sell full-term subscriptions. Apple's recent announcement that graciously gives publishers 100% of the revenue if the consumer came from their sites. But the other terms, including giving consumers the choice of where they want to purchase the app subscription and whether to share data, puts Apple right in the middle of the publishers' business model under the wonderful guise of transparency. This is the reason we are hearing the sound of one hand clapping.
Recently Anthony Morganti at Gadget Daily News surmised that Apple might be developing a magazine publishing tool for developers (www.gadgetdailynews.com/home/2011/13/11), driven in part by reported user interface problems with many magazine apps: "The main problems users report are that magazine interfaces aren't consistent from one magazine to another and these interfaces generally aren't intuitive." The talk is that "Apple is developing a magazine template that will be in a future release of their developer environment and toolkit--Xcode."
"The publishing template will create a familiar consistent user interface. It will also facilitate in-app purchases for subscriptions and back issues. Another benefit Apple anticipates is that there will be a plethora of new magazines on the iPad. They believe that anyone will be able to create a magazine relatively easily and have it published by Apple and sold through iTunes."
Understandably, there are concerns, if this scenario is indeed accurate, about whether such magazine templates would stifle creativity. I spent some time with Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, particularly the design process for creating apps. I was surprised that the document was so readable. I was also surprised how much focus was placed on the needs of the consumer. The instruction to avoid feature cascade might get to the heart of some of the challenges facing publishers: "If you are developing a single application, it can be tempting to add features that aren't wholly relevant to the original intent of the program. The feature cascade can lead to a bloated interface that is slow and difficult to use because of its complexity."
The newspaper and magazine industries will soon have digital storefronts on every corner. Next Issue Media is expected to have a soft beta offering this spring. Google announced its One Pass program in January, an online interface for subscription sales. Journalism Online just found new life and a partner and owner in RR Donnelley. The Nook color Android store will be coming in April. Amazon just launched its application store for the Android mobile OS. The New York Times has announced its long-awaited--and somewhat byzantine--"paywall."
Magazine publisher say with straight faces that they will have llittle allegiance to digital storefronts that don't scale, don't share consumer data, and don't offer a fair revenue share. Unless they do.
Then there's Apple.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Metaphor as Hyperlink
For reasons not altogether clear to me decades later, when I started my four-year Navy career, once aboard ship, I added a new word to a small notebook every day while at sea, usually from an instructional book or a novel. During long midnight watches in the South China Sea or Tonkin Gulf, I had plenty of time to think about etymologies.
I tried to use these words in my daily shipboard life but not enough to risk bodily harm. At this time Morse code was dying but had not yet been banished. This was a good playground as were signal (flashing) lights that were used when we were steaming "silent" and usually in tight formation. Most of this was in encrypted code but at times we could use the language of the day.
I had grown up in drab, post-World War II London (just before the Beatles saved us) and moved as a teenager to an equally drab Pittsburgh, PA where smoke from steel mills made the smog of my youth seem a mere nuisance. But within a few years I was eating fresh pineapples in Hawaii and swimming in the Mariana Trench off Guam. I realized later that leaving England, with its stuffy language and social mores, was a real blessing and an opportunity to learn the language of the seas, sky and monster typhoons.
What was most fascinating to me as a young man was the new geography served up by the coastlines of Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. My teacher was a Japanese-born American, Navigator Lt. Iwatsu. Our navigation charts took us deep into the Japanese inland waters. We met adults, badly scarred, who had survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As we are seeing with the current tragedy in Japan, fear of radiation runs deep in the Japanese psyche. I wrote about this in my first book of poetry: That Kingdom Coming Business. ("The deep chill of Bungo Suido/coating the skin of our ship/in a cold Japanese dawn.")
I became an English teacher and eventually got a PhD because I felt literature offers precisely what makes us human and universal, allowing us to make deep connections across time, geography and consciousness. Of course, the metaphor is the workhorse carrier of this insight, allowing us to marry what otherwise might be impossible or unthinkable.
The other day I was watching a ProPublica and New School video on "Long-Form Storytelling in A Short- Attention-Span World" with The New Yorker's David Remnick, Frontline's Raney Aronson-Rath, This American Life's Ira Glass, and ProPublica's Stephen Engelberg. It's worth going to http://www.propublica.org/ to view the entire video). Here I wanted to comment on one item discussed: whether hyperlinking to the essence of a long-form piece might detract from the intent of the author and the richness that her language delivers. I think David Remnick had some concerns about this.
I don't know this answer to this but it is an interestng point as we decide what content looks like in our dynamic, multi-platform world. After all, words in the hands of a gifted writer ideally get to fundamental truth in a way that maintains complexity, holds a semantic tension, and leaves the reader more than half-fed. Larry Kramer has an interesting piece art http://www.paidcontent.org/ today discussing why he won't pay for the Daily (but will for digital NYT). His words: "But the Daily did little to advance the cause of journalism and less to take advantage of a dramatic new medium that will allow for fantastic new ways to tell stories. Instead, it took the newspaper publication cycle and redisplayed it, with a little video, not to particularly advance a story or make it more dramatic. Several existing newspapers, especially the New York Post, do a better, more efficient job, of putting their newspapers content on the web,"
For better or worse the language of compression is already well underway--Twitter is five years old today and the world is well aware of the 140 character admonition. English teachers are now teaching to the text message. See Andy Selsberg article in the NYT. (www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/opinion). And Twitter is alive with poetry, a kind of post-industrial haiku. Hemingways's short and popular "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" is almost ready for Twitter.
I think it was Ira Glass who said on the video mentioned earlier that the 24-hour news cycle actually works to the advantage of storytellers because it generally lacks a narrative, character, point-of-view and tone. Six hundred thousand people who downloaded the weekly podcast seem to agree with him.
One of the panelists, when describing the value of slow-cooked stories, cited the difference between an art history class and a vigorous painting class.
Of course, we need both.
I tried to use these words in my daily shipboard life but not enough to risk bodily harm. At this time Morse code was dying but had not yet been banished. This was a good playground as were signal (flashing) lights that were used when we were steaming "silent" and usually in tight formation. Most of this was in encrypted code but at times we could use the language of the day.
I had grown up in drab, post-World War II London (just before the Beatles saved us) and moved as a teenager to an equally drab Pittsburgh, PA where smoke from steel mills made the smog of my youth seem a mere nuisance. But within a few years I was eating fresh pineapples in Hawaii and swimming in the Mariana Trench off Guam. I realized later that leaving England, with its stuffy language and social mores, was a real blessing and an opportunity to learn the language of the seas, sky and monster typhoons.
What was most fascinating to me as a young man was the new geography served up by the coastlines of Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. My teacher was a Japanese-born American, Navigator Lt. Iwatsu. Our navigation charts took us deep into the Japanese inland waters. We met adults, badly scarred, who had survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As we are seeing with the current tragedy in Japan, fear of radiation runs deep in the Japanese psyche. I wrote about this in my first book of poetry: That Kingdom Coming Business. ("The deep chill of Bungo Suido/coating the skin of our ship/in a cold Japanese dawn.")
I became an English teacher and eventually got a PhD because I felt literature offers precisely what makes us human and universal, allowing us to make deep connections across time, geography and consciousness. Of course, the metaphor is the workhorse carrier of this insight, allowing us to marry what otherwise might be impossible or unthinkable.
The other day I was watching a ProPublica and New School video on "Long-Form Storytelling in A Short- Attention-Span World" with The New Yorker's David Remnick, Frontline's Raney Aronson-Rath, This American Life's Ira Glass, and ProPublica's Stephen Engelberg. It's worth going to http://www.propublica.org/ to view the entire video). Here I wanted to comment on one item discussed: whether hyperlinking to the essence of a long-form piece might detract from the intent of the author and the richness that her language delivers. I think David Remnick had some concerns about this.
I don't know this answer to this but it is an interestng point as we decide what content looks like in our dynamic, multi-platform world. After all, words in the hands of a gifted writer ideally get to fundamental truth in a way that maintains complexity, holds a semantic tension, and leaves the reader more than half-fed. Larry Kramer has an interesting piece art http://www.paidcontent.org/ today discussing why he won't pay for the Daily (but will for digital NYT). His words: "But the Daily did little to advance the cause of journalism and less to take advantage of a dramatic new medium that will allow for fantastic new ways to tell stories. Instead, it took the newspaper publication cycle and redisplayed it, with a little video, not to particularly advance a story or make it more dramatic. Several existing newspapers, especially the New York Post, do a better, more efficient job, of putting their newspapers content on the web,"
For better or worse the language of compression is already well underway--Twitter is five years old today and the world is well aware of the 140 character admonition. English teachers are now teaching to the text message. See Andy Selsberg article in the NYT. (www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/opinion). And Twitter is alive with poetry, a kind of post-industrial haiku. Hemingways's short and popular "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" is almost ready for Twitter.
I think it was Ira Glass who said on the video mentioned earlier that the 24-hour news cycle actually works to the advantage of storytellers because it generally lacks a narrative, character, point-of-view and tone. Six hundred thousand people who downloaded the weekly podcast seem to agree with him.
One of the panelists, when describing the value of slow-cooked stories, cited the difference between an art history class and a vigorous painting class.
Of course, we need both.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The Subscription Food Chain
The world has probably learned more about the arcane business of magazine subscriptions in the last ten days than in the last ten years. And most of the news is coming from technology companies, underscoring where much of the marketplace power resides.
Subscriptions are a vital part of the U.S. magazine business with about 8 out of 10 customers coming in through the subscription door. In most developed countries the opposite is true; most people buy their magazines at the newsstand. Subscriptions serve as a linch-pin for ongoing customer relations. Publishers know a lot about these subscribers and with that knowledge can sell them affinity products. Thus publishers refer to the lifetime value of the customer.
So no wonder the angst of publishers when Apple got in the middle of that relationship, denying publishers the opportunity to sell through iTunes full-term subscriptions and also retain data. The recent subscription announcement by Apple has been met by publishers with the sound of one hand clapping. Apple's scheme, while not publisher friendly, is clever. Apple has kept the basic 30/70 revenue share but allows publishers to keep 100% of revenue if a transaction involves existing customers. Apple lets the consumer decide whether to order from iTunes or go to the publishers site and what data to share. Apple requires that the price of a digital edition be the same across channels, a requirement that will not please publishers. Publishers cannot link an in-app subscription offer to their own web site.
Before this digital ink had dried Google announced it's One Pass program that allows consumers to purchase magazines and newspapers with a simple sign-in using email and password. Publishers can offer full subscriptions, partial subscriptions and I assume bundled offers of one kind or another. Google Checkout processes payments. Publishers collect 90% of sales on every transaction. Publishers retain all the data.
I just read that the website for the German news magazine Focus is using Google's One Pass to test the selling of article-level content for 10 cents each. We know by and large consumers won't pay for news or general sports information but they might pay for articles on ten facts about parental leave or what to do if you lose your driver's license.
Both Google's One Pass and the Focus magazine experiment seem like very good ideas. Newspaper and magazine companies have tons of premium, evergreen content that can be monitized. Publishers have spent a fortune digitizing their archives.
Looks like Google is providing a painless way to get some of that money back.
Subscriptions are a vital part of the U.S. magazine business with about 8 out of 10 customers coming in through the subscription door. In most developed countries the opposite is true; most people buy their magazines at the newsstand. Subscriptions serve as a linch-pin for ongoing customer relations. Publishers know a lot about these subscribers and with that knowledge can sell them affinity products. Thus publishers refer to the lifetime value of the customer.
So no wonder the angst of publishers when Apple got in the middle of that relationship, denying publishers the opportunity to sell through iTunes full-term subscriptions and also retain data. The recent subscription announcement by Apple has been met by publishers with the sound of one hand clapping. Apple's scheme, while not publisher friendly, is clever. Apple has kept the basic 30/70 revenue share but allows publishers to keep 100% of revenue if a transaction involves existing customers. Apple lets the consumer decide whether to order from iTunes or go to the publishers site and what data to share. Apple requires that the price of a digital edition be the same across channels, a requirement that will not please publishers. Publishers cannot link an in-app subscription offer to their own web site.
Before this digital ink had dried Google announced it's One Pass program that allows consumers to purchase magazines and newspapers with a simple sign-in using email and password. Publishers can offer full subscriptions, partial subscriptions and I assume bundled offers of one kind or another. Google Checkout processes payments. Publishers collect 90% of sales on every transaction. Publishers retain all the data.
I just read that the website for the German news magazine Focus is using Google's One Pass to test the selling of article-level content for 10 cents each. We know by and large consumers won't pay for news or general sports information but they might pay for articles on ten facts about parental leave or what to do if you lose your driver's license.
Both Google's One Pass and the Focus magazine experiment seem like very good ideas. Newspaper and magazine companies have tons of premium, evergreen content that can be monitized. Publishers have spent a fortune digitizing their archives.
Looks like Google is providing a painless way to get some of that money back.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Enriching The Waste Land
I have read TS Eliot's The Waste Land a dozen times, taught the poem in college and high school, and early on tried to imitate that famous prosody in my own works. I failed miserably at the latter.
I have long thought of poetry as best appreciated by being spoken and not read. For fifty years the university literary establishment, influenced by the so-called New Criticism that was in turn influenced by the scientific method (and an attempt I think by English professors to show there was a science behind all that literary stuff), has focused on the printed poem, something to be studied and dissected. Other schools of criticism followed, including: Jungian, Freudian, Feminist, and other approaches that put the reader in the middle of the poem where she becomes the center of the creative process through a kind of muscular subjectivity. Having been away from that profession for some years I now think all of the above might have more to do with tenure and a kind of in-stable solipsism than with communicating the wonders of poetry.
I don't go to technology conferences for literary insights but often I'm surprised. At the recent Tools of Change conference in New York there was actually a session on making The Wasteland come alive through the use of five different voices, video and touch screen opportunities. This was a wonderful example of a multi-dimensional textual enrichment and using technology to enhance a venerable text that I suspect is not experienced these days as much as it deserves.
The commercial point, made in this session and in a number of others during the conference, was that no one will pay for simple textbook-type material anymore, whether print or digital. But people will pay for enrichment and interactivity. One might argue with the supposition but not with the results.
The next time I teach The Wasteland, this will be my approach.
I have long thought of poetry as best appreciated by being spoken and not read. For fifty years the university literary establishment, influenced by the so-called New Criticism that was in turn influenced by the scientific method (and an attempt I think by English professors to show there was a science behind all that literary stuff), has focused on the printed poem, something to be studied and dissected. Other schools of criticism followed, including: Jungian, Freudian, Feminist, and other approaches that put the reader in the middle of the poem where she becomes the center of the creative process through a kind of muscular subjectivity. Having been away from that profession for some years I now think all of the above might have more to do with tenure and a kind of in-stable solipsism than with communicating the wonders of poetry.
I don't go to technology conferences for literary insights but often I'm surprised. At the recent Tools of Change conference in New York there was actually a session on making The Wasteland come alive through the use of five different voices, video and touch screen opportunities. This was a wonderful example of a multi-dimensional textual enrichment and using technology to enhance a venerable text that I suspect is not experienced these days as much as it deserves.
The commercial point, made in this session and in a number of others during the conference, was that no one will pay for simple textbook-type material anymore, whether print or digital. But people will pay for enrichment and interactivity. One might argue with the supposition but not with the results.
The next time I teach The Wasteland, this will be my approach.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Media by Demand
My first real magazine job was as an associate editor for Prevention magazine. One of my first assignments was to write an article about the health benefits of running (This was before Rodale acquired Runner's World). I was an experienced runner and had run a couple of marathons. I knew how to wade through all the medical journals that the company subscribed to, teasing out the right support and quotes for my position. I was also a poet so the editor let me get away with an opening sentence like this: "Like a deer I told myself so quick and nimble was my gait."
I know this writing would not be up to SEO snuff today in part because it lacks the requisite metadata. Actually, this would not have been much of a leap at Prevention, if the technology had been available. I had studied linguistics and generative grammar that focuses on key words and phrases that we build our language around. Language provides all sorts of hints and modifiers so we really know what someone means when she says: "The car turned into a driveway." My thanks to Professor Ianni for that.
For the last year or so I have watched Demand Media that recently enjoyed a successful IPO. The company is often referred to as a content farm. The image this conjures up for many of the editors I've spoken to is not the idyllic organic farm in Amish country where words are nourished at their roots but a factory farm where chickens are stuffed into very small crates. The mixed metaphors are intentional.
When I brought a Demand Media executive in to speak at an MPA luncheon about a year ago, editors present seemed quite hostile. If I remember correctly, the trade press told the company to go to hell. I fully understand this concern. The editor provides a particular angle on a market, is keeper of the brand, and an advocate for the readership, keeping pesky business interests at bay. So I too had a lot of concerns about content farms that for many were a race to the bottom.
I have visited Demand Media's offices and was quite surprised how scrupulously the company married Art (live editors) and Science (algorithms) and how diligently they researched an article, outlined it, tested it, fact-checked it, and measured the value to the reader. They offer a ton of very short and simple articles describing, for example, "How to Climb a Step Ladder." But there is also every indication Demand will be moving up the food chain tackling topics other than superficial how-to. To be sure some of this seems like painting by the numbers. How else can a writer churn out in a couple of years more pieces that most of us can write in a lifetime.
I am not a Demand booster and own no stock. Nonetheless, there is something instructive here for editors and publishers about how many consumers wish to receive and consume content. Frankly
since the second digital wave hit I have thought that special-interest magazines would best weather the
threat from outside content producers and aggregators because of their very close relationship with the consumer and the special community they make possible. After all, how can an outfit like Demand provide the very special, hyper-local content with the requisite tone, point-of-view and intimacy?
To test this I asked someone from Demand to use their "farm" to write an article about growing, organic Big-Boy tomatoes for the suburbs outside of Atlanta on a shady lot. I provided a lot of additional instructions. This was meant to be a trick question because I had served as publishing director for Organic Gardening Magazine. But the joke was on me. They did a credible job.
With the Demand IPO, the purchase of the Huffington Post by AOL, and AOL's plans to generate more than 600,000 articles a year, content produced outside traditional media companies willl take on greater significance.
Or not. Writing articles based on trending Google search may become less important over time. Some search engines, including Blekko, limit search engine results to a finite list. Google is reportedly working on a variety of algorithms to address this issue. What is one company's spam is another company's IPO.
And just when media companies are becoming very adept at SEO, they are being told the next big thing is Social Media Optimization.
What's an editor to do?
Right: get on board!
I know this writing would not be up to SEO snuff today in part because it lacks the requisite metadata. Actually, this would not have been much of a leap at Prevention, if the technology had been available. I had studied linguistics and generative grammar that focuses on key words and phrases that we build our language around. Language provides all sorts of hints and modifiers so we really know what someone means when she says: "The car turned into a driveway." My thanks to Professor Ianni for that.
For the last year or so I have watched Demand Media that recently enjoyed a successful IPO. The company is often referred to as a content farm. The image this conjures up for many of the editors I've spoken to is not the idyllic organic farm in Amish country where words are nourished at their roots but a factory farm where chickens are stuffed into very small crates. The mixed metaphors are intentional.
When I brought a Demand Media executive in to speak at an MPA luncheon about a year ago, editors present seemed quite hostile. If I remember correctly, the trade press told the company to go to hell. I fully understand this concern. The editor provides a particular angle on a market, is keeper of the brand, and an advocate for the readership, keeping pesky business interests at bay. So I too had a lot of concerns about content farms that for many were a race to the bottom.
I have visited Demand Media's offices and was quite surprised how scrupulously the company married Art (live editors) and Science (algorithms) and how diligently they researched an article, outlined it, tested it, fact-checked it, and measured the value to the reader. They offer a ton of very short and simple articles describing, for example, "How to Climb a Step Ladder." But there is also every indication Demand will be moving up the food chain tackling topics other than superficial how-to. To be sure some of this seems like painting by the numbers. How else can a writer churn out in a couple of years more pieces that most of us can write in a lifetime.
I am not a Demand booster and own no stock. Nonetheless, there is something instructive here for editors and publishers about how many consumers wish to receive and consume content. Frankly
since the second digital wave hit I have thought that special-interest magazines would best weather the
threat from outside content producers and aggregators because of their very close relationship with the consumer and the special community they make possible. After all, how can an outfit like Demand provide the very special, hyper-local content with the requisite tone, point-of-view and intimacy?
To test this I asked someone from Demand to use their "farm" to write an article about growing, organic Big-Boy tomatoes for the suburbs outside of Atlanta on a shady lot. I provided a lot of additional instructions. This was meant to be a trick question because I had served as publishing director for Organic Gardening Magazine. But the joke was on me. They did a credible job.
With the Demand IPO, the purchase of the Huffington Post by AOL, and AOL's plans to generate more than 600,000 articles a year, content produced outside traditional media companies willl take on greater significance.
Or not. Writing articles based on trending Google search may become less important over time. Some search engines, including Blekko, limit search engine results to a finite list. Google is reportedly working on a variety of algorithms to address this issue. What is one company's spam is another company's IPO.
And just when media companies are becoming very adept at SEO, they are being told the next big thing is Social Media Optimization.
What's an editor to do?
Right: get on board!
Monday, February 7, 2011
Dreaming of Tablets
I have previously acknowledged that I counted every single tablet at CES last month. I don't have any particular allegiance to this category. I just wanted to be able to say that I touched every one of these fleeting pieces of technology because most won't be around for an encore in 2012. We saw the same thing with e-readers in 2010. Manufacturers have every right, as psychologist C.G. Jung noted, to "dream the dream onward" but that is probably not enough of a strategic plan.
I just finished a very productive series of meetings with publishers and, not surprisingly, tablets are very prominent in the collective psyche of media executives, obviously helped by Murdoch's gutsy launch of The Daily. How can I possibly top that? Well, I could dream about the primordial tablet. And I did.
The dreamscape was familiar. I was pulled into a publisher meeting, outdoors, in bright sunlight at a picnic bench. Those at the table were "working" with stones that looked like tablets, some the shape of the iPad; other round or oval-shaped. All were "virgin" in the sense that they held no writing or designs except occasional hieroglyphics. The charge from no one in particular was to "play" with the tablets, testing treatment, inks, and rough content. The meeting was open and collegial marked by experimentation and play.
I've studied Jungian psychology for fifteen years and won't bore you with remarks about the unconscious and working and playing with primal matter. Actually, I just did. But don't get me started on hieroglyphics.
I stand with a neurologist friend who says most dreams represent "neural dumping," though I wished he had used something with less of an excremental feel. On the other hand, my mother told me that if you dream something on a Friday night, it will be "Saturday true."
OK Mum; you win. At least the dream took me away from CES and the militant, singular march towards tablet progress. Come to think of it, I heard a similar sentiment in many of my meeting from execs who are willing to risk and play and discover in the broad sunlight.
And that's no picnic, symbolically speaking.
I just finished a very productive series of meetings with publishers and, not surprisingly, tablets are very prominent in the collective psyche of media executives, obviously helped by Murdoch's gutsy launch of The Daily. How can I possibly top that? Well, I could dream about the primordial tablet. And I did.
The dreamscape was familiar. I was pulled into a publisher meeting, outdoors, in bright sunlight at a picnic bench. Those at the table were "working" with stones that looked like tablets, some the shape of the iPad; other round or oval-shaped. All were "virgin" in the sense that they held no writing or designs except occasional hieroglyphics. The charge from no one in particular was to "play" with the tablets, testing treatment, inks, and rough content. The meeting was open and collegial marked by experimentation and play.
I've studied Jungian psychology for fifteen years and won't bore you with remarks about the unconscious and working and playing with primal matter. Actually, I just did. But don't get me started on hieroglyphics.
I stand with a neurologist friend who says most dreams represent "neural dumping," though I wished he had used something with less of an excremental feel. On the other hand, my mother told me that if you dream something on a Friday night, it will be "Saturday true."
OK Mum; you win. At least the dream took me away from CES and the militant, singular march towards tablet progress. Come to think of it, I heard a similar sentiment in many of my meeting from execs who are willing to risk and play and discover in the broad sunlight.
And that's no picnic, symbolically speaking.
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