Facebook Buys Instrgram For $1 Billion

One of the most popular apps Instagram has been bought by Facebook for a cool £1billion.

We have all become happy to share our thoughts via blogs, twitter and Facebook, our business contacts via LinkedIn, our social circles via Facebook, our videos via YouTube and our photos via Facebook and Instagram. Instagram has been downloaded and used by a staggering 27 million people, including many celebrities. In fact, the app has only just been released onto the Andriod platform and we only downloaded ourselves this weekend. So in theory the app has the potential to double its audience!

The app is like Adobe Photoshop plus much more and allows users to alter and post images on their smartphones and tablets. It offers stylistic filters, frames, and special effects to photos. Options can transform a straightforward snapshot into something very special.

Kevin Systrom, the the 26 year old CEO, who turned down an offer to join Facebook in 2004, founded Instagram only 15 months ago. With only 13 employees, Systrom now has hit the $1 billion jackpot. Systrom also retains 40% of the company and lands £400million from the deal, which values the business more than the likes of the New York Times!

Although Facebook has a reputation for buying up start-ups and then integrate the technology Systrom has reassured users that Instragram will continue to exist independently of Facebook and will continue to add new features to the product. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg commented , ‘This is an important milestone for Facebook because it's the first time we've ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all.’

As we develop our social skills it is going to be very interesting to see how ownership and privacy evolves. What is clear is that a handful of services will know a significant amount about us which can be used both positively and negatively and how much control the individual ultimately has will be very interesting to watch.

Game Over!

As we watch another media High Street outlet chain stumble and fall we have to ask if there is a retail future for digital media on the High Street? This may sound a very stark viewpoint but digital has changed and challenged many brick and motor stores and there are far more losers than winners and the street is becoming littered with fatalities in music, video, books and games.

Does the public want to search in-store when it can search online and get instant gratification? Do the staff in-store really want to sell something that many perceive to be eating their lunch? We have seen some bad examples of retailing of ebooks and devices in-store, but perhaps the point we have missed is that online shopping is becoming social and brick and motor is often now the opposite an interesting could be seen as anti social. This may be hard to understand as we often go shopping with others, but we don’t go shopping with potentially everyone we know in our trusted communities.

Today video games specialist Game has officially entered administration and this is expected to result in heavy job losses and the closure of up to half the it's 609 UK stores. Last year it had sales of £1.6bn but many factors have caused the demise of Game. It has not been helped by a slow down in new games from major suppliers such as Electronic Arts and Nintendo. It has also had challenging cashflow and profit issues whilst it tried to clear high rents, wages, suppler and tax bills.

So as Waterstones readies itself to launch its ereader and step up to the digital challenge we would question how it will fair. Barnes and Noble have shown that digital can work if viewed as somewhat separated from stores. Indigo happily let KOBO plough its own furrow. However looking at the retail digital in-store offers in the likes of WHS makes us beg the question of whether clicks and motoer works in this new social world.

So What Is Social Reading?

We read a lot today about social reading which itself is somewhat of a challenge to understand and some would suggest nonsensical because of the multiple interpretations that can be applied. However it appears to be 'the' digital buzz phrase and so will probably take time to get a common understanding.

Is social reading about one reading out load to a group or individual and if so what new about that? Perhaps in a digital world the text is dynamically converted to speech and read out aloud but again what’s new about that?

It appears that social reading nothing to do with reading and more to do with commentary. It is described by some, as the ability to share, thoughts, insights and opinions on a work and to do this interactively with others. We may have got that wrong and expect some digital thinker to correct us.

So is social reading about having an interactive reading group, who share their thoughts in flight over whilst reading the work over the internet? You get to see others comments and links at a paragraph level and have grammatical commentary offered on the fly. Perhaps it’s like students sharing a textbook online with suitable annotations, links, bookmarks and highlighted excerpts, but would this really work outside of reference works and textbooks?

Perhaps social reading is like the readers comments or substitute blurbs one finds against works on Amazon. Blubs used to be referred to as publisher’s puffs and it would be brave of anybody in today’s politically correct world to refer to these new readers comments as 'reader’s puffs'!

Shelfari offers 'social reading' but looking at the comments it seriously begs the question exactly how much it is taken seriously. However its mission is to, 'enhance the experience of reading by connecting readers in meaningful conversations about the published word'. It was started in 2006 and surprise surprise was acquired by Amazon in 2008. Last month is was integrated within Kindle as “Book Extras”.

'Book Extras are curated factoids by the Shelfari community that provide readers with helpful information while they’re reading or deciding if they should read a book. These Extras include character descriptions, important places, popular quotations, themes, book-specific glossaries and more.'

It is interesting that when one reads a novel you are already being drawn into a plot created by the author and seen through someone else’s eyes. This immersive experience is what make a lot of reading special. Recommendations are always very useful and drive many sales but these are often from friends whose taste is know or reviewers whose authority is respected. Would you read a book just because an unknown person gave it a rave review?

People may be happy to comment in their closed network with the option to a move these to a public and open space. Comments made within a closed group may be more provocative, less accurate and even extremely negative, where they may be more watered down in public.

Finally we must respect the ‘fire mail rule’, which suggests that you think twice and count to ten before you send an email which may feel good at the time but that looks bad and inappropriate later. Academics are understandably cautious about commenting reactively on others, as they often earn from their own writing and their comments unless sound, may come back to threaten their own reputation and livelihood.

So is social reading a real possibility or just a fad dreamt up to try and extend the reading community, create a social network and to connect to the digital world?

Social Networks Grow Up

What do we really know about the use of the technology we now take for granted and part of everyday life. Who uses Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, SMS, Blogs and what drives their usage?

An interesting article in the New Your Times raises many questions about the user demographics and use of this new communication world.

New technology often is first adopted by the young and then permeates to the older generations and we assume the young drive adoption of technology. According to comScore, today’s new ‘must do’ service Twitter, has a demographic that consists of only 11% of its users being teenagers. It appears that Twitter may have buck the trend. We have already reported on Ivy Bean who twitters and is 103!

What is becoming evident is that the older generations that are driving the real growth of social networks today. Today teenagers only account for 14% of MySpace and 9% of Facebook and we doubt very many use Linkedin. Forrester Research have issued a report that claims that the use of social networks by people aged 35 to 54 grew 60% in the last year.

So we have to now understand what people use these sites for and how and what they communicate.

Is the drive in older users merely a ‘catch up’ and a need to be hip, or is it driven by wider social aspects such as the need to belong to communities, find kindred spirits and express views? Teenagers tend to be more social and live in school and social communities, often with a wide range of friends and communicate on a one to one basis. However, this is often not the case of older generations who now have the opportunity to connect with others they may have never met otherwise.

One would assume that the older generations would be more concerned about privacy and having their feelings, thoughts openly available to what some may say are total strangers, but a look at many members pages shows a willingness to share and express.

If social networking services are to be part of the publishing marketing mix these demographics and social needs need to be understood and not assumed. What will drive the older audience? What is the key to engage with them? Does it require a tight vertical perspective or interest which will probably demand more than just books, or can it survive on a generalist pitch and book alone? We see the re-emergence of the social network sites BookRabbit and Sellstudentsstuff.com and we ask what is different this time?

Friends Reunited on the Block Again

We all look and wonder at the lustre of social networking sites. One minute they are the vision of a student or wanabee millionaire, the next they are attracting significant traffic and wild market valuations. However for every success there are hundreds of failures and success does not always mean that they are sustainable.

Look at MySpace with its starlets, Ms Allen and the Artic Monkeys. Once the ruler of the social sites, it now has to sit below Facebook. We once thought Sellstudentbooks.com was going to make it but alas not. We often have joined these sites and once the initial momentum is over, realised that they often aren’t the universe they claim, are hard work to maintain and left them as quickly.

Now what we would regard as the granddaddy of them all, Friends Reunited looks like it is going further down the slippery pole, with widely reported rumours that ITV may sell it for just £15 million. In December 2005 ITV paid £175 million for the site! However, ITV still reported a £18 million contribution from Friends Reunited in 2008, though this was down from £22 million in 2007. So a sale may earn out quickly if the friends stay reunited.

"D'oh!",

Publishers build social networks sites around, students, authors, genre, and of course teenagers. Some like Tor.com are trying to create a vertical community, in its case for Sci-Fi lovers, others such as the new ‘Pulse It’ from Simon and Schuster, just go for them young.

Do they work? Well if they didn’t they would be building them would they? When you start with a base near zero then all sales look good. It is not difficult to see why Simon and Schuster shouldn’t get traction as they are; giving away one book a month to be read online for free, points for reviews and site actions, and users can win free books and other prizes. The trick is often not starting a social community but still being there and getting that ‘stickyness’ to keep them coming back. Obviously publishers also have to be able to compete with the others. The everyone needs to respond to change and get that most important thing the user gives - time. We wish them well, but wonder if it were better inside a larger social site rather than competing with other publishers and social sites.


We looked a Tor.com and were impressed that they have taken an inclusive and not exclusive position, inviting other publishers to sell and promote their own titles alongside theirs. This is a brave move indeed for a publisher and one we have long advocated and support. Is it any different to sites like Baen,com? Well that a personal call but we believe it lacks that Baen roughness and clear Sci – Fi design. However, the designer tee shirts and mugs and blogs are all interesting.

However, why did HarperCollins put the Simpsons Mini Calendar and Simpsons Work Calendar 2010 on the Tor.com site – obviously not quite science fiction to most of us, or perhaps they knew something we don’t. After all Homer does work at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant!

Readers Only Need One Place?

ReadersPlace aims to be the social networking site for book clubs, offering global interaction, debate and thoughts about their favourite books. They can web chat with authors live, get reading guides to more than 200 titles including author details and interviews, plot summaries, starting points for discussions and suggested further reading. Of course their will be promotional and discount deal offered at www.rbooks.co.uk.

West Midlands Library Authorities have been part of the pilot helping to develop the site and comes on the back of many innovative new services from Random House.

We welcome this more social engagement with readers and linking authors to their readers in every way possible. Our only comment is that its Random House and what a difference it would be if it embraced more publishers both large and small and all books. At a time when Richard and Judy are being put to rest and a simple twitter from Jonathan Ross can generate a twitter storm and best seller, one questions why its so hard for publishers and retailers to collaborative and embrace an inclusive model and approach? Some would say that its every man for himself and publishers are all after the same sale, but some would suggest the bigger prize is being lost and there are now some big gorillas sitting in the back yard who also don’t understand collaboration.

We believe that if say the major six UK distributors, all of which are owned by the major publishers, actually collaborated to create a joint social network it would probably cover 75% of the UK market and more importantly provide a real incentive for everyone to participate from the authors to th readers and that sales would flow to the deserving but the buzz would be significant. There again we are only dreamers.

Joining the Dots

This week we commented on Fileby the new venture to list and promote authors. It would be remise not to also mention other initiatives of a similar vein.

The UK’s Countrybookshop has always had a high internet profile and it has a strong record of pushing the book market boundaries with their work in supporting authors and festivals. They have now launched Booksconnect

Booksconnect.com, is attempting to do what so many have tried before to do and connect the dots between writers and readers within an online network. It supports all the expected features for published authors including adding and updating their profiles, blogs and articles and book extracts, reading guides, news and discussions. Authors can also promote their unpublished works to the book community which involves editors, agents, publicists, publishers, librarians, booksellers and readers and in doing so support a new an interesting form of dating agency.

Unlike ill constructed ventures such as Book Rabbit these both appear to have many of the expected boxes ticked but will and why will either succeed and in fact how would either measure success?

We welcome these new initiatives along with the many others we don’t hear about. The challenge is to create the glue that effectively binds all the various interests together from the author to the reader. Perhaps that may be a challenge too far in that the physical and digital worlds are so different in their respective value chains. Yesterday information about authors was so scarce it was truly valued and sought. Today we are one click away from an author’s web site, their blog, their facebook page, their myspace page, their you tube video, their iTunes podcast, online reviews of their books, the publisher’s web site, their Wikipedia page, etc.

We now have an information omnivore in Google geared up to be a bookseller.

The question we find ourselves asking is - where’s the money?

So What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

So What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? is the question adults often ask young children but one we find ourselves increasingly asking new ventures. It is important that people know their aspirations and although these may change on route , they understand the logic behind them and the actions needed to make things happen.

We read today in the Bookseller that HarperCollins are to launch any other web social network site next week called ‘BookArmy’. It comes hot on the heels of their slush pile offering Authonomy.com.

Some may suggest that the new venture looks like a giant book dating agency where book lovers can share reviews, recommendations and generally wax lyrically about any book. That sounds very plausible and a great idea and also a bit like the ill conceived BookRabbit or more successful Shelfari site. It is to cover not just HarperCollins titles but all books with an ISBN.

So the first question must be, ‘Where’s the money?’ quickly followed by our strap line question. The answer is obviously known to News Corp otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it. Some may say it’s about collecting and managing a list that can be cross fertilised and used by News Corp companies to sell stuff. Some may say it’s about collecting reviews and demographics that will be owned by News Corp and repurposed and may be sold on accordingly. Some will wait to see where any buy now buttons lead to and wonder if its an attempt to create a different sort of retail space that can be linked to MySpace.

Finally the name ‘Book Army’ conjures up some interesting images but again we must wait and see what branding marches forth.