For the last ten years everyone has been putting Amazon down, at first they would be wiped out, then could service their debt, then they weren’t profitable, then were going into areas they didn’t understand.
The reality is that they were the goose that laid the golden egg and many acted as accountants who could not see the golden egg so only saw a goose. Well the goose is starting to lay eggs!
Amazon’s Q1 earnings report from Amazon was better than expected by the market. It raised sales 32% to $3.02 billion, and improved earnings 38% to $145 million, from a year ago. International "media" sales rose 31% to $1 billion and showed a trend that even surpassed their US media sales which rose 21% to $990 million. They are what we have known for ten years – a global brand.
Profits improved and they now envisage fiscal sales of between $13.4 billion and $14 billion.
We must remember that they now straddle the total publishing value chain and the only thing they don’t do today is originate content and publish it.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Karaoke on the move?
Song lyrics will some be available for all for free.
Yahoo has announced a service which will include the lyrics to 400,000 songs by 9,000 artists, ranging from the Beatles and Bob Dylan to ABBA and Kylie. Nearly 100 music publishers, including BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Warner/Chappell Music, have signed up to the deal
Music lyric searches are a popular on the internet so the service hopes to cash in on the demand by charging for any advertising accompanying the lyrics. It has been estimated that within 10 years the revenue from licensing lyrics this way would reach $100m a year, boosting the current worldwide music publishing revenues, estimated at $4bn annually.
The logical next step is the guitar cords, and music sheets which have also be long sort out by every aspiring musician. What is interesting is that if book publishers were to do the same with poetry there would be an uproar. Where does relaxation of DRM and free advert models such as these go. They certainly change the rigts , royalty relationship. Perhaps we are moving towards a You Tube world where being seen and heard are the more important first base and payment is far more like achieving a home run and these are hard.
Other sites, such as Google and iTunes, Are expected to follow suit.
Yahoo has announced a service which will include the lyrics to 400,000 songs by 9,000 artists, ranging from the Beatles and Bob Dylan to ABBA and Kylie. Nearly 100 music publishers, including BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Warner/Chappell Music, have signed up to the deal
Music lyric searches are a popular on the internet so the service hopes to cash in on the demand by charging for any advertising accompanying the lyrics. It has been estimated that within 10 years the revenue from licensing lyrics this way would reach $100m a year, boosting the current worldwide music publishing revenues, estimated at $4bn annually.
The logical next step is the guitar cords, and music sheets which have also be long sort out by every aspiring musician. What is interesting is that if book publishers were to do the same with poetry there would be an uproar. Where does relaxation of DRM and free advert models such as these go. They certainly change the rigts , royalty relationship. Perhaps we are moving towards a You Tube world where being seen and heard are the more important first base and payment is far more like achieving a home run and these are hard.
Other sites, such as Google and iTunes, Are expected to follow suit.
We are all getting connected
I am sitting in our Value Chain office in Bangalore and I am greeted by today’s headlines in ‘The Economic Times’ of India – ‘Broadband to go free in 2 years’. The Indian government proposes to offer all citizens free, high speed broadband by 2009 through their state owned service providers. It follows a Telecom paper reported by Rightcom yesterday that gives the latest figures on estimated penetration of broadband in the published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on their countries. Subscriptions have increased by 26% to 197m in December 2006 from 157m a year earlier and report also states that broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants grew to 16.9 from 13.5 during the same period a year ago. The report lists Denmark as the most switched on country with 31.9 broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, followed by the Netherlands with 31.8, Iceland with 29.7, Korea with 29.1 and Switzerland with 28.5.
The impact is obvious- lots more people sitting in-front of screens surfing the net. But the real impact is whole communities and populations being empowered and a potential further power shift in the digital world.
However its not just those homes that are getting wired to play. The Heathrow Express that runs between London Paddington and Heathrow airport is now offering wireless internet access to passengers. The city of London has just announced a large WiFi area and the spread of WiFi is only just starting. In the US many cities are now adopting wireless broadband free services to residents. The Heathrow trackside mobile wireless network was installed by UK-based Nomad Digital and delivered by T-Mobile. The will deliver a broadband connection speed of 2Mbps throughout the 30 minute journey and cost 75p for 10 minutes or £5 for an hour's connection. Besides the Heathrow Express, the connection card can be used at more than 400 T-Mobile HotSpot locations within London.
This pervasive spread of high bandwidth connectivity will impact what content can be delivered, how its used and makes one wonder whether you will ever be able to switch off? Importantly the economics of access are shifting and the famous ‘rip off’ Britain tag will have to go if we are to compete on the global stage
The impact is obvious- lots more people sitting in-front of screens surfing the net. But the real impact is whole communities and populations being empowered and a potential further power shift in the digital world.
However its not just those homes that are getting wired to play. The Heathrow Express that runs between London Paddington and Heathrow airport is now offering wireless internet access to passengers. The city of London has just announced a large WiFi area and the spread of WiFi is only just starting. In the US many cities are now adopting wireless broadband free services to residents. The Heathrow trackside mobile wireless network was installed by UK-based Nomad Digital and delivered by T-Mobile. The will deliver a broadband connection speed of 2Mbps throughout the 30 minute journey and cost 75p for 10 minutes or £5 for an hour's connection. Besides the Heathrow Express, the connection card can be used at more than 400 T-Mobile HotSpot locations within London.
This pervasive spread of high bandwidth connectivity will impact what content can be delivered, how its used and makes one wonder whether you will ever be able to switch off? Importantly the economics of access are shifting and the famous ‘rip off’ Britain tag will have to go if we are to compete on the global stage
Communities and aggregation is the name of the digital game
Since 2005, all NHS staff and students in Greater Manchester have been able to access 30,000 books and reports in 28 NHS libraries and are not just limited to their local library. Irrespective of job and location staff can now see what books, audiovisual resources and ebooks are available. This ensures all these staff and students access the evidence base and information services that they need at a convenient location.
The library is being hosted by OCLC PICA, the European library co-operative.
In January more than 70 higher education institutions backed the Ethosnet project, which aims to digitise past doctorate theses in preparation for the Electronic Theses Online Service (ETHOS) planned for 2009. In two years the rarely visited library stacks of these could be fully online and available to all.
JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and (CURL) Consortium of Research Libraries have developed the prototype and the service will be run by The British Library. There are the usual issues around copyright and intellectual property especially third-party rights and commercially sensitive content.
Both these show that the geography restrictions around physical inventory have gone and bodies are starting to look at communities, aggregation and potentially workflow. This digital evolution is significant and will start to reshape our definition of content and it use.
The library is being hosted by OCLC PICA, the European library co-operative.
In January more than 70 higher education institutions backed the Ethosnet project, which aims to digitise past doctorate theses in preparation for the Electronic Theses Online Service (ETHOS) planned for 2009. In two years the rarely visited library stacks of these could be fully online and available to all.
JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and (CURL) Consortium of Research Libraries have developed the prototype and the service will be run by The British Library. There are the usual issues around copyright and intellectual property especially third-party rights and commercially sensitive content.
Both these show that the geography restrictions around physical inventory have gone and bodies are starting to look at communities, aggregation and potentially workflow. This digital evolution is significant and will start to reshape our definition of content and it use.
Now you see it, then you don’t
So you want to see the parts that other maps don’t show you? The Ordinance Survey may have omitted 16,000 square kilometres of military warehouses, buildings and other installations which add up to over 1,00o contaminated sites and a further 3,000 sites but they are now available for all to see.
So who broke the secrets? Why and how are they now available?
The answer is straight out of a John Le Carre novel – well almost. Landmark’s MD Richard Pawley, whose company now publish these hidden sites says, “There were 100,000 paper maps in a railway carriage in a siding in Estonia when the communist regime collapsed.”
Were they left behind deliberately, merely forgotten in the haste to disappear or part of some cold war plot? No one knows the answer expect perhaps Smiley’s Russian counterpart.
So who broke the secrets? Why and how are they now available?
The answer is straight out of a John Le Carre novel – well almost. Landmark’s MD Richard Pawley, whose company now publish these hidden sites says, “There were 100,000 paper maps in a railway carriage in a siding in Estonia when the communist regime collapsed.”
Were they left behind deliberately, merely forgotten in the haste to disappear or part of some cold war plot? No one knows the answer expect perhaps Smiley’s Russian counterpart.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Amazon to download….
No sooner has Steve Jobs left stage left having announced the deal to sell digital downloads without DRM protection, than Jeff Bezos enters right stage and announces he can do it too.
Amazon has approached all the music majors in the past fortnight and said that it wanted to sell unprotected MP3 songs in May. Will they meet their deadlines? Can they break the stranglehold iTunes have on the download market?
Forget Google and Microsoft the issue is between Bezos versus Jobs. These two individuals want the consumer business for both music and books. Will Jobs next announce ebooks on iPhones? Will Bezos announces a ‘secretative’ deal with major publishers and Google to create middleware and a new ebook playing field?
What is clear that Jobs has the style the lateral thinking and the fashion tag, whilst Bezos has the determination, single focus and importantly all the bases covered.
Bring on the giants!
Amazon has approached all the music majors in the past fortnight and said that it wanted to sell unprotected MP3 songs in May. Will they meet their deadlines? Can they break the stranglehold iTunes have on the download market?
Forget Google and Microsoft the issue is between Bezos versus Jobs. These two individuals want the consumer business for both music and books. Will Jobs next announce ebooks on iPhones? Will Bezos announces a ‘secretative’ deal with major publishers and Google to create middleware and a new ebook playing field?
What is clear that Jobs has the style the lateral thinking and the fashion tag, whilst Bezos has the determination, single focus and importantly all the bases covered.
Bring on the giants!
Latte and a Book to Go
When we talk about the demise of the independent bookstore we see many reasons. As we stated yesterday change happens and with every opportunity there is always a threat.
Costa coffee shops has announced that it will now do author tours, why queue in a booksops when you can get a free muffin and coffee in a coffee shop and sit and read the book at lesuire? We see Starbucks now selling books in 450 store and although this is a very limited offer it is a great and obvious way forward for them and publishers.
So where does this take us? Have bookshops welcomed coffee stores into their premises like the Trojan’s welcomed a certain wooden horse?
The reality is that this interest by coffee shops to add an extra offer into their highly competitive mix is good for business. Just as garden stores and other specialist stores sell books there is no difference. What would be different is if a coffee shop and a bookstore were to blur into one where one finishes and the other starts becomes unclear.
The interesting scenario was if Starbucks started to have a local print on demand facility after all it often takes some time to make that cappuccino and wouldn’t it be nice to have a book as well sir – freshly made too. This is not science fiction but just a case of establishing the right proposition and economics. What if they had a book vending machine in the corner, limited offer but service with no labour? What if some bright publisher forgot the tome and started selling in short stories, brand wrapped and ready to go! We also must recognise that these retailers are already wifi-ing their outlets so we can see the digital download offer could be one click away. The point is that to these retailers this is added consumer value and new money and importantly if if takes little overhead it’s a no-brainer.
Costa coffee shops has announced that it will now do author tours, why queue in a booksops when you can get a free muffin and coffee in a coffee shop and sit and read the book at lesuire? We see Starbucks now selling books in 450 store and although this is a very limited offer it is a great and obvious way forward for them and publishers.
So where does this take us? Have bookshops welcomed coffee stores into their premises like the Trojan’s welcomed a certain wooden horse?
The reality is that this interest by coffee shops to add an extra offer into their highly competitive mix is good for business. Just as garden stores and other specialist stores sell books there is no difference. What would be different is if a coffee shop and a bookstore were to blur into one where one finishes and the other starts becomes unclear.
The interesting scenario was if Starbucks started to have a local print on demand facility after all it often takes some time to make that cappuccino and wouldn’t it be nice to have a book as well sir – freshly made too. This is not science fiction but just a case of establishing the right proposition and economics. What if they had a book vending machine in the corner, limited offer but service with no labour? What if some bright publisher forgot the tome and started selling in short stories, brand wrapped and ready to go! We also must recognise that these retailers are already wifi-ing their outlets so we can see the digital download offer could be one click away. The point is that to these retailers this is added consumer value and new money and importantly if if takes little overhead it’s a no-brainer.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Independent Bookshops 'must …'
Advice to independent bookstores is offered by everyone.
There is the collective approach offered by Stephen Poulter, owner of Books@Hoddesdon who warned at LBF that independent retail is at risk unless shop owners unite to publicise their stores. Last April, he launched a "Love Your Local Bookshop" campaign and loyalty card scheme, now supported by wholesalers. But is the issue visibility? Does the local bookshop need visibility outside its catchments? How does being seen as part of a larger federation improve local visibility? There is merit here but it is not the silver bullet.
A number publishers are backing independents with various ‘support independents’ campaigns. Some offer better discounts, others semi exclusive stock, others a better interface but the question is whether these are merely fudging the discounts and muddling the available stock.
Others such as Michael Holdsworth offering some thought provoking words in his “High Noon on the High Street” article in the Bookseller’s LBF daily. It was a sobering wake up call and a gloomy picture of the potential impact of digitisation from someone who is well versed in digital matters as many academic and campus bookstore will tell you. Michael makes a very valid point when he states that certain genre will move quicker than others into digital and travel, religion, reference are clear areas where the consumer may want more than the tome.
Then today we read Michael Gove in The Times who believes the supermarkets are to blame. The lack of joined up thinking here makes one worry that the man is an MP. He is a serious used and rare book man and loves both stores and ABE but blames the dismiss of the independent on the supermarket? Clearly he doesn’t speak to the shop owners who did embrace ABE found a big market and although they also are held to ransom on commission and payment often find it cheaper to fulfil books out of the garage than a high maintenance store.
So who is right and who is wrong?
Generalists will continue to be picked off by the efficiencies and economies of scale of the likes of Amazon. Best sellers will always be cheaper at Tesco, Asda etc. Rare book dealers now sell more but their prices are in the open and falling as a result. Continuing to let publishers wallpaper shelves with their ‘best sellers’, ‘celebrity dross’ and the perennial ‘chick lit’ is a clear abdication of buying. Alan Giles has a point in his recent article on remainders but puts it across so badly and condescendingly, it dilutes any real message. Mail order is viable, as is the internet as are remainders, as is selling other stock such as stationary but these require different skills and aren’t just a simple offers.
Retailers need to recognise that the consumer seeks all books not just front list or new. What is clear is that innovative, hard working, open minded retailers such as the Countrybookshop will succeed and adapt. They and others have taken the bold steps to create experience, build loyalty and importantly sell books of all shapes, sizes and sources. Many can learn from what they are doing I building local community and visibility. It will not be right for all but they are certainly approaching the challenge with the same vigour they showed when establishing their successful internet store.
The independent bookstore is not dead but hopefully adapting to a changing and more demanding world.
There is the collective approach offered by Stephen Poulter, owner of Books@Hoddesdon who warned at LBF that independent retail is at risk unless shop owners unite to publicise their stores. Last April, he launched a "Love Your Local Bookshop" campaign and loyalty card scheme, now supported by wholesalers. But is the issue visibility? Does the local bookshop need visibility outside its catchments? How does being seen as part of a larger federation improve local visibility? There is merit here but it is not the silver bullet.
A number publishers are backing independents with various ‘support independents’ campaigns. Some offer better discounts, others semi exclusive stock, others a better interface but the question is whether these are merely fudging the discounts and muddling the available stock.
Others such as Michael Holdsworth offering some thought provoking words in his “High Noon on the High Street” article in the Bookseller’s LBF daily. It was a sobering wake up call and a gloomy picture of the potential impact of digitisation from someone who is well versed in digital matters as many academic and campus bookstore will tell you. Michael makes a very valid point when he states that certain genre will move quicker than others into digital and travel, religion, reference are clear areas where the consumer may want more than the tome.
Then today we read Michael Gove in The Times who believes the supermarkets are to blame. The lack of joined up thinking here makes one worry that the man is an MP. He is a serious used and rare book man and loves both stores and ABE but blames the dismiss of the independent on the supermarket? Clearly he doesn’t speak to the shop owners who did embrace ABE found a big market and although they also are held to ransom on commission and payment often find it cheaper to fulfil books out of the garage than a high maintenance store.
So who is right and who is wrong?
Generalists will continue to be picked off by the efficiencies and economies of scale of the likes of Amazon. Best sellers will always be cheaper at Tesco, Asda etc. Rare book dealers now sell more but their prices are in the open and falling as a result. Continuing to let publishers wallpaper shelves with their ‘best sellers’, ‘celebrity dross’ and the perennial ‘chick lit’ is a clear abdication of buying. Alan Giles has a point in his recent article on remainders but puts it across so badly and condescendingly, it dilutes any real message. Mail order is viable, as is the internet as are remainders, as is selling other stock such as stationary but these require different skills and aren’t just a simple offers.
Retailers need to recognise that the consumer seeks all books not just front list or new. What is clear is that innovative, hard working, open minded retailers such as the Countrybookshop will succeed and adapt. They and others have taken the bold steps to create experience, build loyalty and importantly sell books of all shapes, sizes and sources. Many can learn from what they are doing I building local community and visibility. It will not be right for all but they are certainly approaching the challenge with the same vigour they showed when establishing their successful internet store.
The independent bookstore is not dead but hopefully adapting to a changing and more demanding world.
The BBC plans to show repeats on demand
When you flick the channel hopper and find those hidden shows of yesterday you often realise many were not as good as you fondly remembered.
But there is about to be even more of them made available as the BBC opens up its archive in an on demand trail to some 20,000 homes in the UK. The pilot is part of the BBC's plans to eventually offer more than a million hours of TV and radio from its archive.
The corporation's ambition is to ‘enabling any viewer to access any BBC programme ever broadcast’. Broadcasters around the world are grappling with the shift to on-demand media. Channel 4 has launched its on-demand service via the net and cable services, while networks in the US are shifting content to platforms such as iTunes and the web.
At the recent media event in Cannes the BBC announced an iPlayer service, offering catch-up TV via the web and cable TV, re-engineered to work with Apple Macs and eventually rolled out to digital terrestrial TV (DTT) and set-top boxes. In addition they aim to trail hybrid set-top boxes which are connected to the net and can record TV to access BBC archive material.
The BBC iPlayer is expected to be launched later this year but is still subject to approval from the BBC Trust. If launched, it is designed to offer a seven-day catch-up service for viewers who can download content onto their computers.
This interesting as it comes at a time when it is reported that overtook Sky as the main way of watching TV in the UK homes ad now is in more than 11 homes. It will be very interesting to see the impact of the PC reception as more and more PC s are now sold with integrated TV Freeview reception.
But there is about to be even more of them made available as the BBC opens up its archive in an on demand trail to some 20,000 homes in the UK. The pilot is part of the BBC's plans to eventually offer more than a million hours of TV and radio from its archive.
The corporation's ambition is to ‘enabling any viewer to access any BBC programme ever broadcast’. Broadcasters around the world are grappling with the shift to on-demand media. Channel 4 has launched its on-demand service via the net and cable services, while networks in the US are shifting content to platforms such as iTunes and the web.
At the recent media event in Cannes the BBC announced an iPlayer service, offering catch-up TV via the web and cable TV, re-engineered to work with Apple Macs and eventually rolled out to digital terrestrial TV (DTT) and set-top boxes. In addition they aim to trail hybrid set-top boxes which are connected to the net and can record TV to access BBC archive material.
The BBC iPlayer is expected to be launched later this year but is still subject to approval from the BBC Trust. If launched, it is designed to offer a seven-day catch-up service for viewers who can download content onto their computers.
This interesting as it comes at a time when it is reported that overtook Sky as the main way of watching TV in the UK homes ad now is in more than 11 homes. It will be very interesting to see the impact of the PC reception as more and more PC s are now sold with integrated TV Freeview reception.
Where were you when the Blackberries Stopped?
There will be conversations all over the US about the nights the lights went. No not the New York black out but the service outage suffered by Blackberry. On Tuesday night, five million BlackBerry users in the United States were logged off their cherished service. It took 10 long hours before the service was fully resumed. What was the implications of this on the service, its users and the rest of civilisation? After all it was outside normal working hours and resolved before the next working day.
The dependence we all have to email and the blackberry users have to their cherished machines is now clearly beyond working hours. BlackBerry services, shed little light yesterday on what went wrong, releasing a statement that said the “root cause is currently under review.” But it is thought that part of the problem, though, could be the service’s rapid growth: R.I.M. says it has added three million subscribers in the last 12 months, for a total of eight million, in part because of the popularity of its superslim BlackBerry Pearl.
We are left to wonder whether there will be a baby boom in 9 months.
The dependence we all have to email and the blackberry users have to their cherished machines is now clearly beyond working hours. BlackBerry services, shed little light yesterday on what went wrong, releasing a statement that said the “root cause is currently under review.” But it is thought that part of the problem, though, could be the service’s rapid growth: R.I.M. says it has added three million subscribers in the last 12 months, for a total of eight million, in part because of the popularity of its superslim BlackBerry Pearl.
We are left to wonder whether there will be a baby boom in 9 months.
Mobiles continue to offer Digital Content
That ubiquitous mobile continues to attract different publishers as they experiment with digital delivery. Hundreds of travel books and maps on European cities are to be preloaded onto Motorola phones. The books from Rough Guides are complimented by maps from ViaMichelin and packed as Rough Guides Mobile by Creative Software Ltd.
Swedish mobile users will now be able to enjoy over 100 HarperCollins English language audiobooks via service provider BOKiLUR. Users will get 2 minutes of free sample and then purchase a title for around 15 euros. The download is streamed to the phone and thereby obviates downloading to a pC. The system if successful will be rolled out to a number of other European Countries in the next 12 months.
Swedish mobile users will now be able to enjoy over 100 HarperCollins English language audiobooks via service provider BOKiLUR. Users will get 2 minutes of free sample and then purchase a title for around 15 euros. The download is streamed to the phone and thereby obviates downloading to a pC. The system if successful will be rolled out to a number of other European Countries in the next 12 months.
Monday, April 16, 2007
The Patent Office Rebrands
The Patent office is about to become the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) and in doing so will harmonise the policing of IP infringement.
Will this change make a difference? Well the name may help some focus on ‘intellectual property’ and not just think of inventions and goods. However the issue of fair use still remains. As the Economist John Kay recently noted “If it is legitimate to copy material in terms of the Copyright Act, it should be legitimate to use a digital rights management system to circumvent that exception.”
The issue of treating copyright protection of physical and digital products differently continues not to go away.
Will this change make a difference? Well the name may help some focus on ‘intellectual property’ and not just think of inventions and goods. However the issue of fair use still remains. As the Economist John Kay recently noted “If it is legitimate to copy material in terms of the Copyright Act, it should be legitimate to use a digital rights management system to circumvent that exception.”
The issue of treating copyright protection of physical and digital products differently continues not to go away.
JICS Athens and authentication
The joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced that it ceasing it funding of Athens authentication from July 2008. Athens has and continues to allow university users single password access to their institutions resources.
The new access management is based on Shibboleth technology and will extend to schools, the public sector and commercial concerns.
Simplifying the access of thousands of students and institutions will it is hoped free staff to focus less on admin and free to concentrate on the selection and management of resources.
At the same time JISC is looking hard at the world of Web 2.0. Researchers, students, lecturers now also communicate through wikis, blogs, instant messaging, podcasts, RSS and in a world of collaborative working which is changing fast.
Why are these activities important to the rest of us? The answer is that they are dealing with the issues we all will face albeit earlier and with a slight difference in emphasis. These activities are certainly ones to watch.
The new access management is based on Shibboleth technology and will extend to schools, the public sector and commercial concerns.
Simplifying the access of thousands of students and institutions will it is hoped free staff to focus less on admin and free to concentrate on the selection and management of resources.
At the same time JISC is looking hard at the world of Web 2.0. Researchers, students, lecturers now also communicate through wikis, blogs, instant messaging, podcasts, RSS and in a world of collaborative working which is changing fast.
Why are these activities important to the rest of us? The answer is that they are dealing with the issues we all will face albeit earlier and with a slight difference in emphasis. These activities are certainly ones to watch.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Gardners announces the creation of a new ‘Digital Warehouse’
Press Release - Thursday 12th April 2007
Gardners Books is pleased to announce the creation of a new ‘Digital Warehouse’ designed to provide a comprehensive range of e-commerce services for booksellers and publishers. The combination of Gardners existing ‘physical’ warehouse services, coupled with the new ‘digital’ services will provide both booksellers and publishers with a unique service for today and tomorrows booktrade.
Gardners Digital Warehouse will supply the capability for Publishers to link their existing digital files, eBooks, Audio Downloads, and extended bibliographic content such as ‘search inside’ to Gardners Books range of Internet and high street retailers. Publishers can also utilise a range of digitisation services designed to enable any size of Publisher to create digital content economically and to use it for publicity and eBook sales with all of Gardners customers.
For Gardners customers our new Digital Warehouse will provide the same ‘single channel solution’ for the supply and fulfilment of digital material including the sale of eBooks as our physical warehouse has done since 1986. The combination of both a physical and digital warehousing facility will enable any high street retailer to provide the most comprehensive range of on line and high street services at a very economical price.
“Our aim is to ensure all our high street retailers can participate in selling eBooks, audio downloads alongside physical books, and utilise the newly developing extended bibliographic information and internet trading experiences which are increasingly available to support more traditional selling opportunities” states Bob Jackson, Commercial Director at Gardners Books.
Christoph Chesher, Group Sales Director, Taylor and Francis Group comments, “Taylor & Francis wholeheartedly welcomes the advent of the Gardners Wholesaler eBook Service which effectively provides the capacity for any traditional bookseller, no matter how large or small, to operate a web based eBook site and to list and sell eBooks from the world’s leading publishers. Further, we are delighted to confirm that we have reached agreement with Gardners for the Wholesaler eBook Service to host and sell our full list of more than 16,500 Routledge and Taylor & Francis titles. “
Further details will be announced at The London Book Fair at Earl’s Court.
Please visit Gardners Books - Stand G150
Contact Details: Bob Jackson - Commercial Director Simon Morley - Buying Director
Gardners Books is pleased to announce the creation of a new ‘Digital Warehouse’ designed to provide a comprehensive range of e-commerce services for booksellers and publishers. The combination of Gardners existing ‘physical’ warehouse services, coupled with the new ‘digital’ services will provide both booksellers and publishers with a unique service for today and tomorrows booktrade.
Gardners Digital Warehouse will supply the capability for Publishers to link their existing digital files, eBooks, Audio Downloads, and extended bibliographic content such as ‘search inside’ to Gardners Books range of Internet and high street retailers. Publishers can also utilise a range of digitisation services designed to enable any size of Publisher to create digital content economically and to use it for publicity and eBook sales with all of Gardners customers.
For Gardners customers our new Digital Warehouse will provide the same ‘single channel solution’ for the supply and fulfilment of digital material including the sale of eBooks as our physical warehouse has done since 1986. The combination of both a physical and digital warehousing facility will enable any high street retailer to provide the most comprehensive range of on line and high street services at a very economical price.
“Our aim is to ensure all our high street retailers can participate in selling eBooks, audio downloads alongside physical books, and utilise the newly developing extended bibliographic information and internet trading experiences which are increasingly available to support more traditional selling opportunities” states Bob Jackson, Commercial Director at Gardners Books.
Christoph Chesher, Group Sales Director, Taylor and Francis Group comments, “Taylor & Francis wholeheartedly welcomes the advent of the Gardners Wholesaler eBook Service which effectively provides the capacity for any traditional bookseller, no matter how large or small, to operate a web based eBook site and to list and sell eBooks from the world’s leading publishers. Further, we are delighted to confirm that we have reached agreement with Gardners for the Wholesaler eBook Service to host and sell our full list of more than 16,500 Routledge and Taylor & Francis titles. “
Further details will be announced at The London Book Fair at Earl’s Court.
Please visit Gardners Books - Stand G150
Contact Details: Bob Jackson - Commercial Director Simon Morley - Buying Director
Monday, April 02, 2007
The DRM cat is out of the Bag!!
EMI announced today that it is taking the software restrictions off some of its digital music songs sold via download sites and selling these as "premium" versions. Apple's iTunes store will start selling the EMI tracks in the "premium" format in May.
Every song in its catalogue will be available in the "premium" format which will be of higher quality than those it offers now. These will be free of digital rights management (DRM) software and will cost $1.29 (99p). Itunes users will also be able to upgrade previously purchased EMI songs and albums for 30 cents (15p) a track.
By contrast albums free of DRM and those with it will be the same price and Mr Jobs stated that he expects that other record companies would soon follow EMI's lead.
What this means is that we are clearly entering a new digital phase were the DRM field will be levelled but the battleground will be a bit more fraught. What is means for other copyright sectors such as publishing is uncertain but if the rules change in music its hard to see them not changing elsewhere.
Every song in its catalogue will be available in the "premium" format which will be of higher quality than those it offers now. These will be free of digital rights management (DRM) software and will cost $1.29 (99p). Itunes users will also be able to upgrade previously purchased EMI songs and albums for 30 cents (15p) a track.
By contrast albums free of DRM and those with it will be the same price and Mr Jobs stated that he expects that other record companies would soon follow EMI's lead.
What this means is that we are clearly entering a new digital phase were the DRM field will be levelled but the battleground will be a bit more fraught. What is means for other copyright sectors such as publishing is uncertain but if the rules change in music its hard to see them not changing elsewhere.
Apple and EMI to announce...
EMI and Apple are planning a joint press announcement today. Speculation is rife as to what it will be but given their recent debates over a certain label, the band associated with it , the dire position of EMI and of course Mr Jobs recent statements on open copyright...
We ait with open breath
We ait with open breath
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Keep it Simple
Take a simple teenage problem, ‘how do I share my music with my friends without getting tangled up in cables or blastling everyone with the same music?’ Now take one smart and persistent kid in California and technical savvy dad and we have ‘NoeStringsAttached'.
What it does is enable devices to share music transmitted using FM radio waves from a portable music player to any other specially equipped player within 15 feet. Each one plugs into the standard headphone jack found on most MP3, CD, and tape players. A user selects one of five radio frequencies and then opts to transmit or receive music by flicking a switch. The five frequencies were specially selected because they are not often used by traditional broadcasters, but in theory, the device could pick up FM radio stations.
Listeners don't even need a music player if they just want to tune in to someone else's music. All they need is a pair of headphones plugged into a NoeStringsAttached unit.
Kristyn Heath says that she and her dad decided to take a ‘low-tech approach’ and utilise FM radio to keep costs down and avoided other more expensive wireless options, such as Wi-Fi. The target audience is 15 to 20 years olds who don’t have money but want to share music.
A bit like those tin cans and a piece of string we uall played with as kids.
What it does is enable devices to share music transmitted using FM radio waves from a portable music player to any other specially equipped player within 15 feet. Each one plugs into the standard headphone jack found on most MP3, CD, and tape players. A user selects one of five radio frequencies and then opts to transmit or receive music by flicking a switch. The five frequencies were specially selected because they are not often used by traditional broadcasters, but in theory, the device could pick up FM radio stations.
Listeners don't even need a music player if they just want to tune in to someone else's music. All they need is a pair of headphones plugged into a NoeStringsAttached unit.
Kristyn Heath says that she and her dad decided to take a ‘low-tech approach’ and utilise FM radio to keep costs down and avoided other more expensive wireless options, such as Wi-Fi. The target audience is 15 to 20 years olds who don’t have money but want to share music.
A bit like those tin cans and a piece of string we uall played with as kids.
The World just got Smaller and Faster
IBM researchers have demonstrated a prototype optical transceiver chipset that will potentially open up all content to be downloaded. The technology is claimed to be eight times faster than current and uses light pulses instead of electrons. They also claim it could be embedded within applications by 2010.
IBM will build the new chipset by combining standard CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology, and optical components made from materials such as indium phosphide and gallium arsenide. The resulting package is just small enough to be integrated onto a printed circuit board.
They claim that it could reduce the download time of a typical high-definition feature-length movie from 30 minutes to one second. This demand for bandwidth has also others. In September, Intel and the University of California at Santa Barbara said they had discovered how to build low-cost ‘laser chips’ that move data faster than copper wire.
The full name of the new chipset is the "160Gb/s, 16-channel, full-duplex, single-chip CMOS optical transceiver" and it will presented at the Optical Fibre Conference later this month in California.
What is clear is that computing power is getting, faster, more efficient and smaller.
IBM will build the new chipset by combining standard CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology, and optical components made from materials such as indium phosphide and gallium arsenide. The resulting package is just small enough to be integrated onto a printed circuit board.
They claim that it could reduce the download time of a typical high-definition feature-length movie from 30 minutes to one second. This demand for bandwidth has also others. In September, Intel and the University of California at Santa Barbara said they had discovered how to build low-cost ‘laser chips’ that move data faster than copper wire.
The full name of the new chipset is the "160Gb/s, 16-channel, full-duplex, single-chip CMOS optical transceiver" and it will presented at the Optical Fibre Conference later this month in California.
What is clear is that computing power is getting, faster, more efficient and smaller.
When is a Contenext Link not a Context Link?
Have you ever tried to set up an associate site or sell via marketplace? Just when you thought you had it cracked along came their ‘widget’ or as they call it ‘Context link’.
“Context Links are a quick and convenient way to add links to your website and monetize your content. Context Links automatically identify and link relevant phrases within your page content to Amazon products, unlocking new ad inventory and saving you the time from having to manually create links. You can add the links to your pages in minutes, and we provide a wealth of options to customize how they are displayed…”
They are aimed at bloggers and others to generate extra referral incomes. It enables them to embed one simple piece of code into their pages and “link contextually relevant phrases within your content to Amazon products. If you enable the preview functionality your site visitors will see a preview of an Amazon product relevant to the phrase we selected. Clicking on the link will send your site visitors to the product detail page on Amazon, and you will earn referral fees just as you would with any link you hand-picked.”
Well that was straight forward and plain language!
Ok I have a bad cold and it may be my brain isn’t receptive, so you can try it out yourself today. Use this link supplied by Amazon http://blogs.inspions.net/about-thought-garage/ and click on the links embedded in the text. If it works for you, then it must be my cold as I didn’t get why I would want some of the links provided.
“Context Links are a quick and convenient way to add links to your website and monetize your content. Context Links automatically identify and link relevant phrases within your page content to Amazon products, unlocking new ad inventory and saving you the time from having to manually create links. You can add the links to your pages in minutes, and we provide a wealth of options to customize how they are displayed…”
They are aimed at bloggers and others to generate extra referral incomes. It enables them to embed one simple piece of code into their pages and “link contextually relevant phrases within your content to Amazon products. If you enable the preview functionality your site visitors will see a preview of an Amazon product relevant to the phrase we selected. Clicking on the link will send your site visitors to the product detail page on Amazon, and you will earn referral fees just as you would with any link you hand-picked.”
Well that was straight forward and plain language!
Ok I have a bad cold and it may be my brain isn’t receptive, so you can try it out yourself today. Use this link supplied by Amazon http://blogs.inspions.net/about-thought-garage/ and click on the links embedded in the text. If it works for you, then it must be my cold as I didn’t get why I would want some of the links provided.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Apples are good for you?
Has the iPhone positioned Apple as the must have product provider even before it has hit the streets? They now have Apple TV, iTunes, the iPod and those funky Macs PCs that every artist must have. The Macs even now can run under ‘dual boot’ facility and together with its Intel processor can either Windows or native.
What does this all mean? Well integration, portability and most important inter-operability. In other words a one stop shop were compatibility is a given.
Maybe we will see more of those funky screens in the office and the impact of the iPhone is yet to be fully seen but its going to be hard to resist and makes those tired old fashioned and clunky Blackberrys look so unhip
Friday, March 23, 2007
CRAZE-Y Publishing
Some commentators in Victorian England thought that the craze for bicycling would spell the end for books and reading. Then others thought the same about cinema, television and the internet.
Now ‘The Rough Guide to the iPhone’ demonstrates once again that whenever a new technology comes along, someone will see the need to publish a book about it.
Sydney Davies
Head of Trade & Industry, Booksellers Association of the UK & Ireland
Now ‘The Rough Guide to the iPhone’ demonstrates once again that whenever a new technology comes along, someone will see the need to publish a book about it.
Sydney Davies
Head of Trade & Industry, Booksellers Association of the UK & Ireland
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
i am not OLD!!!!
What does the aged, or the infirm, or the visually impaired want form a mobile phone? The new Life phone believe that it is the answer. It has been designed with those people in mind and strips down the extras we now all expect.
There is no camera, no music player and in there place there is a loud speaker tuned for those who are either partially sighted or use a hearing aid, a big screen and buttons. The phone can also hold up to five emergency numbers which can be activated by pressing a big red button. The screen has an orange backlight to help those with failing sight and the loudspeaker and extra strong vibrator can be set to help those who are hard at hearing.
Is it right? Well the only thing we can guarantee we will see lots of it in those mail order inserts, Sunday newspaper adverts featuring well know aged actors and of course direct mail from Saga.
There is no camera, no music player and in there place there is a loud speaker tuned for those who are either partially sighted or use a hearing aid, a big screen and buttons. The phone can also hold up to five emergency numbers which can be activated by pressing a big red button. The screen has an orange backlight to help those with failing sight and the loudspeaker and extra strong vibrator can be set to help those who are hard at hearing.
Is it right? Well the only thing we can guarantee we will see lots of it in those mail order inserts, Sunday newspaper adverts featuring well know aged actors and of course direct mail from Saga.
MySpace or MurdochSpace
MySpace, which is owned by the News Corporation and is the Internet’s largest social network, has been introducing limits on the software tools that its users can embed in their pages. The end game is to monopolise the commercial capitalisation of its 90 monthly visits and stop others delivering advertising or enabling transactions.
Some would argue, this then becomes MurdochSpace and is no longer MySpace.
MySpace says that it will block all third-party software — also called widgets — when they lend themselves to violations of its terms of service, like the spread of pornography or copyrighted material. But it also now objects to software that enables users to sell or advertise without authorization, or without entering into a direct partnership with M******Space.
The corporates that bought up these highly active new social space didn’t do it to spread love, peace and social understanding they did it to generate money. Google will pay MySpace at least $900 million over the next three years to serve ads to the site’s users. Others have lined up for a slice of the lucrative audience.
In the past, MySpace failed to block companies like YouTube that began successful businesses from MySpace’s pages. The question of whether YouTube would have made it without MySpace is immaterial now but as the doors close and M******Space is spawned it is clear that new social spaces will have to fight for their own space and audience.
More import is the realisation that previous attempts others have made to try to dictate people’s Internet experience has ended failing. Today the fickle are only one click away from the next destination.
Some would argue, this then becomes MurdochSpace and is no longer MySpace.
MySpace says that it will block all third-party software — also called widgets — when they lend themselves to violations of its terms of service, like the spread of pornography or copyrighted material. But it also now objects to software that enables users to sell or advertise without authorization, or without entering into a direct partnership with M******Space.
The corporates that bought up these highly active new social space didn’t do it to spread love, peace and social understanding they did it to generate money. Google will pay MySpace at least $900 million over the next three years to serve ads to the site’s users. Others have lined up for a slice of the lucrative audience.
In the past, MySpace failed to block companies like YouTube that began successful businesses from MySpace’s pages. The question of whether YouTube would have made it without MySpace is immaterial now but as the doors close and M******Space is spawned it is clear that new social spaces will have to fight for their own space and audience.
More import is the realisation that previous attempts others have made to try to dictate people’s Internet experience has ended failing. Today the fickle are only one click away from the next destination.
Digital Publishing is Publishing
We hear of the latest salvo in the battle of the omnivores versus publishers in today’s Telegraph. The report states that publishers are converting thousands of titles in order that they mitigate the threat of the likes of Google stealing them or capturing the ebook market when it finally takes off.
If we step back and remove the emotion of digitisation, we can clearly see it's not about ebooks. Neither is it about which ebook technology will prevail. It is also not about the consolidation of digital content onto the mobile phone and MP3. It's about the wake up call to publishers.
Digital publishing is publishing – its not just delivering digital stuff but developing it, producing it, marketing it and selling it.
Digital Content is lost without digital context and digital rights – so it's about using digital content to market, sell and enrich marketing and publicity of both physical and digital product.
Digital distribution needs to live alongside physical distribution – the vast majority of books will be stay in the printed form and the existing channels will dominate for many years.
Publishers need to forget the hype, stop looking at the green eyed monster onmnivores and the large publishers who claim to be digital today. The driver is not fear, nor the elusive digital sales and consumer demand, but getting the product into digital form, the context digitally rich and being in a position, unlike the music industry, to react at take off.
If we step back and remove the emotion of digitisation, we can clearly see it's not about ebooks. Neither is it about which ebook technology will prevail. It is also not about the consolidation of digital content onto the mobile phone and MP3. It's about the wake up call to publishers.
Digital publishing is publishing – its not just delivering digital stuff but developing it, producing it, marketing it and selling it.
Digital Content is lost without digital context and digital rights – so it's about using digital content to market, sell and enrich marketing and publicity of both physical and digital product.
Digital distribution needs to live alongside physical distribution – the vast majority of books will be stay in the printed form and the existing channels will dominate for many years.
Publishers need to forget the hype, stop looking at the green eyed monster onmnivores and the large publishers who claim to be digital today. The driver is not fear, nor the elusive digital sales and consumer demand, but getting the product into digital form, the context digitally rich and being in a position, unlike the music industry, to react at take off.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Open-Source Wiki-Search
Can we ever envisage anyone threatening Google’s position and dominance of the search engine market? It is like asking if anyone can seriously threaten Microsoft’s Office or operating system dominance. The reality is that things change and usually the change is driven by a different business model and approach.
So we read with great interest that Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder, is planning to launch an open-source search engine. He plans to provide the tools and technology to allow programmers across the Internet to collaborate on the development and testing of a search engine and make the results freely available. The project is still in the planning stages and the first test version is due later this year and will help programmers de bug the code.It is already attracting interest not only from the ‘wikiphobes’ and open source followers but also from those tier two search engines that are being squeezed out by the big boys.
Just as Wikipedia was built on collaboration and an open approach, then so this new venture. It will provide a level playing field where lots of people can contribute. Wales aims to give away all the technology, all the data. Release everything under a free license and follow the success story as Wikipedia.
Accuracy and relevance are key to search engines. Today the search algorithm is the most closely guarded secret of companies like Google because it determines how high a particular site is ranked. If the algorithm is public then it would mean site owners could abuse the rankings and attract the attention of spammers. Wales hopes that the community approach that ‘polices’ the Wiki world will transfer to the new search environment and keep the results clean.
So we read with great interest that Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder, is planning to launch an open-source search engine. He plans to provide the tools and technology to allow programmers across the Internet to collaborate on the development and testing of a search engine and make the results freely available. The project is still in the planning stages and the first test version is due later this year and will help programmers de bug the code.It is already attracting interest not only from the ‘wikiphobes’ and open source followers but also from those tier two search engines that are being squeezed out by the big boys.
Just as Wikipedia was built on collaboration and an open approach, then so this new venture. It will provide a level playing field where lots of people can contribute. Wales aims to give away all the technology, all the data. Release everything under a free license and follow the success story as Wikipedia.
Accuracy and relevance are key to search engines. Today the search algorithm is the most closely guarded secret of companies like Google because it determines how high a particular site is ranked. If the algorithm is public then it would mean site owners could abuse the rankings and attract the attention of spammers. Wales hopes that the community approach that ‘polices’ the Wiki world will transfer to the new search environment and keep the results clean.
BBC Jam is taken off the table
The BBC Trust is to pull its £150m online educational service BBC Jam from 20th March. This is not down to cost, nor it being acceptable to users. It is down to complaints from commercial educational software suppliers that it is damaging their interests and follows extensive dialogue with government and the European Commission (EC) over how to address these allegations. Complaints are based on the corporation not following its remit to be "distinctive and complementary" to the offerings from the commercial sector and the suspension comes after continued resistance from the British Educational Suppliers Association.
An earlier judicial review was previously sought by educational software companies. This was based on the basis that the use of state money to fund the BBC's plans would be illegal under European law. An out-of-court settlement was reached in early 2003.
The BBC currently has around 200 staff and 25 external production partners working on BBC Jam. They have so far rolled out approximately 10% of the service at a cost of £76m. The impact on staff and independents is not known today.
Acting chairman of the BBC Chitra Bharucha is reported as saying: "The Trust's view is that whilst it is paramount that BBC Jam complies with the conditions of its consent, two consecutive regulatory reviews would be unnecessarily bureaucratic and complex, with serious implications for delivery of the service to licence fee payers."
An earlier judicial review was previously sought by educational software companies. This was based on the basis that the use of state money to fund the BBC's plans would be illegal under European law. An out-of-court settlement was reached in early 2003.
The BBC currently has around 200 staff and 25 external production partners working on BBC Jam. They have so far rolled out approximately 10% of the service at a cost of £76m. The impact on staff and independents is not known today.
Acting chairman of the BBC Chitra Bharucha is reported as saying: "The Trust's view is that whilst it is paramount that BBC Jam complies with the conditions of its consent, two consecutive regulatory reviews would be unnecessarily bureaucratic and complex, with serious implications for delivery of the service to licence fee payers."
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Selective History
We automatically assume that the digital vacuum cleaners will hoover all archives before them and we will capture history in its entirety. This may be the case with certain collections but unfortunately not the case with many. We found a recent New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/business/yourmoney/11archive.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th very thought provoking and timely. It covers the question of selection and whether by only digitalising what is the minority of archives, the future loses out on the richness of the contextual picture that exists in the physical form today. True, the physical archives aren’t going to suddenly disappear, but their richness may be lost as we see the past selectively in the future.
The Library of Congress can afford to digitise everything or in some cases all of a particular collection. Often the things that are hardest to digitise will be left behind. In the case of John Steinbeck, the National Steinbeck Centre in California are only planning to digitise a fraction of film clippings, letters, photos that give a rounded picture of the man and his writings. Only 10% of the Library of Congress’s 132 million items are planned to be digitised. The link below demonstrates some of the digital dilemmas archivists face.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/03/10/business/20070311_ARCHIVE_SLIDESHOW_17.html
Although we now seem to wish to store every email, picture and event that happens today and often in triplicate, capturing yesterday’s costs money and time. Much of yesterday’s content has already been lost and even large media organisations, such as the BBC, have ‘lost for ever’ priceless footage. Who is responsible for archiving and ensuring that the digital archives are able to be read into the future ? Will we in the future look back at history based on what we find in wikipedia and Google?
In the age of the ‘long tail’ how many publishers have access to all their material (developed rights) and can promote these and make them available on demand? Selective digitisation sadly impacts everyone and we clearly still live in the world of forgotten back lists, back orders and selective reprints?
The Library of Congress can afford to digitise everything or in some cases all of a particular collection. Often the things that are hardest to digitise will be left behind. In the case of John Steinbeck, the National Steinbeck Centre in California are only planning to digitise a fraction of film clippings, letters, photos that give a rounded picture of the man and his writings. Only 10% of the Library of Congress’s 132 million items are planned to be digitised. The link below demonstrates some of the digital dilemmas archivists face.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/03/10/business/20070311_ARCHIVE_SLIDESHOW_17.html
Although we now seem to wish to store every email, picture and event that happens today and often in triplicate, capturing yesterday’s costs money and time. Much of yesterday’s content has already been lost and even large media organisations, such as the BBC, have ‘lost for ever’ priceless footage. Who is responsible for archiving and ensuring that the digital archives are able to be read into the future ? Will we in the future look back at history based on what we find in wikipedia and Google?
In the age of the ‘long tail’ how many publishers have access to all their material (developed rights) and can promote these and make them available on demand? Selective digitisation sadly impacts everyone and we clearly still live in the world of forgotten back lists, back orders and selective reprints?
Friday, March 09, 2007
Books can be an Investment
We hear so much about the death of the book in paper but today we read about the rare book sale of all sales. The prices achieved at Duke’s in Dorchester were somewhat amazing:
Jane Austin’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, first edition £26,000
A 1897 edition of ‘The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer’ £90,000
Sir Isaac Newton’s ‘Principia Mathematica’ £90,000
Charles Darwin’s ‘The Origin of Species’ £50,000
A first edition from 1482 about the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid £74,000
Most of the books came from Sir Henry Newton and former university librarian Jean Preston’s libraries and we doubt if ABE or Alibris could have ever realised these values and an auction on eBay would have probably missed the reserve.
It’s ironic that in the latest ‘The Quarterly’ Christiaan Jonkers writes about collecting first editions. He claims Conan Doyle’s first Holmes novel published in 1887 would fetch £100,000 and even if it were rejacketed £30,000. Obviously it has to do with the volume printed, the demand for the title and the price someone is willing to pay. Even recent first editions of titles such as the Fleming Bond novels or Hornby’s ‘Fever Pitch’ have appreciated in value. Best of all is his number one tip ‘always buy the best copy of a book that you can within your budget’.
Jane Austin’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, first edition £26,000
A 1897 edition of ‘The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer’ £90,000
Sir Isaac Newton’s ‘Principia Mathematica’ £90,000
Charles Darwin’s ‘The Origin of Species’ £50,000
A first edition from 1482 about the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid £74,000
Most of the books came from Sir Henry Newton and former university librarian Jean Preston’s libraries and we doubt if ABE or Alibris could have ever realised these values and an auction on eBay would have probably missed the reserve.
It’s ironic that in the latest ‘The Quarterly’ Christiaan Jonkers writes about collecting first editions. He claims Conan Doyle’s first Holmes novel published in 1887 would fetch £100,000 and even if it were rejacketed £30,000. Obviously it has to do with the volume printed, the demand for the title and the price someone is willing to pay. Even recent first editions of titles such as the Fleming Bond novels or Hornby’s ‘Fever Pitch’ have appreciated in value. Best of all is his number one tip ‘always buy the best copy of a book that you can within your budget’.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Life’s a Pitch – Is this a Typo?
Today we read from New Media Age about ‘Life’s a Pitch’ a new business book published by Random House. The news is that the first chapter of the book is being offered to consumers to read free on a mobile via SMS. Consumers are also sent details on how to claim a 40% discount from shops on the book itself.
So we took a quick look at Random House. No mention of the book here but a long list of first chapters available to read online and plenty of other stuff to catch the eye including ecards of book jackets and comedy podcasts. Not perturbed, after all Random has a huge list we searched for the title and there it was. It said that it was not on the Random House site but their sister site at Transworld. The Random House extract and associated icons were not working and there was no mention of the SMS download - so onto the Transworld’s site. There it was on the home page with all the others. There was a link to a Radio 4 interview and mention that the book was a prize in their March competition - but no mention of the SMS download. The individual page was very detailed both about the book and the authors but we could only find a ‘buy now’ icon which took us to … Amazon.
We then went back to the original article and found a link to www.lifesapitch.uk.com as you would expect everything here is here, the biography, the blurb, the Radio 4 interview and details on how to text and receive the book and claim the discount. Well in for a penny – and the chapter duly arrive on the mobile via a download link to ICUE Shop with the message ‘buy this book for £0.00’ . Then just as we waited for the actual download came the next message, ‘Sorry, but we don’t have any books for your make of mobile phone. Don’t worry though, we can see that you wanted a book and we’ll try and get one for you as soon as we can!’ There we were thinking we had a up to the minute mobile with skype, internet access and every function know to man!
The phone number given on the life’s a pitch web site was to customer service at TBS, so we felt it only proper to update them it was not available and priced ambiguously. They took our details and make of phone…………
'Life's A Pitch' by Roger Mavity and Stephen Bayley was published by Bantam Press.
The questions raised show the complexity of promotions and why life at the cutting edge can be a *itch!
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
eBay Changes
The following is an extract reproduced with permission from an excellent newsletter ‘Shephard’s Confidential’ www.shephardsworld.co.uk and appeared in their latest newsletter.
As booksellers will no doubt be aware eBay have recently announced changes to their fees for listings in the Books, Comics & Magazines category 'designed to promote a greater volume of trade'. Sounds good, but the reality is that this means huge increases in fees for books selling for more than £10. In fact from 1 March the fees for selling a book for £100 with a starting price of £9.99 will nearly double!
Unhappy, I e-mailed eBay:
"As a seller of collectable books on eBay I was initially delighted to received your e-mail of 29 January 2007 in which you advised eBay sellers in the books, comics & magazines category of the changes in the fee structure 'designed to promote a greater volume of trade'. I naively assumed that this meant reductions in your fees but this is not so. In a typical week in January 2007 I sold 10 collectable books for a total of £349. All of these had been offered for the first time. I started my auctions at sensible prices as, whilst this meant I incurred higher initial fees, it also meant that my downside risk was, to a certain extent, protected. Under the current fee structure the initial fees for these 10 books were £5.90, the gallery fees £1.50 and the final value fees £16.54, a total of £23.94. Under the new fee structure the listing fees would have been £1.00, the gallery fees £1.50 and the final value fees £31.41, a total of £33.91. This represents a 41.5% increase. If I had started my auctions at lower prices the percentage increase would have been significantly higher. The 'auction example' on your Fee Changes page only shows reductions in total fees or very small increases. Of course, what you have cleverly done is to stop the auction example at a sale price of £10 as over this amount the small increases rapidly become large increases. I think this is very misleading.
I thought eBay was trying to move away from its 'car boot' image but clearly this is not the case - your new fee structure will encourage yet more low value items that have to be offered a number of times before they sell. I for one am not in this market and I think it highly likely that I will now go elsewhere to sell my books - the auction risk coupled with the high selling charges (I have calculated that for my typical week my selling fees including Paypal fees would be a whopping 13.7% under the new fee structure) are driving me away I'm afraid. I look forward to hearing from you."
And here is their bland, standard, disinterested non-reply:
"Thank you for contacting us regarding the price change. I'm happy to assist you with this.
I realize your concern in this situation. As custodians of the eBay marketplace we are always looking for ways to promote greater volumes of trade and a healthy supply and demand balance. It is our belief that the present changes will benefit the majority of eBay buyers and sellers. Our primary goal is to promote a vibrant and balanced marketplace. We hope that the present changes will do just that. And eBay obviously makes money when our sellers do! I hope this information answers your question.
Thank you for using eBay."
I'm seriously considering setting up an auction site dedicated to collectable books with reasonable charges. I think I'll call it Freebay. Any takers?
Gerald Baker
As booksellers will no doubt be aware eBay have recently announced changes to their fees for listings in the Books, Comics & Magazines category 'designed to promote a greater volume of trade'. Sounds good, but the reality is that this means huge increases in fees for books selling for more than £10. In fact from 1 March the fees for selling a book for £100 with a starting price of £9.99 will nearly double!
Unhappy, I e-mailed eBay:
"As a seller of collectable books on eBay I was initially delighted to received your e-mail of 29 January 2007 in which you advised eBay sellers in the books, comics & magazines category of the changes in the fee structure 'designed to promote a greater volume of trade'. I naively assumed that this meant reductions in your fees but this is not so. In a typical week in January 2007 I sold 10 collectable books for a total of £349. All of these had been offered for the first time. I started my auctions at sensible prices as, whilst this meant I incurred higher initial fees, it also meant that my downside risk was, to a certain extent, protected. Under the current fee structure the initial fees for these 10 books were £5.90, the gallery fees £1.50 and the final value fees £16.54, a total of £23.94. Under the new fee structure the listing fees would have been £1.00, the gallery fees £1.50 and the final value fees £31.41, a total of £33.91. This represents a 41.5% increase. If I had started my auctions at lower prices the percentage increase would have been significantly higher. The 'auction example' on your Fee Changes page only shows reductions in total fees or very small increases. Of course, what you have cleverly done is to stop the auction example at a sale price of £10 as over this amount the small increases rapidly become large increases. I think this is very misleading.
I thought eBay was trying to move away from its 'car boot' image but clearly this is not the case - your new fee structure will encourage yet more low value items that have to be offered a number of times before they sell. I for one am not in this market and I think it highly likely that I will now go elsewhere to sell my books - the auction risk coupled with the high selling charges (I have calculated that for my typical week my selling fees including Paypal fees would be a whopping 13.7% under the new fee structure) are driving me away I'm afraid. I look forward to hearing from you."
And here is their bland, standard, disinterested non-reply:
"Thank you for contacting us regarding the price change. I'm happy to assist you with this.
I realize your concern in this situation. As custodians of the eBay marketplace we are always looking for ways to promote greater volumes of trade and a healthy supply and demand balance. It is our belief that the present changes will benefit the majority of eBay buyers and sellers. Our primary goal is to promote a vibrant and balanced marketplace. We hope that the present changes will do just that. And eBay obviously makes money when our sellers do! I hope this information answers your question.
Thank you for using eBay."
I'm seriously considering setting up an auction site dedicated to collectable books with reasonable charges. I think I'll call it Freebay. Any takers?
Gerald Baker
Microsoft Versus Google - Let Battle Begin
Copyright is no becoming the battleground on which the omnivores will do battle. In the blue corner we have MSN who true to their colour are reportedly representing the moral ground and protection of all things right. In the red corner are Google who have long had the tag ‘scan first ask later’. This battle of these giants is not restricted to text –it encompasses all content. There will be no clear winner and its going to get a lot messier before it gets better!
Yesterday’s FT covered the latest spate, a seething broad shot from MSN’s Associate General Counsel, accusing Google of taking a ‘cavalier’ approach to copyright
Google has annoyed many by its approach in this area. The Authors Guild and a group of publishers backed by the Association of American Publishers have taken legal action against Google for making digital copies of copyrighted books from libraries without permission. Viacom, the US media group, have instructed Google’s YouTube, to remove 100,000 clips of copyright material.
Microsoft argues that Google’s stance, that they only use snippets of material and in fact promote works, is in clear breach of copyright. Microsoft is trying to hard to distance itself from Google by portraying itself as more responsive to copyright holders than Google. It has sent a letter to executives of the big media conglomerates, offering to work with them to eliminate piracy from Soapbox, a new video service on MSN. It has received backing from that copyright champion Patricia Schroeder, the AAP president, who said it had agreed to work with Microsoft and others to develop principles on responsible book search.
What is clear is that Google’s dominance of the search engine world (some 80% share) is making it easier to ride rough shot over others. You cab guarantee that many will support them not out of agreement with their stance but out of their need to sell more content. It’s all too often that the disadvantaged get abused because they are unable to take the moral ground and others chose to ignore it on the basis of a fast buck.
Yesterday’s FT covered the latest spate, a seething broad shot from MSN’s Associate General Counsel, accusing Google of taking a ‘cavalier’ approach to copyright
Google has annoyed many by its approach in this area. The Authors Guild and a group of publishers backed by the Association of American Publishers have taken legal action against Google for making digital copies of copyrighted books from libraries without permission. Viacom, the US media group, have instructed Google’s YouTube, to remove 100,000 clips of copyright material.
Microsoft argues that Google’s stance, that they only use snippets of material and in fact promote works, is in clear breach of copyright. Microsoft is trying to hard to distance itself from Google by portraying itself as more responsive to copyright holders than Google. It has sent a letter to executives of the big media conglomerates, offering to work with them to eliminate piracy from Soapbox, a new video service on MSN. It has received backing from that copyright champion Patricia Schroeder, the AAP president, who said it had agreed to work with Microsoft and others to develop principles on responsible book search.
What is clear is that Google’s dominance of the search engine world (some 80% share) is making it easier to ride rough shot over others. You cab guarantee that many will support them not out of agreement with their stance but out of their need to sell more content. It’s all too often that the disadvantaged get abused because they are unable to take the moral ground and others chose to ignore it on the basis of a fast buck.
How Much Can We Byte Off?
If you can remember the opening of the original motorways you will probably picture a scene looking down onto a dual carriageway, was broadcast in black and white and showed the odd car. Today’s digital highway started slowly too with many referring its performance to a dirt track. Today’s motorways have more lanes but are full and traffic often grinds to a crawl. In contrast, the superhighway has expanded, increased its performance and now carries an unbelievable volume of traffic.
A new study that estimates the volume of digital traffic has found that for the first time, there's not enough storage space to hold it all.
The report, by technology research firm IDC, www.idc.com sought to measure the image, videos, e-mails, Web pages, instant messages, phone calls and other digital content traffic. The researchers determined that the world generated 161 billion gigabytes -- 161 exabytes -- of digital information last year. According to IDC that's like 12 stacks of books that each reach from the Earth to the Sun, or 3 million times the information in all the books ever written, according to IDC. You'd need more than 2 billion iPods on the market to get 161 exabytes.
The previous best estimate came from researchers at Berkeley, http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003 who in 2003 arrived at 5 exabytes, said at the time to be 37,000 Libraries of Congress. However unlike the IDC research, the Berkeley researchers only examined original data, not all the times things got copied.
Interestingly, the IDC research estimates that by 2010, about 70 percent of the world's digital data will be created by individuals. There certainly is a boom in video and community publishing and that the supply of data technically outstrips the supply of places to put it. IDC estimates that the world had 185 exabytes of storage available last year and will have 601 exabytes in 2010. But the amount of stuff generated is expected to jump from 161 exabytes last year to 988 exabytes (closing in on 1 zettabyte) in 2010.
For those who want to learn some new terms:
We are familiar with a gigabyte, as that is what most iPods hold – 250 songs. The next step is 1,000 GB which equals 1 terabyte, 1,000 terabytes equals 1 petabyte, 1,000 petabytes equals 1 exabyte and 1,000 exabytes equals1 zettabyte.
A new study that estimates the volume of digital traffic has found that for the first time, there's not enough storage space to hold it all.
The report, by technology research firm IDC, www.idc.com sought to measure the image, videos, e-mails, Web pages, instant messages, phone calls and other digital content traffic. The researchers determined that the world generated 161 billion gigabytes -- 161 exabytes -- of digital information last year. According to IDC that's like 12 stacks of books that each reach from the Earth to the Sun, or 3 million times the information in all the books ever written, according to IDC. You'd need more than 2 billion iPods on the market to get 161 exabytes.
The previous best estimate came from researchers at Berkeley, http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003 who in 2003 arrived at 5 exabytes, said at the time to be 37,000 Libraries of Congress. However unlike the IDC research, the Berkeley researchers only examined original data, not all the times things got copied.
Interestingly, the IDC research estimates that by 2010, about 70 percent of the world's digital data will be created by individuals. There certainly is a boom in video and community publishing and that the supply of data technically outstrips the supply of places to put it. IDC estimates that the world had 185 exabytes of storage available last year and will have 601 exabytes in 2010. But the amount of stuff generated is expected to jump from 161 exabytes last year to 988 exabytes (closing in on 1 zettabyte) in 2010.
For those who want to learn some new terms:
We are familiar with a gigabyte, as that is what most iPods hold – 250 songs. The next step is 1,000 GB which equals 1 terabyte, 1,000 terabytes equals 1 petabyte, 1,000 petabytes equals 1 exabyte and 1,000 exabytes equals1 zettabyte.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Podcasting DIY
The economies of scale and reach provided within the physical supply chain do not apply in the digital world. We all need to recognise that digitisation will impact the value chain within publishing.
We have seen the emergence of the blog, the social community sites, the music artists who have gained fame and following outside the traditional music. We have heard many predictions about self publishing and authors going direct and to date this threat has largely been ignored and regarded as small and not ‘publishing’.
The New Times tells us about one author, Scott Silger who now has four books that have not experienced many readers but that he has captured many listeners. Sigler took the initiative, applied his enthusiasm and recorded his first novel himself in his home. He signed up to www.Podiobooks.com, which was founded in 2005 and now has some 96 titles and over 2,000 episodes and 5,600 members.
He generated 22 podcast episodes of his novel, each approximately 45 minutes long and placed them on Podiobooks. He soon had 5,000 listeners and by the time he released his second novel this had grown to 30,000.
Podcasting audio books make sense. Producing digital works in instalments also make sense.
Whilst the trade market continues to search for the silver bullet the Authors are potentially now doing it themselves. This is obviously only viable if the author has the enthusiasm, ability and technical capability to do it but Silger and Podiobooks are proof it can be done. Social networks, blogs and podcasts are real and here today. That they will they themselves will impact publishing is certain. That publishers will need to experiment with them is reality.
We have seen the emergence of the blog, the social community sites, the music artists who have gained fame and following outside the traditional music. We have heard many predictions about self publishing and authors going direct and to date this threat has largely been ignored and regarded as small and not ‘publishing’.
The New Times tells us about one author, Scott Silger who now has four books that have not experienced many readers but that he has captured many listeners. Sigler took the initiative, applied his enthusiasm and recorded his first novel himself in his home. He signed up to www.Podiobooks.com, which was founded in 2005 and now has some 96 titles and over 2,000 episodes and 5,600 members.
He generated 22 podcast episodes of his novel, each approximately 45 minutes long and placed them on Podiobooks. He soon had 5,000 listeners and by the time he released his second novel this had grown to 30,000.
Podcasting audio books make sense. Producing digital works in instalments also make sense.
Whilst the trade market continues to search for the silver bullet the Authors are potentially now doing it themselves. This is obviously only viable if the author has the enthusiasm, ability and technical capability to do it but Silger and Podiobooks are proof it can be done. Social networks, blogs and podcasts are real and here today. That they will they themselves will impact publishing is certain. That publishers will need to experiment with them is reality.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Amazon gets Their Space
Today we hear that Amazon has invested the book social networking website Shelfari. It hardly ironic that Shelfari is based in Seattle, home of its new investor. The site is interesting and enables individuals to promote their own shelves of books, build reading groups, develop book review blogs and generally socially interact around books. Their current model is driven by users promoting books which are then bought at a commission from Amazon, so the Amazon tie- in makes sense to all.
Looking at the site the cynic would envisage lots of spoof reviews and promotions but this doesn’t appear to be the case todate. It will be interesting to see how the service now develops and where the reviews are ‘trusted’ and how close they get to Amazon in their development.
www.shelari.com
Looking at the site the cynic would envisage lots of spoof reviews and promotions but this doesn’t appear to be the case todate. It will be interesting to see how the service now develops and where the reviews are ‘trusted’ and how close they get to Amazon in their development.
www.shelari.com
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Wigets Multiply Overnight
Predicting some things is easy. Only one day after HarperCollins announced their ‘Browse inside’ facility, Random House announced their ‘Insight’ one. Both service have adopted the same approach which enables others to add sample material from a title to their own website by use of that new word we will heart much of – the widget.
What becomes less predictable is who will be next? Also again how the bibliographic agencies will react and how those omnivore search engines will step on the digitisation accelerator re the smaller publishers.
What is clear is that we are now entering a new phase of bibliographic development far greater than that we saw ten years ago when suddenly jacket images became a must. This one is about using the content itself to promote the book in physical, digital, audio etc. Digital publishing is publishing and using digital content at the centre to provide a single authoritative source of context and rights metatdata is logical and one we have long spoken about. Building complex systems alongside this may be a duplication of effort and not the logical approach. Today the greatest driver for publisher’s to digitise their content, is not the ebook, but the support of their marketing, sales, publicity and promotion activities. I would be as bold as to suggest that those who follow this route will see a double digit return and this today is likely to be at the expense of others who have not responded to this exciting challenge.
What becomes less predictable is who will be next? Also again how the bibliographic agencies will react and how those omnivore search engines will step on the digitisation accelerator re the smaller publishers.
What is clear is that we are now entering a new phase of bibliographic development far greater than that we saw ten years ago when suddenly jacket images became a must. This one is about using the content itself to promote the book in physical, digital, audio etc. Digital publishing is publishing and using digital content at the centre to provide a single authoritative source of context and rights metatdata is logical and one we have long spoken about. Building complex systems alongside this may be a duplication of effort and not the logical approach. Today the greatest driver for publisher’s to digitise their content, is not the ebook, but the support of their marketing, sales, publicity and promotion activities. I would be as bold as to suggest that those who follow this route will see a double digit return and this today is likely to be at the expense of others who have not responded to this exciting challenge.
iPods in the Classroom
Last week we spoke about some of the wide range of uses the ubiquitous iPod is being put to.
In 2004, Duke University in the US gave all students iPods as part of a program to determine how iPods could help students learn. This program was successful and gave way to the Duke Digital Initiative, in which faculty encourage students to use hand-held technology such as iPods, tablet PCs and video cameras to collaborate on projects and in other coursework. As a result student are now creating multi media papers and podcasts. This is turn is influencing they way subjects are being taught and learnt.
This year, Stanford University launched Stanford on iTunes, which provides Stanford-specific audio content, including lectures, campus events, book readings, and even podcasts of Cardinal football games. Students at the University of Washington can download lectures and this trend is spreading to others such as the University of Michigan. Mansfield University uses the iPod as a recruitment tool to promote the campus.
As universities and schools start to embrace the iPod and developing technology the question comes back to the provision of the digital content. Importantly this increasingly must fit within a VLE environment that delivers the right material to the meet the right need at the right time.
In 2004, Duke University in the US gave all students iPods as part of a program to determine how iPods could help students learn. This program was successful and gave way to the Duke Digital Initiative, in which faculty encourage students to use hand-held technology such as iPods, tablet PCs and video cameras to collaborate on projects and in other coursework. As a result student are now creating multi media papers and podcasts. This is turn is influencing they way subjects are being taught and learnt.
This year, Stanford University launched Stanford on iTunes, which provides Stanford-specific audio content, including lectures, campus events, book readings, and even podcasts of Cardinal football games. Students at the University of Washington can download lectures and this trend is spreading to others such as the University of Michigan. Mansfield University uses the iPod as a recruitment tool to promote the campus.
As universities and schools start to embrace the iPod and developing technology the question comes back to the provision of the digital content. Importantly this increasingly must fit within a VLE environment that delivers the right material to the meet the right need at the right time.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Kazza, Skype and now Joost
There are two people who more than most helped shape the Internet ‘free’ world we live in today. It was definitely not Jobs and Gates or those Google guys Page and Brin nor Napster’s Parker and Fanning but Niklas Zennstrom (pictured)and Janus Friis. This Scandinavian team not only gave us Kazza and arguably the second generation of P2P music but went on to create Skype and redefine how we all communicated. Now they have appeared again with their latest venture ‘Joost’.
But this time they are not pushing the legal boundaries but doing everything by the book. Revenue-sharing agreements have been signed and licenses have been granted.
Today Friis and Zennstrom work out of Skype’s offices in London. Although they sold Skype for $2.6billion to eBay in 2005, they remain active in the company.
Joost has struck a major deal with Viacom which gives Viacom a degree of control over its programming that it has not enjoyed from the likes of YouTube and also a platform they claim is piracy-proof. Only this month , Viacom demanded that YouTube, remove more than 100,000 clips of its programming due to the lack of licensing and revenue sharing agreements.
Joost replicates channel swapping television, streaming full-length programs in full-screen format and allowing users to flip through channels that offer everything from documentary news programs to videos.
Technology convergence between the various video, TV and visual platforms is certainly coming fast but because is built with this in mind it could present the ‘tipping point’ that changes how consumers watch TV and videos on the Web in the same way the Skype redefined voice over internet.
Certainly one to watch!
Guardian and Bebo promote Nanotales
Guardian Unlimited and Bebo.com have joined forces to launch a new literary competition that will encourages users to write their own "nanotales", which can cover any subject, but in less than 1,000 words. Entries will be judged by the public and a panel and the winning authors will be announced on the opening day of the London Book Fair. The stories will be published in a new anthology next year.
The competition was launched alongside Bebo Authors, the website's new feature that gives authors a platform to upload video clips, writing tips and chapter extracts.
Short stories are an obvious genre for the digital word. They are easy to download and read on portable devices and could help convert readers to ebooks and longer and more demanding digital content.
The competition was launched alongside Bebo Authors, the website's new feature that gives authors a platform to upload video clips, writing tips and chapter extracts.
Short stories are an obvious genre for the digital word. They are easy to download and read on portable devices and could help convert readers to ebooks and longer and more demanding digital content.
Searching Just got Smarter
As a result of the emergence of video-sharing, user-generated video, free digital storage, mobile videos and broadband, the volume of videos on social networks like YouTube and MySpace, as well as on news and entertainment sites has exploded. According to a New York Times article, CacheLogic, a company in Cambridge, England claims that the proliferation of large video files, video accounts for more than 60 percent of the traffic on the Internet and alarmingly they prerdict that within two years this could be 98 percent! What is unquestionable is that the Internet is now awash in digital video, but all too often finding the right videos is proving difficult.
Today’s search engines were developed to resolve text-based content and not to searching this rising sea of video. They don’t search the videos themselves, but rather the “metadata” (keywords or the semantic tags that describe different content, video-file suffixes (like .mpeg or .avi), or captions or subtitles).None of these methods are very satisfactory as many Internet videos have little or obscure text, and often have no or misleading metadata. Modern video players do not reveal video-file suffixes, and captions and subtitles imperfectly capture the spoken words in a video.
Enter Suranga Chandratillake, a co-founder of, a San Francisco start-up Blinkx. Blinkx supplements existing video search methods, by transcribing and indexing the words uttered in a video. Their complex speech-recognition technology creates unique added value context.
How good is blinkx search? When you visit blinkx.com, the first thing you see is the “video wall,” 25 small, shimmering tiles, each displaying a popular video clip, indexed that hour. (The wall provides a powerful sense of the collective mind of our popular culture.)
To experiment, I typed in the phrase “Chronic — WHAT — cles of Narnia,” the shout-out in the “Saturday Night Live” digital short called “Lazy Sunday,” a rap parody of two New York slackers. I wanted a phrase that a Web surfer would know more readily than the real title of a video. I also knew that “Lazy Sunday,” for all its cultish fame, would be hard to find: NBC Universal had freely released the rap parody on the Internet after broadcasting it in December 2005, but last month the company insisted that YouTube pull it.
In an experiment the NYT journalist created a phrase search for a rap parody “Lazy Sunday”. Blinkx found eight instances and Google Video found none. On the other hand they found that typing “Lazy Sunday” into Google’s produced hundreds of results –lots of commentary noise but not the substance sought.
Blinkx, now has more than 80 partners, including the likes of Microsoft, MTV, Playboy, Reuters and ITN.
The field is not clear and what is certain, is that those who find themselves disadvantaged today, have deep pockets and can develop effective video search capabilities. Others such as IBM’s ‘Marvel’ project are working on the next frontier, that of image searching. What is clear is that video is here and search and discovery is where the real value is, it just got a whole lot smarter.
Today’s search engines were developed to resolve text-based content and not to searching this rising sea of video. They don’t search the videos themselves, but rather the “metadata” (keywords or the semantic tags that describe different content, video-file suffixes (like .mpeg or .avi), or captions or subtitles).None of these methods are very satisfactory as many Internet videos have little or obscure text, and often have no or misleading metadata. Modern video players do not reveal video-file suffixes, and captions and subtitles imperfectly capture the spoken words in a video.
Enter Suranga Chandratillake, a co-founder of, a San Francisco start-up Blinkx. Blinkx supplements existing video search methods, by transcribing and indexing the words uttered in a video. Their complex speech-recognition technology creates unique added value context.
How good is blinkx search? When you visit blinkx.com, the first thing you see is the “video wall,” 25 small, shimmering tiles, each displaying a popular video clip, indexed that hour. (The wall provides a powerful sense of the collective mind of our popular culture.)
To experiment, I typed in the phrase “Chronic — WHAT — cles of Narnia,” the shout-out in the “Saturday Night Live” digital short called “Lazy Sunday,” a rap parody of two New York slackers. I wanted a phrase that a Web surfer would know more readily than the real title of a video. I also knew that “Lazy Sunday,” for all its cultish fame, would be hard to find: NBC Universal had freely released the rap parody on the Internet after broadcasting it in December 2005, but last month the company insisted that YouTube pull it.
In an experiment the NYT journalist created a phrase search for a rap parody “Lazy Sunday”. Blinkx found eight instances and Google Video found none. On the other hand they found that typing “Lazy Sunday” into Google’s produced hundreds of results –lots of commentary noise but not the substance sought.
Blinkx, now has more than 80 partners, including the likes of Microsoft, MTV, Playboy, Reuters and ITN.
The field is not clear and what is certain, is that those who find themselves disadvantaged today, have deep pockets and can develop effective video search capabilities. Others such as IBM’s ‘Marvel’ project are working on the next frontier, that of image searching. What is clear is that video is here and search and discovery is where the real value is, it just got a whole lot smarter.
Pirates and Hollywood Join Forces!
BitTorrent, the file sharing tool we discussed last week is used by many to illegally share files on the Internet has just come in from the cold. The digital media store will now offer around 3,000 new and classic movies and thousands more television shows, as well as a thousand PC games and music videos each, all legally available for purchase through its new BitTorrent Entertainment Network, an online store selling movies, TV shows and music videos for download. The network can also be utilized as a distribution platform for independent content creators. Although it still faces stiff competition with established players like Apple's iTunes Store and YouTube their new content providers , include Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Warner Brothers and new partner, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The New York Times reported Doug Lee, executive vice president of MGM’s new-media division, "Somebody once said you have to embrace your enemy.” The Motion Picture Association of America claim that a million movies are illegally acquired every day using BitTorrent technology. The software is open source, so versions of it, as well as Web sites offering pirated movies, are maintained by companies not affiliated with BitTorrent.
The BitTorrent store will sell digital copies of TV shows but only rent movies. Once the films are on the PC, they expire within 30 days of their purchase or 24 hours after the buyer begins to watch them. New releases will cost $3.99, while classics will cost $2.99.
The New York Times reported Doug Lee, executive vice president of MGM’s new-media division, "Somebody once said you have to embrace your enemy.” The Motion Picture Association of America claim that a million movies are illegally acquired every day using BitTorrent technology. The software is open source, so versions of it, as well as Web sites offering pirated movies, are maintained by companies not affiliated with BitTorrent.
The BitTorrent store will sell digital copies of TV shows but only rent movies. Once the films are on the PC, they expire within 30 days of their purchase or 24 hours after the buyer begins to watch them. New releases will cost $3.99, while classics will cost $2.99.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Short, Back and Insides- Bibliographic just got richer
The world of bibliographic just went up a notch with the announcement from HarperCollins that it has enabled its Browse Inside feature so it can be used on personal websites, blogs and MySpace pages. On the HarperCollins website, users can simply find the book they want to feature and copy and paste a simple code onto their own websites, blogs and MySpace pages. The Browse Inside feature will show the same pages that can be found on HarperCollins' website, including the cover, front matter, back matter and first three pages of the first and second chapters. This is a significant step towards rich bibliographic metadata and provides HarperCollins to market their books through a host of viral sites as well as through more traditional channels.
It is only a matter of time before others will follow and the drive to digitise content starts to be driven not by the potential to sell ebooks, but the opportunity to promote both physical books by the use of rich metadata.
We envisage this move in our ‘Brave New World’ report. The question now is how others will follow? Some believe that the major houses will go head to head to give their rich bibliographic away to all. Others, that one or more of the majors will give the software away to other publishers in order to protect their investment and de-risk the challenge from others. What now is equally uncertain is how, if , and when the bibliographic services will wake up and smell the coffee.
It is only a matter of time before others will follow and the drive to digitise content starts to be driven not by the potential to sell ebooks, but the opportunity to promote both physical books by the use of rich metadata.
We envisage this move in our ‘Brave New World’ report. The question now is how others will follow? Some believe that the major houses will go head to head to give their rich bibliographic away to all. Others, that one or more of the majors will give the software away to other publishers in order to protect their investment and de-risk the challenge from others. What now is equally uncertain is how, if , and when the bibliographic services will wake up and smell the coffee.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Who owns MP3 Intellectual Property?
Yesterday Microsoft was ordered by the Federal District Court in San Diego jury to pay $1.52 billion in a patent dispute over the MP3 format. The format is the technology at the heart of the boom in digital music and if upheld on appeal, the verdict would be the largest patent judgment on record. The ruling, in, was a victory for Alcatel-Lucent, whose acquisitions include Bell Laboratories, which was involved in the development of MP3 almost two decades ago.
MP3 was developed by a consortium which included the Fraunhofer Institute, a large German research organization, the French electronics company Thomson and Bell Labs. Microsoft and others have licensed MP3 from the consortium. The current case turns on two patents that Alcatel claims were developed by Bell Labs before it joined with Fraunhofer to develop MP3.
At issue is the way the Windows Media Player software from Microsoft plays audio files using MP3, the most common method of distributing music on the Internet. If the ruling stands, and hundreds of other companies that make products that play MP3 files, including Apple, portable players, computers and software, could also face demands to pay royalties to Alcatel.
Other patent trials are pending for technology related to speech recognition, user interfaces and video processing and the world of patents just got a lot messier. The previous largest award for a patent infringement case was in 1990, when Kodak was ordered to pay $909 million to Polaroid for violating patents related to instant cameras. That case also forced Kodak to exit the instant photography market and recall its cameras.
The MP3 appeals process is likely to take years to resolve and in the meantime it is not expected that the courts will force Microsoft to remove the MP3 functions from Windows.
MP3 was developed by a consortium which included the Fraunhofer Institute, a large German research organization, the French electronics company Thomson and Bell Labs. Microsoft and others have licensed MP3 from the consortium. The current case turns on two patents that Alcatel claims were developed by Bell Labs before it joined with Fraunhofer to develop MP3.
At issue is the way the Windows Media Player software from Microsoft plays audio files using MP3, the most common method of distributing music on the Internet. If the ruling stands, and hundreds of other companies that make products that play MP3 files, including Apple, portable players, computers and software, could also face demands to pay royalties to Alcatel.
Other patent trials are pending for technology related to speech recognition, user interfaces and video processing and the world of patents just got a lot messier. The previous largest award for a patent infringement case was in 1990, when Kodak was ordered to pay $909 million to Polaroid for violating patents related to instant cameras. That case also forced Kodak to exit the instant photography market and recall its cameras.
The MP3 appeals process is likely to take years to resolve and in the meantime it is not expected that the courts will force Microsoft to remove the MP3 functions from Windows.
An Interesting Insight to City Thinking
It was very interesting to read the speculative report this week that made a case for combining Barnes and Noble and Borders. In this world of consolidation and big is beautiful, it was intriguing insight into a city analyst’s thinking.
The speculation is based on the fact that Pershing Square Capital Management recently revealed in their currently stake holdings in both Borders and Barnes and Noble. The hedge fund is known for its activisim and recently successfully forced Wendy's into their restructuring plan that and also spined-off of Tim Horton's,
The report recognises that Barnes and Nobles and Borders Group are the number 1 and 2 US book stores and there would be obviously considerable cost savings in merging the two companies. Interestingly it also recognised that each company's online presence is still not competitive and that an combined unit may be stronger in this growing channel and present a much stronger competitive proposition to the likes of Amazon.
If we recognise and accept the potential growth of online physical bookselling and also the opportunity to supplement this with digital content then there must be logic in the combination. However if we address how the current channel could potentially offer a virtual one stop shop that incorporated all then we may find an alternative option. The hardest thing is getting competitors to collaborate and share a bigger pie.
The speculation is based on the fact that Pershing Square Capital Management recently revealed in their currently stake holdings in both Borders and Barnes and Noble. The hedge fund is known for its activisim and recently successfully forced Wendy's into their restructuring plan that and also spined-off of Tim Horton's,
The report recognises that Barnes and Nobles and Borders Group are the number 1 and 2 US book stores and there would be obviously considerable cost savings in merging the two companies. Interestingly it also recognised that each company's online presence is still not competitive and that an combined unit may be stronger in this growing channel and present a much stronger competitive proposition to the likes of Amazon.
If we recognise and accept the potential growth of online physical bookselling and also the opportunity to supplement this with digital content then there must be logic in the combination. However if we address how the current channel could potentially offer a virtual one stop shop that incorporated all then we may find an alternative option. The hardest thing is getting competitors to collaborate and share a bigger pie.
Come Fly With Me
That iPod we only talked about this week has now found its way into the cockpit of small planes and is about to become a flight data recorder (FDR), more commonly known as "black box."
The Journal ‘Flight’ reports that light aircraft maker LoPresti Speed Merchants is adding the ability to use an iPod as a flight data recorder to its Fury piston aircraft.
The airplane will include an iPod dock connector, and will be able to send data to the iPod for storage. What this systems typically collect includes system monitoring information and data for post-flight analysis. LoPresti describes its iPod FDR as "the first truly portable, personal flight recorder with a huge recording capacity."
No doubt it will be playing Frank Sinatra’s classic as it soars into the clouds..
The Journal ‘Flight’ reports that light aircraft maker LoPresti Speed Merchants is adding the ability to use an iPod as a flight data recorder to its Fury piston aircraft.
The airplane will include an iPod dock connector, and will be able to send data to the iPod for storage. What this systems typically collect includes system monitoring information and data for post-flight analysis. LoPresti describes its iPod FDR as "the first truly portable, personal flight recorder with a huge recording capacity."
No doubt it will be playing Frank Sinatra’s classic as it soars into the clouds..
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
iPods enter the danger zones
The iPod now is being used to help communication in the war zone that is Iraq, whilst at the same time some are declaring war on the use of iPods on the streets of New York.
U.S. soldiers in Iraq often face a significant language hurdle when trying to communicate with the local population. A software program called VCOM Mobile may provide some relief with a new iPod-ready program that pronounces Arabic phrases and animates appropriate hand gestures. The program comes preloaded with 20 military situations, ranging from vehicle search to patrol, meet and greet and medical triage. Users scroll through those missions and select the appropriate one for access to numerous phrases. The technology is intended as a language assistant, to not only act as an interpreter for troops on the ground but also as a trainer.
Whilst on the streets of New York if you are wearing and listening to an iPod you should still look when crossing the road. Most headphones used with iPods and other portable music players allow the listener to hear what's going on around them. That is unless the music is turned up too loud.
To most New Yorkers the smoking ban was right but an iPod ban? But New York state Senator Carl Kruger, a Democrat from Brooklyn, has proposed a US$100 fine for anyone caught crossing a major city's street on foot or bicycle while listening to an iPod, talking on a cell phone, playing a video game or sending a text message.
Like them or hate them they certainly are everywhere!
U.S. soldiers in Iraq often face a significant language hurdle when trying to communicate with the local population. A software program called VCOM Mobile may provide some relief with a new iPod-ready program that pronounces Arabic phrases and animates appropriate hand gestures. The program comes preloaded with 20 military situations, ranging from vehicle search to patrol, meet and greet and medical triage. Users scroll through those missions and select the appropriate one for access to numerous phrases. The technology is intended as a language assistant, to not only act as an interpreter for troops on the ground but also as a trainer.
Whilst on the streets of New York if you are wearing and listening to an iPod you should still look when crossing the road. Most headphones used with iPods and other portable music players allow the listener to hear what's going on around them. That is unless the music is turned up too loud.
To most New Yorkers the smoking ban was right but an iPod ban? But New York state Senator Carl Kruger, a Democrat from Brooklyn, has proposed a US$100 fine for anyone caught crossing a major city's street on foot or bicycle while listening to an iPod, talking on a cell phone, playing a video game or sending a text message.
Like them or hate them they certainly are everywhere!
So why isn't everyone on Skype?
When eBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005, many thought it a wise move. But how would they make money from free VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) services?
Today we read two pieces of news which start to join the dots. First a new service to link Sykpe to landlines for free in the UK and several other EU countries, including France, Italy, Germany and Spain. Skype Pro offers anyone who signs up discounts on Skype-certified phones and free Skype Voicemail, as well as free calls to landlines. Skype Pro users will also be able to make video calls to other Skype users.
A five month package will cost about £7 and you will receive about £3 free credit from Skype. When the five months is up, customers will be charged around £1.20 a month for the service. With over 170 million registered users, the world is certainly changing. Personally I now have an ‘X Series’ phone from 3, which gives me free skype calls and access on the move 24 x 7. I obviously also have the service on my PC for when iam in the office. With daily confernce calls to India, Australia and the US, my collegues and I in Value Chain use VOIP and Skype all the time.
So who needsa land line?
The second news is from the San Jose headquarters of eBay. The comapny is not only changing how their employees communiicate, but also how they work in this new world. Their latest move, ‘the cubicle swap’, is intended to bring together the engineers and the businesspeople who work on specific projects, while migrating employees off their landline telephones and getting them to use their Internet calling service Skype.Why is it taking so long for business to grasp this opportunity?
One issue with mobiles has always been finding other people on services where there are no directories. Skype enables users to synchromies their contact database with the service and select matches. It is easy to see the day when we pay one service charge and get as much as we can eat for free. This is in turn will change how we use the network and confirm the mobile as the key device to technology convergence.
Today we read two pieces of news which start to join the dots. First a new service to link Sykpe to landlines for free in the UK and several other EU countries, including France, Italy, Germany and Spain. Skype Pro offers anyone who signs up discounts on Skype-certified phones and free Skype Voicemail, as well as free calls to landlines. Skype Pro users will also be able to make video calls to other Skype users.
A five month package will cost about £7 and you will receive about £3 free credit from Skype. When the five months is up, customers will be charged around £1.20 a month for the service. With over 170 million registered users, the world is certainly changing. Personally I now have an ‘X Series’ phone from 3, which gives me free skype calls and access on the move 24 x 7. I obviously also have the service on my PC for when iam in the office. With daily confernce calls to India, Australia and the US, my collegues and I in Value Chain use VOIP and Skype all the time.
So who needsa land line?
The second news is from the San Jose headquarters of eBay. The comapny is not only changing how their employees communiicate, but also how they work in this new world. Their latest move, ‘the cubicle swap’, is intended to bring together the engineers and the businesspeople who work on specific projects, while migrating employees off their landline telephones and getting them to use their Internet calling service Skype.Why is it taking so long for business to grasp this opportunity?
One issue with mobiles has always been finding other people on services where there are no directories. Skype enables users to synchromies their contact database with the service and select matches. It is easy to see the day when we pay one service charge and get as much as we can eat for free. This is in turn will change how we use the network and confirm the mobile as the key device to technology convergence.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Is Open ID safe?
Imagine not having to remeber different passwords for the numerous services you access over the Internet. Is it safe to use the same password every time? If the password is comprimised once is your life open to attack?
OpenID, unlike many older identification systems, such as Microsoft's Passport, is a decentralised identification system. It lets individuals use a single password for any site that supports it and its specifications are created by an online community and are freely available for software makers to build into their applications.. AOL has now joined Microsoft in their support of OpenID and in doing have given the free identification scheme 63 million new users.
Instead of a username and password stored in a central location, OpenID treats a web address like a username. Applications that use OpenID check user details against the ones at the provided address.
Though OpenID does provide some security benefits it is not inherently more secure. The standard does not specify how an OpenID server checks that a user is who they claim to be. Even if backed by the big service providers it doesn’t mean it safe. Personally i would rather continue to write copious notes with secrative passwords which i hope i can remeber.
OpenID, unlike many older identification systems, such as Microsoft's Passport, is a decentralised identification system. It lets individuals use a single password for any site that supports it and its specifications are created by an online community and are freely available for software makers to build into their applications.. AOL has now joined Microsoft in their support of OpenID and in doing have given the free identification scheme 63 million new users.
Instead of a username and password stored in a central location, OpenID treats a web address like a username. Applications that use OpenID check user details against the ones at the provided address.
Though OpenID does provide some security benefits it is not inherently more secure. The standard does not specify how an OpenID server checks that a user is who they claim to be. Even if backed by the big service providers it doesn’t mean it safe. Personally i would rather continue to write copious notes with secrative passwords which i hope i can remeber.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Piracy on the Digital Highway
When Steve Jobs threw down the gauntlet to the music producers and suggested removing prohibitive and unfriendly DRM, he was certainly opening the DRM debate. Last week, not surprisingly he got support from Yahoo, but more surprisingly, his timing coincided with debates in publishing on the emotive issue of ‘open access’ and a new access debate in the film industry. All media seems under siege by the pirates in the digital arena.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that executives at Hollywood studios now believe that it is only a matter of time before the debate over removing copyright protections spreads to the movie industry. Until now, the studios have asserted their copyright in the use of DRM. The debate now centres on the needs of the home entertainment channel and their continued and growing battle with the pirates, whose copies of movies are circulate freely online without any restrictions on how they are traded or copied. Many now fear the situation will get worse in the near future.
Today we have Pirate Bay, a multi media version of the original file sharing Napser. The site is as big as USA Today and its 1.5 million visitors and growing. It uses file sharing BitTorrent software and Envisional, a UK company that tracks illegal downloading for Hollywood studios estimates that 4 million surfers in North America and Europe use Bit Torrent on a daily basis. The technology is so efficient that the BBC has adopted it for distributing its programme archive.
Hollywood starts from a different position from the music companies. Unlike most compact discs, DVDs come with tight restrictions aimed at preventing consumers from easily copying movies. Although they are much harder to break, even the next-generation discs known as Blu-ray and HD DVD have been found to have flaws in their copyright protection.
The Wall Street Journal article stated that many movie executives agree that physical DVDs still need copy protection, but that some are starting to discuss whether the heavy-duty digital rights management, now on electronic copies, is the right route. While movies sold on Apple's iTunes can be played on as many as five computers and an unlimited number of iPods, most online movie stores offer far less flexibility.
Having just upgraded to a new laptop and Windows Vista, I share some of the frustrations of trying to deal with transferring files in an overtly restrictive DRM world. Although some studios favour finding a way to let consumers move their previously purchased movie from device to device, others sadly believe each upgrade represents a new sales opportunity for the same content that was on the older device.
This week we read the latest digital copying scandal. It comes not from the pop music market but the conservative world of classic music. It involves English pianist Joyce Hatto’s highly acclaimed works, which now appear not to be virtuoso pieces played by her but mere copies or remixed renditions of others performances. Over 100 discs released on her husband’s record label, said to be recorded with full orchestra, in a studio near their home in Hertfordshire. We understand, or at least are familiar with the pop music world of ‘sampling’, mixing other’s works into a new form. The fact is that digitisation is making copying easier.
Many in book publishing are only just entering these murky digital high seas. Should they stop and wait for calm waters or sail forward? It is far easier to copy and reproduce books and printed material than any other media. A good scanner and OCR facilities can get anyone into the market so it is imperative that the book industry makes it easy for the customers to browse, buy and enjoy digital books.
The Sunday Times, in an article on piracy stated that recent Treasury report on Intellectual Property concluded that DRM constraints and over protection actually encourages innovation and the next big thing that consumers seek. So we find ourselves again trying to protect on one hand yet give the consumer what they want on the other. Maybe just as with the pop pirates of the 1960’s the digital pirates of today will force a significant change in the market.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that executives at Hollywood studios now believe that it is only a matter of time before the debate over removing copyright protections spreads to the movie industry. Until now, the studios have asserted their copyright in the use of DRM. The debate now centres on the needs of the home entertainment channel and their continued and growing battle with the pirates, whose copies of movies are circulate freely online without any restrictions on how they are traded or copied. Many now fear the situation will get worse in the near future.
Today we have Pirate Bay, a multi media version of the original file sharing Napser. The site is as big as USA Today and its 1.5 million visitors and growing. It uses file sharing BitTorrent software and Envisional, a UK company that tracks illegal downloading for Hollywood studios estimates that 4 million surfers in North America and Europe use Bit Torrent on a daily basis. The technology is so efficient that the BBC has adopted it for distributing its programme archive.
Hollywood starts from a different position from the music companies. Unlike most compact discs, DVDs come with tight restrictions aimed at preventing consumers from easily copying movies. Although they are much harder to break, even the next-generation discs known as Blu-ray and HD DVD have been found to have flaws in their copyright protection.
The Wall Street Journal article stated that many movie executives agree that physical DVDs still need copy protection, but that some are starting to discuss whether the heavy-duty digital rights management, now on electronic copies, is the right route. While movies sold on Apple's iTunes can be played on as many as five computers and an unlimited number of iPods, most online movie stores offer far less flexibility.
Having just upgraded to a new laptop and Windows Vista, I share some of the frustrations of trying to deal with transferring files in an overtly restrictive DRM world. Although some studios favour finding a way to let consumers move their previously purchased movie from device to device, others sadly believe each upgrade represents a new sales opportunity for the same content that was on the older device.
This week we read the latest digital copying scandal. It comes not from the pop music market but the conservative world of classic music. It involves English pianist Joyce Hatto’s highly acclaimed works, which now appear not to be virtuoso pieces played by her but mere copies or remixed renditions of others performances. Over 100 discs released on her husband’s record label, said to be recorded with full orchestra, in a studio near their home in Hertfordshire. We understand, or at least are familiar with the pop music world of ‘sampling’, mixing other’s works into a new form. The fact is that digitisation is making copying easier.
Many in book publishing are only just entering these murky digital high seas. Should they stop and wait for calm waters or sail forward? It is far easier to copy and reproduce books and printed material than any other media. A good scanner and OCR facilities can get anyone into the market so it is imperative that the book industry makes it easy for the customers to browse, buy and enjoy digital books.
The Sunday Times, in an article on piracy stated that recent Treasury report on Intellectual Property concluded that DRM constraints and over protection actually encourages innovation and the next big thing that consumers seek. So we find ourselves again trying to protect on one hand yet give the consumer what they want on the other. Maybe just as with the pop pirates of the 1960’s the digital pirates of today will force a significant change in the market.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Open Access - Who Pays?
The thorny issue of ‘open access’ was raised again in an article today in the Guardian. This is not an issue that is going away, nor is it going to be resolved quickly.
Today researched give their research papers to publishers who get them peer reviewed, edited, marketed, published and distributed through their branded journals. The practice seems very laudable in that the publisher acts as the arbitrator of quality, ensuring their value and the appropriate indexing, referencing, citations etc are correct and that the paper is brought to the attention of the academic community.
However the European Research Council has argued that the high price of scientific journals was "impeding scientific progress" and last year the European commission published an independent report stating that the price of scientific journals has risen 200%-300% beyond inflation between 1975 and 1995. The market, the study said, was worth up to $11bn (£5.6bn) a year.
So on one hand, we have commercial parties who are trying to assist researchers and institutions publish and access a rich body of work, and on the other hand, we have researchers trying to publish and institutions trying to access a rich body of work. The key therefore lies in the value that the publisher brings to the table and whether that equates to the value perceived by the creator and the reader.
Yesterday paper dictated the workflow of submission, peer review, editorial, production and distribution. Today digital communications potentially turns much of this on its head. Yesterday journals were often ‘twigged’ to maximize the specialization and some would suggest their price. Today online search and discovery and referencing should change this. Yesterday publication and subscritions were scheduled to align with issues within academic years. Today articles should be managed in real time and not bound by issues which become increasingly irrelevant.
There is no easy answer to the digital relationships that needs to exist between publishers, creators and channels. This problem is not unique to journals but also has implications across the total social publishing environment. Perhaps there is logic in looking back to a time before publisher’s became the dominant player? What is clear is that the answer will not be found in the recent printed journal model and there is a need for all parties to recognize and respect the value each brings to the table in the digital world.
Today researched give their research papers to publishers who get them peer reviewed, edited, marketed, published and distributed through their branded journals. The practice seems very laudable in that the publisher acts as the arbitrator of quality, ensuring their value and the appropriate indexing, referencing, citations etc are correct and that the paper is brought to the attention of the academic community.
However the European Research Council has argued that the high price of scientific journals was "impeding scientific progress" and last year the European commission published an independent report stating that the price of scientific journals has risen 200%-300% beyond inflation between 1975 and 1995. The market, the study said, was worth up to $11bn (£5.6bn) a year.
So on one hand, we have commercial parties who are trying to assist researchers and institutions publish and access a rich body of work, and on the other hand, we have researchers trying to publish and institutions trying to access a rich body of work. The key therefore lies in the value that the publisher brings to the table and whether that equates to the value perceived by the creator and the reader.
Yesterday paper dictated the workflow of submission, peer review, editorial, production and distribution. Today digital communications potentially turns much of this on its head. Yesterday journals were often ‘twigged’ to maximize the specialization and some would suggest their price. Today online search and discovery and referencing should change this. Yesterday publication and subscritions were scheduled to align with issues within academic years. Today articles should be managed in real time and not bound by issues which become increasingly irrelevant.
There is no easy answer to the digital relationships that needs to exist between publishers, creators and channels. This problem is not unique to journals but also has implications across the total social publishing environment. Perhaps there is logic in looking back to a time before publisher’s became the dominant player? What is clear is that the answer will not be found in the recent printed journal model and there is a need for all parties to recognize and respect the value each brings to the table in the digital world.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Music Wars
Has Apple and its iTunes an unsustainable position with their 70% market share? Many would suggest that they are so far ahead of the pack it is difficult to be caught but perhaps there are some real competitors now appearing and the fashion bubble is about to burst.
We reported in 'Brave New World' about Spiral Frog and their huge potential to turn the tables upside down with their ‘free download paid for advertising model’. We said December and it is still ‘coming’. But they haven’t been sleeping but signing more labels and also hiring some more impressive players to their team. This certainly looks like a service to hit the road running, make significant traction and then sell out for lots of money.
This week we hear of another potential player Omniphone. The UK-based technology company has launched MusicStation, a cheap subscription-based music service for mobile phone users in Europe. It will allow subscribers to download an unlimited number of tracks to their mobiles, from its one million strong catalogue, for a monthly fee of £1.99. For an extra £1 they can listen to tracks via their PC. There are questions on whether the subscriber owns the tracks or merely has unlimited access as long as they continue to pay their monthly fee. However, with around 75% of mobile phones able to download and play music and a price so cheap, its attractive and will the consumer care?
What is clear is that whether the Sprial Frog model, or the Music Station one, steals share, the alternatives are starting to surface. Apple has had it good too long and we can expect some serious tune wars at the end of the year. No wonder Steve Jobs is offering to drop his DRM barrier.
We reported in 'Brave New World' about Spiral Frog and their huge potential to turn the tables upside down with their ‘free download paid for advertising model’. We said December and it is still ‘coming’. But they haven’t been sleeping but signing more labels and also hiring some more impressive players to their team. This certainly looks like a service to hit the road running, make significant traction and then sell out for lots of money.
This week we hear of another potential player Omniphone. The UK-based technology company has launched MusicStation, a cheap subscription-based music service for mobile phone users in Europe. It will allow subscribers to download an unlimited number of tracks to their mobiles, from its one million strong catalogue, for a monthly fee of £1.99. For an extra £1 they can listen to tracks via their PC. There are questions on whether the subscriber owns the tracks or merely has unlimited access as long as they continue to pay their monthly fee. However, with around 75% of mobile phones able to download and play music and a price so cheap, its attractive and will the consumer care?
What is clear is that whether the Sprial Frog model, or the Music Station one, steals share, the alternatives are starting to surface. Apple has had it good too long and we can expect some serious tune wars at the end of the year. No wonder Steve Jobs is offering to drop his DRM barrier.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Apples are good for you?
Ok imagine that you are sitting on top of the market, selling 70% of the legal music downloads, some 2 million songs since launching in 2003 and also selling millions of iPod players and have the iPhone just about to get connected, why would you want to talk about dropping DRM? After all, some would argue your proprietary DRM inhibits the market and has helped catapult your business forward and restrict your competitive threat.
This week Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple, urged the world's largest record companies to begin selling songs online without security software. Although the industry had already started to think about this, the statement was somewhat a ‘bolt out of the blue’.
Many now believe that the only way to compete with the pirates is to take them on. Consumer rights groups in several European countries have also lodged complaints with Apple over the incompatibility of iTunes with other music players.
Mr Jobs stated that if DRM safeguards were dropped, Apple would be in a position to create a download system which would work with other devices, including Microsoft's Zune music player. The abolition of DRM would enable all MP3 users to access music from any online music store, including iTunes.
True the relaxation of DRM is a hard ball game and one where the result could go many ways, but what is becoming clear, is that the more you tie the music up in DRM, the more the consumer and pirates fight it and find ways round it.
Ok what does it mean for publishing? Well it could revolutionize the audio book market and really make that happen. It would certainly cause Audible to sit up and question their DRM position. The physical book can easily be copied today and although piracy is rife in some markets such as Asia does DRM actually make much difference other than often restricting the consumer from doing what they want to do?
This is not an easy situation nor is the outcome clear, nor the timescales but what is clear people are starting to think the previously unthinkable with respect DRM.
This week Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple, urged the world's largest record companies to begin selling songs online without security software. Although the industry had already started to think about this, the statement was somewhat a ‘bolt out of the blue’.
Many now believe that the only way to compete with the pirates is to take them on. Consumer rights groups in several European countries have also lodged complaints with Apple over the incompatibility of iTunes with other music players.
Mr Jobs stated that if DRM safeguards were dropped, Apple would be in a position to create a download system which would work with other devices, including Microsoft's Zune music player. The abolition of DRM would enable all MP3 users to access music from any online music store, including iTunes.
True the relaxation of DRM is a hard ball game and one where the result could go many ways, but what is becoming clear, is that the more you tie the music up in DRM, the more the consumer and pirates fight it and find ways round it.
Ok what does it mean for publishing? Well it could revolutionize the audio book market and really make that happen. It would certainly cause Audible to sit up and question their DRM position. The physical book can easily be copied today and although piracy is rife in some markets such as Asia does DRM actually make much difference other than often restricting the consumer from doing what they want to do?
This is not an easy situation nor is the outcome clear, nor the timescales but what is clear people are starting to think the previously unthinkable with respect DRM.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
This book can get excited!
Polymer Vision, a Phillips spin-off appears to be making fast work of bring its new screen technology to market this year. We have already reported (see day at the races 22n December)on this new and exciting OLED (Organic Light- Emitting Diodes) foldable display technology and its significant potential to revolutionize the eBook market and reading. The company now looks set to officially unveil the first product to use the would-be paper killer technology at next week's 3GSM conference in Spain. Watch the newspaper coverage as it impacts them too!
The "Cellular-Book," will initially be offered by Telecom Italia for its cellular market. The main attraction is a roll-able, foldable display, which can extend to a full five inches yet still wrap up into a device "smaller than the typical mobile phone." There will be no doubt loads of jokes about its ability to grow! The cellular part of the equation comes in the form of a combination of EDGE, UMTS, and DVB-H capabilities, which will give you access to an array of different services viewable in 16 levels of gray, including e-mail. RSS feeds and, of course, e-books, which will be available through Telecom Italia.
All the usual gadgets will be there on the device with the ability download to the device music and podcasts and with 4GB of storage provided it should satisfy most media appetites.
So the iphone will have a competitor and new screen technology is almost here. What is more relevant is the continued march towards convergence and the ubiquitous mobile. Manufactures know that the volume is in the mobile market and it makes little sense to develop single application devices to satisfy a relatively small market. So we now have music, podcasts, audio, video, photos, maps, internet access, text, email, VOIP, games and telephone calls all in one. We have the online services to feed them stuff and they are growing in their storage capacity. I think the inevitable is obvious and we shall soon see a number of old ebook readers for sale on eBay.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Print
Those opportunities to make a change are rare and often few and far between. Imagine Stephen King’s ‘Riding the bullet’ today, would it make a difference in the digital market? Those whose memories are short or are genuinely unaware Mr. King serialized his novel, releasing it digitally on installment. ‘Riding the Bullet’ was too early to make that sea change then, but what about now?
We read today that Neil Blair, a lawyer from Rowling's literary agency, told Associated Press reporters last Sunday that there will be no Harry Potter digital editions of the new book or of any works in the series, for the foreseeable future. They fear piracy and cite the most recent book to be published in the series was illegally posted online in an E-Book format within twelve hours of its hardcover release. Rowling and her legal team are reticent to take steps that could enable or encourage further piracy.
However also cited was Rowling's personal preference for printed volumes over electronic publications. Rowling has publicly stated her partiality for writing and reading works on paper.
We also read today about Ian Rankin being the latest author to have new fiction picked up for serialisation in the New York Times. Serialisation is proving popular with newspapers and also cited in the article were Alexander McCall Smith in the Scotsman, Ronan Bennett in the Observer and previous fiction serialisations in the New York Times including Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly and Michael Chabon.
What is surprising is that we appear to have missed the opportunity to join the dots digitally. Imagine the demand that a chapter by chapter of Harry Potter would raise. Piracy of a the total book is easy but doing and selling it chapter by chapter is a lot harder for the pirates.
After all if serialization was good enough for the likes of Dickens then surely the digital serialization is good enough for Master Potter.
We read today that Neil Blair, a lawyer from Rowling's literary agency, told Associated Press reporters last Sunday that there will be no Harry Potter digital editions of the new book or of any works in the series, for the foreseeable future. They fear piracy and cite the most recent book to be published in the series was illegally posted online in an E-Book format within twelve hours of its hardcover release. Rowling and her legal team are reticent to take steps that could enable or encourage further piracy.
However also cited was Rowling's personal preference for printed volumes over electronic publications. Rowling has publicly stated her partiality for writing and reading works on paper.
We also read today about Ian Rankin being the latest author to have new fiction picked up for serialisation in the New York Times. Serialisation is proving popular with newspapers and also cited in the article were Alexander McCall Smith in the Scotsman, Ronan Bennett in the Observer and previous fiction serialisations in the New York Times including Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly and Michael Chabon.
What is surprising is that we appear to have missed the opportunity to join the dots digitally. Imagine the demand that a chapter by chapter of Harry Potter would raise. Piracy of a the total book is easy but doing and selling it chapter by chapter is a lot harder for the pirates.
After all if serialization was good enough for the likes of Dickens then surely the digital serialization is good enough for Master Potter.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Can you hear me, Mother?
We argued in “Brave New World” that the audio book would lead the digital revolution. The consumer experience was the same, MP3 technology was available and being used by all and the experience was complimentary and not substitution to reading. There are real obstacles; Audible’s proprietary DRM, their book club commercial model, their exclusive iTunes relationship, the lack of effective standardized DRM, etc. It is also clear, that market demand can’t be created in a vacuum and today there is certainly a vacuum of digital audio content.
So it was disheartening to hear news that, at the Association of Authors’ Agents recent AGM, there was disquiet raised at the perceived low levels of royalties being offered by publishers for digital downloads of audiobooks. The question should not be one of increasing individual percentages, but one of how we all maximize the opportunity and grow the pot for all. The adversarial stance on percentage points does nothing to getting more titles into the market, changing the stranglehold of some on the channel or sorting out the question of DRM.
Why does everyone want more out of the digital pie before it has even been established? The publisher is often seen as wanting to sell and distribute direct, cut others out and enjoy greater margin. The retailers wants to do it, but don’t have the infrastructure or Internet visibility to deliver. The author wants a greater slice before the pie is even mixed, let alone baked.
Why can’t everyone work together to establish the market based on today’s model and channels?
After all, it is better to have the same share of a bigger pie than a bigger share of a smaller one. Volume is the key and in a market segment where prices are perceived as high, volume must be the way forward.
So it was disheartening to hear news that, at the Association of Authors’ Agents recent AGM, there was disquiet raised at the perceived low levels of royalties being offered by publishers for digital downloads of audiobooks. The question should not be one of increasing individual percentages, but one of how we all maximize the opportunity and grow the pot for all. The adversarial stance on percentage points does nothing to getting more titles into the market, changing the stranglehold of some on the channel or sorting out the question of DRM.
Why does everyone want more out of the digital pie before it has even been established? The publisher is often seen as wanting to sell and distribute direct, cut others out and enjoy greater margin. The retailers wants to do it, but don’t have the infrastructure or Internet visibility to deliver. The author wants a greater slice before the pie is even mixed, let alone baked.
Why can’t everyone work together to establish the market based on today’s model and channels?
After all, it is better to have the same share of a bigger pie than a bigger share of a smaller one. Volume is the key and in a market segment where prices are perceived as high, volume must be the way forward.
Pick up a Penguin
I recently watched TV programme which showed a colony of penguins ritually landing on an obscure Antarctica bay. They were driven ashore in hostile waters bouncing against the rocks and then finally scrambling on land before they waddled upwards to the safety of their breeding grounds. Could they not find an easier route with less danger?
This week Penguin launched their “million penguins” collaborative novel. An experiment aimed at enabling anyone to contribute to the writing of a new novel on the Internet. This collaborative effort is based on the successful “wiki” technology that spawned the co-operative wikipedia which we covered in “Brave New World”. The experiment, which Penguin says is the first "wiki novel" to be started from scratch by a major publishing house, will be online for at least six weeks.
"This is an experiment. It may end up like reading a bowl of alphabet spaghetti," Jeremy Ettinghausen, head of digital publishing at Penguin UK said, adding there were no plans as yet to publish the completed work. "We are not making any predictions. It would be utterly fantastic if we could at the end create a print remix."
Penguin states the work is not a talent search.
The “wiki” format works well when the subject matter is factual and the entries are short and their number is many but will it work when there is one story, input is open to all and the subject is pure fiction? Logic says it will fail and editors and authors will be rubbing their hands as their value becomes even more obvious. What is certain is the real winner will be Penguin. They will get publicity whether it fails or succeeds and will get input even if the contributors are not recognized.
Personally, my mind goes back to visualizing those millions of penguins in Antarctica and asking why they put themselves through significant peril just to come ashore in this one place?
This week Penguin launched their “million penguins” collaborative novel. An experiment aimed at enabling anyone to contribute to the writing of a new novel on the Internet. This collaborative effort is based on the successful “wiki” technology that spawned the co-operative wikipedia which we covered in “Brave New World”. The experiment, which Penguin says is the first "wiki novel" to be started from scratch by a major publishing house, will be online for at least six weeks.
"This is an experiment. It may end up like reading a bowl of alphabet spaghetti," Jeremy Ettinghausen, head of digital publishing at Penguin UK said, adding there were no plans as yet to publish the completed work. "We are not making any predictions. It would be utterly fantastic if we could at the end create a print remix."
Penguin states the work is not a talent search.
The “wiki” format works well when the subject matter is factual and the entries are short and their number is many but will it work when there is one story, input is open to all and the subject is pure fiction? Logic says it will fail and editors and authors will be rubbing their hands as their value becomes even more obvious. What is certain is the real winner will be Penguin. They will get publicity whether it fails or succeeds and will get input even if the contributors are not recognized.
Personally, my mind goes back to visualizing those millions of penguins in Antarctica and asking why they put themselves through significant peril just to come ashore in this one place?
Friday, February 02, 2007
Hi Ho Silver Lining
The silver surfers have arrived. In our report “Brave New World” we recognised the potential of this group, pensioners with time, potentially income but importantly a high affinity to books and reading. Others will talk at length about youth and their switched on lifestyle but ignore the silver surfers.
Insurance group AXA has conducted research that has found some interesting insight as to how pensioners spend their time. Browsing the Internet has overtaken both gardening and DIY and is now the UK pensioner’s favourite pastime. This encompasses email, researching information, booking holidays and shopping. They are embracing technology often encouraged by younger members of their family but are discovering the pleasure of home shopping and a less stressful life. 41% of retired Britons named the Internet as their favourite pastime, followed by 39% for gardening and DIY, 36% hobbies and 28% travel and walking. Four in ten retired people said that they were regular internet shoppers. Email captures 84 % of online closely followed by searching for information.
The level of time spent in Internet surfing places the UK among the top five in the eleven surveyed. The US is top with nine hours followed by Australia and Canada with seven hours per weekend.
The silver surfer is the obvious publishing target; they love books, reading and have time. Migrating the silver surfer onto audio downloads and digital content may be a lot easier than many have thought.
Market research is not about assuming you know the answers and then validating it. It is also about finding out what you don’t know and understanding it. The proposed industry digital reseach programme in “Brave New World” recognised the need to establish consumer attitudes and track these. This research shows there is potentially a significant digital market with existing book lovers. The question is how retailers and publishers need to engage with them, understand them and respect and provide what they want, how they want it and at a price that they will pay and perceive value.
Insurance group AXA has conducted research that has found some interesting insight as to how pensioners spend their time. Browsing the Internet has overtaken both gardening and DIY and is now the UK pensioner’s favourite pastime. This encompasses email, researching information, booking holidays and shopping. They are embracing technology often encouraged by younger members of their family but are discovering the pleasure of home shopping and a less stressful life. 41% of retired Britons named the Internet as their favourite pastime, followed by 39% for gardening and DIY, 36% hobbies and 28% travel and walking. Four in ten retired people said that they were regular internet shoppers. Email captures 84 % of online closely followed by searching for information.
The level of time spent in Internet surfing places the UK among the top five in the eleven surveyed. The US is top with nine hours followed by Australia and Canada with seven hours per weekend.
The silver surfer is the obvious publishing target; they love books, reading and have time. Migrating the silver surfer onto audio downloads and digital content may be a lot easier than many have thought.
Market research is not about assuming you know the answers and then validating it. It is also about finding out what you don’t know and understanding it. The proposed industry digital reseach programme in “Brave New World” recognised the need to establish consumer attitudes and track these. This research shows there is potentially a significant digital market with existing book lovers. The question is how retailers and publishers need to engage with them, understand them and respect and provide what they want, how they want it and at a price that they will pay and perceive value.
ebookstork
My thoughts and best wishes go out to a proud new father and his new born baby. I can see him rushing frantically around the room at those pivotal moments. The birth is meet with a roar before it is drowned by the popping of corks. The baby is Bookstore the father is that charismatic Richard Charkin.
Innovation has always been high on the Macmillan / Holtsbrink agenda and under Richard it is hardly going to change. The MP3 audio is due around LBF and although it probably is not the answer it will certainly be a wake up call for all. While many sit and wait for Audible /iTunes to play, or the murky waters of DRM to become clearer, Macmillan have once again boldly stepped forward.
This week’s launch of Bookstore may again not be the answer. After all there are many alternatives in this space already. But it demonstrates a commitment towards certain principles that are being adopted by many of the leading publishers. It is unclear whether its primary focus is publishers, retailers or consumers. It offers publishers a digital storefront but does not include physical titles or combined baskets and assumes a direct channel and brand recognition. It offers the retailer a white label store but with limited stock aggregation. It has to be found and valued by consumers. However, these are common issues in this space today and MPS’s work within the German marketplace, which we covered in “Brave New World”, certainly shows potential ways forward on some of these issues. Macmillan have also announced a pilot with their own bookstore, Pan Bookshop. It will be very interesting to see how the Chelsea set react and how this can be applied to a wider set of retailers.
The key now is how all the various digital silos will be linked to provide a digital distribution infrastructure similar to that which services the physical book on the Internet. Standardised persistent linkage and ‘drop ship’ business processes are the obvious next steps.
Meanwhile congratulations once again to MPS and I hope Richard gets some restful nights in the weeks to come.
Innovation has always been high on the Macmillan / Holtsbrink agenda and under Richard it is hardly going to change. The MP3 audio is due around LBF and although it probably is not the answer it will certainly be a wake up call for all. While many sit and wait for Audible /iTunes to play, or the murky waters of DRM to become clearer, Macmillan have once again boldly stepped forward.
This week’s launch of Bookstore may again not be the answer. After all there are many alternatives in this space already. But it demonstrates a commitment towards certain principles that are being adopted by many of the leading publishers. It is unclear whether its primary focus is publishers, retailers or consumers. It offers publishers a digital storefront but does not include physical titles or combined baskets and assumes a direct channel and brand recognition. It offers the retailer a white label store but with limited stock aggregation. It has to be found and valued by consumers. However, these are common issues in this space today and MPS’s work within the German marketplace, which we covered in “Brave New World”, certainly shows potential ways forward on some of these issues. Macmillan have also announced a pilot with their own bookstore, Pan Bookshop. It will be very interesting to see how the Chelsea set react and how this can be applied to a wider set of retailers.
The key now is how all the various digital silos will be linked to provide a digital distribution infrastructure similar to that which services the physical book on the Internet. Standardised persistent linkage and ‘drop ship’ business processes are the obvious next steps.
Meanwhile congratulations once again to MPS and I hope Richard gets some restful nights in the weeks to come.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Describing things better may be more important than the thing itself
Everyone is finding out the power of metadata. A photo that has no description is merely a picture and on the web, the picture is literally lost in space. However, a picture that has even a simple description can be found by others and organized. The new social dimension of tagging is becoming a hallmark of the so-called web 2.0 and one that encourages sharing and collaboration.
Tagging or labeling online content is becoming the new search tool of choice among web users and interestingly not everyone recognizes they are doing it. Google for example refers to it as “bookmarking”. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the trend in tagging is growing among US web users and it recently found that over a quarter of online Americans (28%) had tagged content such as a photo, news story or blog. Even this blog is now tagged!
Some may argue that the imprecise and ambiguous nature of the tagging is inhibiting its full use, others that any tagging is better than none. We only need to trawl through the pages of eBay to appreciate the many ways one can describe the same thing. But we still find it and in the wider internet the world this is no different.
What does that mean for publishing? It clearly shows that getting the metadata right and structured is fundamental to searching discovering and qualifying content.
Content without context is lost.
Those who tag well will be found and be appreciated. Those who don’t, may be found, but by a disappointed searcher. In the physical bookstore the placement of the book is determined by the physical shelf and store categories. “The Royal Gardens of Europe” could be in architecture, gardening, history, travel but invariably will be only be found in one. My stepfather’s best selling books could be found in memoirs, humour, autobiography, caring and health and even pets and one wonders where “Paws in the Proceedings” hi s latest book will be found when it is released in June? However on the net, these titles should be tagged against every category that is applicable and thereby found by multiple searches.
Tagging or labeling online content is becoming the new search tool of choice among web users and interestingly not everyone recognizes they are doing it. Google for example refers to it as “bookmarking”. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the trend in tagging is growing among US web users and it recently found that over a quarter of online Americans (28%) had tagged content such as a photo, news story or blog. Even this blog is now tagged!
Some may argue that the imprecise and ambiguous nature of the tagging is inhibiting its full use, others that any tagging is better than none. We only need to trawl through the pages of eBay to appreciate the many ways one can describe the same thing. But we still find it and in the wider internet the world this is no different.
What does that mean for publishing? It clearly shows that getting the metadata right and structured is fundamental to searching discovering and qualifying content.
Content without context is lost.
Those who tag well will be found and be appreciated. Those who don’t, may be found, but by a disappointed searcher. In the physical bookstore the placement of the book is determined by the physical shelf and store categories. “The Royal Gardens of Europe” could be in architecture, gardening, history, travel but invariably will be only be found in one. My stepfather’s best selling books could be found in memoirs, humour, autobiography, caring and health and even pets and one wonders where “Paws in the Proceedings” hi s latest book will be found when it is released in June? However on the net, these titles should be tagged against every category that is applicable and thereby found by multiple searches.
Print Just in Case
Years ago, I remember sitting around the office’s of PIRA (Print Industry Research Ass) with a number of major publishers. The objective was to map out the business processes associated with POD with a view to enable the transactions to be standardarised. The major problem then was agreeing the definition of print on demand and even if this were possible, agreeing the business process flows to support it.
Time flees, and some years later, many still view POD basically as a substitute for the short print run. It is still being performed in alternative, but central print facilities. Even though a considerable number of titles has been made available we have yet to see true print on demand let alone distributed POD.
Today comes a Winter 2007 Short Run Discount Promotion from the leading POD printer, Lightning Source. However it is based on orders of 50 or more books. This is hardly print on demand or print just in time more print just in case.
The Expresso Print machine could provide the answer. However, if the POD PDF files are locked into a single vendor offer and one that remains short print run focused will we ever see localized printing and true demand driven production for the long tail?
Time flees, and some years later, many still view POD basically as a substitute for the short print run. It is still being performed in alternative, but central print facilities. Even though a considerable number of titles has been made available we have yet to see true print on demand let alone distributed POD.
Today comes a Winter 2007 Short Run Discount Promotion from the leading POD printer, Lightning Source. However it is based on orders of 50 or more books. This is hardly print on demand or print just in time more print just in case.
The Expresso Print machine could provide the answer. However, if the POD PDF files are locked into a single vendor offer and one that remains short print run focused will we ever see localized printing and true demand driven production for the long tail?
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