Library Dumps Books

Wiltshire County Council, which encourages people to recycle, has been attacked by environmental campaigners and charity workers. This is not over twice monthly, or roadside collections, but their decision to send hundreds of library books to be dumped in a landfill site, ‘because it is not viable to recycle them’. Last week fiction and children's books deemed surplus to requirements, were openly dumped in a skip outside Chippenham Library.

Derek Quinn, Director for the Wiltshire Wood Recycling group, is reported as saying. "When I went to look in the skip it was full of books and some were brand new. I took some home with me because they were in great condition. It is not only books going into the landfill - it's my council tax as well."

Shelia Veech, of Friends of the Earth, said: "I am horrified that they would throw these books out - surely someone must want them.”

The council's stock manager David Green said they had no choice but to dump the consignment because at the moment they had too many books to recycle. He claims that the council only had one contractor to deal with this sort of recycling and at present it isn't a viable solution.

Its amazing that in this day where library funding is constantly under question and recycling is such a hot subject that books are thrown into the skip and buried in landfill. What also is interesting is that these sales are outside the returns and publisher’s pulping programmes. We note that what was probably common practice yesterday, is fast becoming socially unacceptable to many today.

Phoney Wars

The long awaited entry of the iPhone into the UK market is now only days away. On 9th of November the fashion icon that has started to redefine mobile phones enters the UK via an exclusive O2 service. Beware, they will be seen everywhere and O2 is bound to be inundated with service transfer enquires. More than 1.4 million units have been sold in the US since it was introduction on 29th June this year.

In an move to stop its resale in the US, Apple has now announced that it will no longer accepts cash for iPhone purchases and it is reducing the unit limit per person, from five units, down to two. The new policy will ensure that there are enough iPhones for people who are shopping for themselves or buying a gift and discourage unauthorized resellers.

Apple’s other issue is that it estimates that 250K of the iPhones sold to date are to people with multiple iPhones and include those looking to modify, or unlock, the phones so they work on networks other than Apple’s US partner, AT&T. Apple’s attempts to prevent that unlocking activity, include a software update that blocks hacker’s workarounds.



Elsewhere the businessman’s favcourite toy continues to reinvent itself and add more common mobile technology. Blackberry have announced a deal with Omnifone UK to supply BlackBerry users with an unlimited number of music downloads from Omnifone’s MusicStation service. Omnifone’s MusicStation service claims to be able to supply some 10 million songs across 30 countries and a library of tracks from the major producers, such as EMI, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group.

They are not stopping there and have also launched Facebook software designed especially for its smartphones. This will enable users to browse Facebook, receive notifications and messages automatically and scroll through them quickly just as they do today with their email. Users can also read and compose Facebook messages.

Google Take Two Steps Forward and One Step Back

Google like all major brands spreads its services at an alarming rate.
Today we hear about ‘Google 411’ a free business telephone directory enquiry service in the US. Google 411 uses voice-recognition software, completely eliminating the need for human operators.

Users access the service by calling 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411), and stating the desired state and city, or zip code. The system then asks the user to state the business being sought, and offers a list of results which can be dialed automatically. Users can also have results sent via SMS, or displayed as a point on Google maps on smartphones.

With respect to its ever controversial Google Book Search it appears that they have retreated from plans to include magazines with an ISSN number within the service. Technical difficulties with digitizing magazines due to poor paper quality, a lack of existing archives were cited and that book information was of a higher value to searchers were cited as the main reasons.

It shared to understand some of the logic as magazines are increasingly digitized and serials certainly have been for some time. The question of archive also appears a bit woolly given the efforts of many the digitize their archives. Perhaps the real clues lie in the fragmented nature of the content but again that’s the Internet also. Its hard to see the logic or perhaps it’s down to control, re-usage and revenue opportunities. You may believe that but we couldn’t possibly comment.

However, as one door closes another opens. Google now plan to dominate advertising on the television as well as on the Internet. It has announced a partnership with the Nielsen Company, the authority in measuring television audiences that aims to give advertisers more accurate figures of how many people are viewing commercials on a second-by-second basis and who those people are.

At a time when digital broadcasting is changing and many are viewing ‘offline’ and even bypassing the ads, advertisers are hungry for any data they can get about who is watching, who is bypassing them and where to invest.

Google has been selling ads on EchoStarCommunication’s 125 national satellite channel netwoprk. Google analyzes the data from set-top boxes to determine exactly which ads were watched or skipped, with a second-by-second breakdown. With Nielsen’s help, Google will be able to overlay sampling-based ratings and add a rich demographic layer to EchoStar’s information.

Google TV Ads and Google AdWords both give advertisers the ability to buy, sell and deliver advertisements across media and to evaluate the reach of each ad adding the demographic information from Nielson can then tell them who is watching it.

If the Omnivore Cap Fits...

Well we couldn’t believe our eyes on reading of the giant who we called an omnivore has actually adopted the name for its new blog site! In Brave New World we alikened some of the activities of the search engines and Amazon to omnivores – they devour all before them and Amazon must have thought the cap fitted. Their new book blog new home is www.omnivoracious.com.

Why did they choose Omnivoracious? They say that their editors are ‘always foraging hungrily for that next great book, wherever it comes from, whatever it's about’. They take after their parent and wake up hungry every day! They also admit that ‘before long, we expect, in the spirit of our name, to expand our appetite to the newest movies and music too.’

Today we also read of Amazon.com's international significant sales rise of 40% in the third-quarter. The company's UK, German, Japanese, French and Chinese sites saw turnover rise 33% to $1.5bn with its operating profit almost doubling over the period, from $50m to $98m. The parent Amazon net sales increased 41% to $3.26bn in the same quarter, compared with $2.31bn in third quarter 2006 with net sales growth of 38% compared with third quarter 2006.

Sales for 2007 are expected to be between $14.3bn and $14.6bn, 33% and 36% comparative growth on 2006 with operating income expected to be between $605m and $675m, or 56% and 74% comparative growth.

Amazon is now much more than books or even entertainment and in just over a decade has built a sustainable business, a global brand and a turnover far beyond anyone’s expectations. In publishing they cover all the based across the value chain from author to reader and have changed consumer attitudes. It is interesting to see the size of the overall publishing market compared to Amazon and to realise that it is now not just a publishing omnivore but a big retail gorilla too.

NewsSpace Democratisation

HarperCollins and MySpace are both part of the Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire. It therefore not surprising to read, that MySpace is getting into the book business and HarperCollins into the social community space. HarperCollins has a MySpace presence for some time has recently announced its Authonomy.com aspiring author community space.

MySpace, are now to collaborate with a children's imprint of HarperCollins on an environmental handbook planned for April 22, Earth Day. "MySpace/Our Planet: Change is Possible," will be written by freelance journalist Jeca Taudte and is rumoured to be about 160 pages and cost about $12.95 with a planned first printing of 200,000.The book will feature ideas from MySpace users, who can post environmental tips on http://www.myspace.com/ourplanet. Following the trend towards the democratisation of literature that we have featured heavily on in recent blogs, MySpace contributors who end up in the book will not be paid, but will be credited by their usernames and geographic locations.

The combination sounds a real winner, social community, environmental issues, children’s focus, two major promotion channels and free contributions from motivated individuals. Now who will do a deal with Facebook or Bebo?

We are not Alone

The driving forces that we see changing publishing may appear to be different but are very similar to those being experienced by others.

In a new book that is to be published next year by Oxford University Press, Richard Susskind argues that lawyers and the legal profession face extinction, or are “on the brink of fundamental transformation”. He sees a future, where “conventional legal advisers will be much less prominent in society than today, and, in some walks of life, will have no visibility at all”.

The driving forces are: information technology and what Susskind calls ‘the market pull towards commoditization – carving up a lawyer’s job into identifiable and discreet pieces that can be outsourced and done more cheaply by others.’

When we step back and think about the roles across our value chain we can see similar forces, the question is which roles survive, which are commoditized and which become extinct through technology?

GodTube

One of the genre we envisaged diverging at speed under digitisation was religion. Today we read about www.GodTube.com a $2.5 million Christian video site with some 1.7 million unique visitors in August. Visitors at the site stay on average 7.7 minutes and view over 1.5 million hours of video a month.

GodTube isn’t a church and is very much a ‘for-profit’ organisation. Its model includes selling both religious and secular advertising, charging subscription fees to ministries that want to broadcast and selling anonymous demographic data. What you get over the Internet also includes matters like in-depth theological discussion, prayer support, opportunities for confession and the like.

Religion on the Internet is nothing new -- churches have been using e-mail and bulletin board services for more than a decade, and sacred texts have long been accessible via online databases. A decade ago we knew of one major Christian publisher who was providing sermons on demand via email.

GodTube offers a new live video function called GodCaster. This allows churches and ministers to stream live events such as services, concerts, debates and other programming, to anyone in the world. Now worshipers can pick a congregation based more on personal or religious preference than their physical location, and they can participate in Bible studies and social groups without ever leaving their PC.

The site takes extra efforts to ensure that its content is appropriate and every single video must be approved by an administrator before it goes live. Currently, that is 300 to 500 videos a day and growing. In addition , only pre-approved pastors and ministries will be trusted live video providers.

The religious market is not exclusive to Christians and similar sites are emerging to cater for other major faiths. Christian publishers are responding to GodTube and its new and expanding audience with leading Christian publisher, Thomas Nelson being one of its 50 Major partners.

Direct from Manufacturer?

So printers now aim to go after the drop ship market space and offer the Publisher’s a direct market and full margin. Its an interesting proposal but begs many questions.
CPI are launching, www.cpibookdelivery.com a site which will have its titles listed on Google search. When a consumer finds a title CPI will take the money and dispatch the book. They will then pay the publisher the full cover price and in doing so pay on a settlement basis so living off whatever interest can be raised and maximising bottom line profit for the publisher. The aim is to help publishers sell direct to the consumer from point of manufacture and so effectively cut out distributors, wholesalers, ecommerce sites and retailers.

So is the intent to go after the total distribution and wholesale market and deliver both bulk and single shipments from point of manufacture or to just deal with internet drop ship? Are they going to hold significant title inventory or manufacture to order (POD). The issues about operating single shipment operations alongside bulk have been discussed many times and are as we have said an art.

Printers are increasingly under pressures as manufacturing is always shifting to the cheapest location and POD is becoming more economic and moving closer to the channel. So where do CPI want to be? Are they merely trying to plug what they see is a opportunity or are they trying to align themselves as the publisher’s direct fulfilment option for all formats? The cpibookdelivery site is obviously in its early stages and doesn’t give a lot away.

How Many Users Saw Your Ad?

If you were placing an advert you would want to monitor the number of people who saw it and if possible the resultant conversion rate and frequency of spend is achieved. In a direct marketing environment its about conversion and frequency rate and ensuring that the money is spent well, in the advertising mass market it is about ensuring the audience target has been reached and monitoring that the message has been received. So one would think that on the internet life becomes a whole lot easier and precise figures can be collated for each view and where appropriate each conversion.

Anyone who has placed adverts on the web will know that auditing ‘hits’, conversion, individuals and returns can often be as difficult as herding cats. We often find two camps page views versus pay-per-click. The later is basically payment based not on merely viewing the page but on clicking on the ad. This still doesn’t mean the user actually converted just that he clicked through. However, in the advertising world which is expected to more than double the $9.6 billion it represented as recently as 2004 and generate some $20 billion in revenue this year, its more about views than action.

So how many visitors did you receive today? Your web analyst will say one figure but the advertising measurement services such as ComScore and Nielson/Net Ratings a much lower one. Who is right and who is wrong? In the world of advertising the figures mean money! There are a myriad of reasons for the differences. Then there are issues regarding the number of times that advertisements appear on the web site and we have seen the recent purchase by Microsoft and Google of companies such as Atlas and DoubleClick who specialise in tracking this. There are also issues about tracking individuals who may masked behind a corporate or institutional gateway.

The wider adoption of Web analytics, as a discipline, may hold the answers in the web 2.0 world. This technology has evolved and the latest ‘page tagging’, is aimed at capturing business metrics such as the unique user, the visit, and the page view. However, until everyone counts the same way the true potential of Internet advertising may not be fully realised.

The Cat will not be put back in this Bag

Audio books appear to be in a digital tug of war.

On one side stands the music industry who are rapidly changing business models, are digital and desperately trying to make money with artists, consumers and the market shifting the ground from under their feet. The Radiohead ‘honesty box’ and recent giveaway CDs are now competing with DRM free music. It’s inevitable that watermarking will prevail over DRM and that its days are clearly numbered. On the other side sits an uneasy book industry claiming, with some justification, that ‘books are different’ but at the same time watching the audiobook increasingly being digitally aligned with music.

It is not surprising to read today that Penguin has withdrawn its 150 titles from its audiobook experiment with eMusic’s unprotected MP3 file initiative. Publisher Dick Heffernan is reported in the NYT, "At this moment we're not going to have our titles on eMusic or with anyone else who sells non-DRM until the landscape shakes out and we feel very comfortable and confident that our titles will not be pirated." Interestingly he added that, "We wanted to take a chance and see how it would work out, and our very senior management at this moment decided that we didn’t want to do that."

On the other hand eMusic stated that they are achieving 500 audiobook sales a day under the DRM free initiative which is double the projections. Random House Audio have reported that they are monitoring their participation but have found no piracy to date and that sales were "really encouraging."

So what will prevail? Naxos and Silksoundbooks are available DRM free today for download in the UK. Naxos have signed up to Gardners Digital Services so will have an additional channel to market. Silksoundbooks have placed a price point of £7.99 a download which certainly raise further questions.

Some may sit on the sidelines and wait, but the market and the channels are starting to appear and with it those cracks in the audiobook world, that has so long been restrained by Audible and restrictive DRM.

Scanning The Library World

Whose library is best and which collection offers the richest content when digitised? We have seen the giant hover that is Google making a land grab for any library that will play and now we see the national and international divides.

The Library of Congress has announced its plans to expand its World Digital Library Program and has signed an agreement with UNESCO. The project is a joint venture with other national libraries and is modelled on the Library of Congress’s vast American Memory project. The digital library will hold digital versions of rare and specialised materials such as manuscripts, maps, books, films, sound recordings and photographs, will be free to access over the Internet and is currently available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese languages.

The project started 2 years ago with a $3million grant from Google and assistance from Apple and they are currently discussing further funding alliances with Nokia and Vodaphone, as well as gathering commitments from countries.

You would think that one project was enough, but European libraries are separately developing their own digital collections and the European Digital Library will release its prototype next year. The French National Library has already developed a test project, Europeana, for the European library and is in the process of digitizing 300,000 books.

Today we also read that several major research libraries including a large consortium in the Boston area, have rejected offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they were put off by restrictions these companies wanted to place on the new digital collections. They are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort to make digital material as widely accessible as possible.

However many libraries including the New York Public, the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford and Oxford have accepted the offer. Google expects to scan 15 million books from those collections.

The issue for some is that Libraries that agree to work with Google do so on Google's terms, which involve access to the material only through the Google search engine, as well as restrictions on how much of it can be downloaded.

There are now two library camps; one is shaped by commercial concerns, the other by a commitment to openness, and which one will win is not clear.

The Man eBooker Prize

The Man Booker Prize is taking a bold step to reach the widest audience and are in negotiations with the British Council and publishers over digitizing the novels and making them available for all to read online for free. The objective is to engage with readers and non readers worldwide.

The are many questions not least whether the exercise will cannibalize sales or like recent music experiments with honesty boxes, boost sales and interest and engage with a new audience. If the digital copy is only a taster will readers then be induced to buy the book? Will they buy the book irrespective? Will it be only available online or to be downloaded to a reader? Will the files be DRM protected or open?

It strange that they seem to have waited until after the event to announce their intentions. We would have expected the agreements, process and mechanism to have been agreed with all parties before the event. As it stands it looks like a last minute ‘good idea’ that has not been fully thought out first. Think of the impact if it had been announce before the result and was there ready to go, the minute the result was declared.

We predict that others will now follow the idea through and it will be interesting to see where it goes next.

Democratisation or Self Publishing

So where do aspiring new authors go to get published?

They can try a publisher or an agent, but the slush pile gets bigger and the rejections more automated year on year. They can try projecting themselves on MySpace, Facebook and the social network scene, but again that is getting crowded and popularity doesn’t always reflect talent. They can become a celebrity and even get the book it written for them, or they can take what many once thought was the ultimate ego trip and self publish.

Does self publishing provide an easy route to fame and fortune or is it just another slushpile? Are there now new publisher alternatives?

We now read HarperCollins UK is to launch a new community site that is focused at encouraging new writers. Authonomy.com is set to launch in early 2008 in the UK, with the intention of developing it in other countries in the future. The aspiring writer uploads their work onto the site and others can read, make comments on it and also make recommendations. The objective appears to test the popularity of the works and the writers and cherry picking those that rise to the top for consideration for publishing. There are obvious questions about the protection of the authors’ ideas and ownership of the works posted. Will the works be exclusive to HarperCollins or become another source for others to trawl? Will the works be fully protected and how long will they be posted for? Who will be allowed to comment? We wait for the launch and the rules to be announced but given the Spinebreaker site we commented on earlier this week are we seeing the the democratisation of literature?

Its interesting to also read that at a time when publishers are reaching out to create social sites such as Authonomy and Spinebreakers the self publishing world is still not at that tipping point predicted by so many. IUniverse, one of the first digital self publishing ventures, is now being acquired by a competitor Author Solutions. There are many sites and services to self publish which offer a variety of services from editorial and design through to distribution but all have to be paid for by the author and none offer any guarantees. The list is significant; Grosvener House, Lulu, Publish and be Dammed, Trafford, Cafepress, etc. However even with open channels such as Amazon and cheaper POD technology success is hard to find. It’s unlikely that the investment is too much, or the actual process too complex, but more likely that selection, shaping, publicity and marketing are still key attributes to publishing.

Someone recently described publishers as venture capitalists and perhaps it also a case of who takes that risk that really counts.

Zero email Friday

The email has had a significant impact on all our lives and has made communication both a pain and a pleasure. Even with spam and junk email filters the volume is still growing. Research company IDC estimates that 40 billion personal emails, 17 billion alerts and a further 40 billion spam emails are sent each day. We are all return from holiday to a mountain of emails and spend valuable time trawling through them. So is there finally a backlash, a reawakening of how we should work and communicate on the horizon, or are we destined to sit at screens and stare with thumbs ready on our Blackberry and mobile phones.

A number of US firms have taken the bold step of extending the ‘dress down Friday’ to the ‘zero email Friday’. 150 engineers in Intel turned off their machines for 24 hours and opted to use the phone and as a result Intel will now repeat the initiative for the next month. US Cellular went further fining rebel users $1 for each email sent and had ‘wanted ‘ posters put up on the office walls and even required them to wear nametags with a big scarlet ‘E’ on them.

The ‘talk not type’ movement has also spread to Georgia based mail order company PBD Worldwide, accounts Deloitte & Touche and Pennsylvania State University, where students are pledging to take a day off emails. Students are apparently getting panic attacks from trying to keep up with their email. We all know that feeling.

I remember the first time I met Nigel Newton , CEO of Bloomsbury and the first five minutes were a tirade about the volume of email he received. That was ten years ago! It is claimed that the average US office worker receives about 140 emails a day, reads only half of them and responds to less than a quarter. A new habit is referred to as ‘email twitching’, or reading every email as it arrives. We are all guilty, we all need email and maybe the only escape is to get someone else to read the email for you!

A Democratisation of Penguins (Puffins? -ed)

The man who gave us the ‘long tail’, Chris Anderson, is now giving us the democratization of technology. An approach, which effectively extends the boundaries of innovation, out past to the enterprise and onto the web. Companies such as Lego and Proctor and Gamble are actively using the resources of people who are interested in what they do in order to enhance, develop and create new product. Best of all it can often cost them nothing and certainly less than having R&D staffers!

Anderson, along with his 8-year-old son developed a airborne surveillance device using Lego Mindstorm’s kit as processing and control foundation. They added a gyroscope, infrared vision for stability, GPS capability, a cell phone-based coordinate input scheme to guide the model and a basic imaging system to conduct "reconnaissance" at the destination. The data was then sent back over the same 3G network to the cell phone communications system.

This extension of technology enables organisations to think outside of their box and tap into enthusiast who will take them to a different place. The cost of Anderson’s UVA was only $1,000 compared to the multi million price tag for military UAVs. Lego effectively get the intellectual property for providing the Mindstorm kit.
So we then visited www.spinebreakers.co.uk, a Penguin owned web site which had been reviewed by Booksquare. We opened the site with some trepidation and found it ‘different’. This Penguin site has obviously been designed to appeal to youth and is edited by 13 to 18 year olds. The graphics are certainly hip, grey and lime green colours with clever image shots make an engaging feel, but why go here and not onto Bebo, Myspace, Facebook etc?

Children can become one of the team and to do so need to submit a review or short story and 50 words about why they want to be involved. It certainly offers something for everyone from book reviews to designing jackets.

For once the Penguin branding is discreet and if you blink you may miss it. So why come here and what’s in it for the young aspiring writer? Perhaps Penguin has found a way to democratise literature and harness new creative blood , monitor trends and hopefully not for free.

LongPen Reaches Across Restricted Borders

It was interesting to read today in the Times of some very insightful words about writing from Margret Atwood. She has recently added a new line to her cv: inventor. This inclusion is as a result of her much reviewed device called the LongPen which enables authors to appear virtually at book signings, through Internet technology which reproduces their writing in real time.

How ironic that we also read the same day that another less loved Canadian is using the same technology to perform his own remote book signings. Conrad Black is not allowed to leave the US while he awaits sentencing for fraud, but has been signing copies of his biography of Richard Nixon for a Toronto bookshop. What next, ‘The Prison Diaries’ from behind bars? What would Mr Archer have done with such an opportunity?

50 50, Ask the Audience, or Call a Friend?

On the eve of the Frankfurt Book Fair comes an interesting survey by them, that were published in today’s Bookseller.com. They surveyed 1,300 publishers, retailers, agents and libraries from around the world and came up with some interesting results. The results like so often lack clarity and relevance. 25% believe High street bookselling will not exist in 50 years, but that means 75% do. 4% believe publishers will be obsolete, but the term ‘publisher’ is very vague and can mean many things to many people. 11% thought the printed book will vanish, which means 89% again didn’t.

However, the most interesting results were over the size of change faced and who the dominant geographic force would be.

55.5%, thought that the industry would continue without any "catastrophic change". This majority obviously have not been watching the music industry’s value chain and previous business models fall apart. We are witnessing unprecedented changes in broadcasting, telephony, music, films, audio, education and all content and rights related industries, but still 55.5% believe books are different! It is not so much about the physical versus the digital book, it is about business model, relationships and in certain genre the opportunity to think outside the jacket in this digital age. Predicting who will thrive and who will survive is difficult and the only certainty is that there will be authors and readers and all between are up for grabs.

36% thought Europe would dominate the industry in the next decade whilst 32% said America and 26% China. The question one has to ask is, where was China ten years ago or even five years ago? What is relevant, is not who will dominate, but the impact of the shift towards true globalisation and potentially global ownership. Will China and emerging economies tolerate external ownership, or step up to take ownership themselves? China and India are clearly in the ascendancy. What happens when we also finally accept that territorial rights become unmanageable and global pricing starts to bite. The final interesting point here is one many have long known and that is the recognition that there is a publishing market outside the US.

Turning a Negative into a Positive

The selling of review copies has long been a practiced the world over. A good friend of ours, Fred Bass, the owner of that iconic bookstore The Strand in New York, has a whole basement full of them. Some even still have the letters from the publisher in them, or a stamp that says not for resell. Let’s be honest, these are unsolicited and the equivalent to some of junk mail.

So we read again of the beating of chests and fury, this time by the PMA in the US, at sites such as Abebooks, who are said to be carrying some 200,000 galleys and advanced reading copies for sale.

Digitisation offers an easy solution to this issue, but it is dependant on acceptance of digital files and also digital files being available. Will these be DRM protected and or water marketed? Will they be track able? Will they offer a two way dialogue, or just be scattered like corn seeds as is the practice today? Will the reviewers want to be auditable? Will the reviewer still want a physical copy? Many question and we are aware that these are now been discussed and pursued by some.

Given that some academic publishers accept that the volume of review, inspection, and advance reading copies could be 10% of a print run, it’s is also a question of reducing waste.

Zune Revamp

Microsoft is ramping up its ‘iTunes and Apple competitor’ Zune offer. The question are whether it is merely following in the shadows and whether it has something new and special to offer?

They have unveiled two new Zunes with redesigned ‘Zune Pad’ controllers and styling.They are offering a $250 enhanced version of the old model, with a 80GB hard drive and a smaller, lighter flash memory-based model with 4-GB for $150 or 8-GB for $200. The Zune's wireless networking can sync a Zune wirelessly to a PC, and if you send a song to another Zune owner, the song will not now automatically vanish from the other Zune after three days. The recipient can also send this song on to still other Zune owners,but can still only play it three times.

The Zune Marketplace will now sell DRM-free MP3 files, stock music videos, but will still not have TV shows or movies and a new online-community site called Zune Social will also enable file sharing.

Microsoft claim to have shipped 1.2 million units last year but these have little visibility and are far outnumbered by Apple’s growing iWorld. They even had to roll out Bill to support these announcements.

Instead of fighting the market on an open and multi entertainment platform they have continued their proprietary route, even to the point of being incompatible with their own ‘PlaysForSure’ format for purchased audio and video downloads, and have retained their own ‘Microsoft Points’ payment system.

So what’s special? Not a lot unless you can find another Zune user within sight to share files with and although a great feature not one to build a product around. Zune social doesn’t present that ‘must join’ factor and there are too many competitors who have better offers or stronger communities. Sorry the Zune lacks a USP and we can’t see being high on the Christmas list to Santa this year.

So who still has a Betamax Player?

So one year after all the hype we now find ourselves reading about another reincarnation. The new PRS505 Sony reader models are now available in either silver or blue and come with a 100 credits to be redeemed against classic titles. But lets get real the colour isn’t going to do it and neither are 100 classics.

The Readers have the capability to support text files, RTF, Adobe PDF documents, and allow users to convert Word docs for use on the Reader using software on their PCs. They can hold 160 books in their internal memory—with more storage available via memory cards and offer a battery life equal to about 7,500 page turns. It sells for around $300.

So what is the problem or should that read problems?

It’s a one trick pony. At a time when convergence is the word, Sony want us to buy a single use device. The price is still not attractive enough to make this a worthwhile gamble and who wants to be a the cutting edge when you know its not the answer.

It lacks iconic design and a market ‘want one’ fashion presence. The reader even with a new coloured shell is as appealing as those three wheeled scooters – great if you are a convert but not if you aren’t.

There isn’t the content in their proprietary BBeB DRM format and frankly why should there be. You would have thought they of all people would have learnt this lesson by now.

Who is their audience? The professional who needs lots of documents on a reader? Sorry they have notebooks, PDAs and other mobile devices that do this and more. The student who needs reference materials on hand? They can’t afford the luxury and even if they could their material is increasingly online, tied to applications and not in BBeB format. The young technophile? Sorry this is not a cool device and doesn’t play music, videos or games. The older reader who may actually want 100 classics? They are technology sensitive and aware of transient technology and the price isn’t right here too.

Imagine owning a formula 1 racing car but having no race track to drive it on, or owning a hybrid car which runs on special fuel that is on sold in a handful of garages. Being the only one in town and having very limited capability to use it is not a recipe for mass adoption. You need to trigger the demand and have the infrastructure to support it. Who, apart from a few sad executives tryingto impress, would buy a Sony Reader today?

Forget the technology, forget the inter-galactic sonybookstore - where is the book content, where is the market demand? Buying the Sony reader would be like buying a betamax machine just as the VHS camera is coming out. Sony has a brilliant track record of innovation, but also an unenviable track record of getting it wrong and misunderstanding market forces.

Roll on next year's model.

For What's it Worth

Today we read about that Oasis’ forthcoming single, Lord Don’t Slow Me Down, is to be released as a DRM-free MP3. Yesterday many bought the Travis new single plus 11 tracks with their Sunday Mail.

Now we find that Radiohead have followed that famous ‘honesty box’ ploy used by some restaurants where you pay what you believe the meal is worth. Radiohead are offering their new album ‘In Rainbows’ via an honesty box download which will be available 8 weeks ahead of the physical equivalent. You simply pay what you think it’s worth.

So the music industry finds itself trying to herd cats again. Forget Nasper, Kazza and the pirate P2P days, the artists are now leading the revolt and the industry appears but be like rabbits caught in the headlights. Who would invest in EMI and Universal today?

Radiohead are now seriously questioning their own relationship with their fans and the industry model. If you go to their site and click on the question mark beside the price field for ‘In Rainbows’ and it says, “It’s up to you.” Guess how many will pay more than a few pence? Guess how many will pay the full recommended price? In the restaurant trade the public often paid a fair price and often respected the approach and the fact that they were face to face with the staff. However, in the depersonalized world of the internet, decency may not be applicable and its down to what Radiohead fans think of Radiohead. Its going to be interesting to watch and irrespective of the outcome I would not like to be an executive at EMI, but again I never have.

A New Dawn for Travel

BBC Worldwide has purchased travel Publisher Lonely Planet.
This should not be a shock to anyone and reflects that we are now moving into a true multi media where certain verticals will move in different direction and form different alliances. Travel has long been identified as a sector which has huge digital potential and where there was a need to think outside the jacket. This move clearly takes Lonely Planet outside the jacket and lines it up with one of the best brand leaders in the media and rights business.

One only needs to look at the branding and merchandising opportunities of the likes of Doctor Who to see where travel could benefit. Linking travel programmes, travel documentaries from the likes of Palin and eco-factual works such as ‘Living Planet’ present huge opportunities. The BBC now have a travel platform that covers all media and virtual all angles. We must also recognise that BBC Worldwide is the powerhouse and commercial arm behind much of what is changing in the BEEB.

The real question now is whether the Lonely Planet brand is wide enough to embrace all as it is or whether we will see a brand repositioning which can appeal to a wider audience than Lonely Planet enjoys today. One thing is certain is that we will hear much more about the Lonely Planet brand. The question now is whether others will step in to give it competition or whether we have witnessed a significant step change in Lonely Planet fortunes.

It Just Makes Sense

Hats off to Alison Kennedy at Egmont, who is pioneering the grading of rating the forest sourcing of papers against a set of environmental criteria. The article in Saturday’s Telegraph was a wake up call to many and Alison came across well and could not be accused of ‘cashing in’ and ‘greenwash’. This programme is quietly changing the core product, the book, hitting an empathy with both readers and authors and costs no more than before. A quiet revolution, that should be promoted and adopted by all.
Some may say that the ebook is the ultimate eco friendly option, but manufacturing and disposing of the technology is far from eco-friendly. Some may say print on demand is a great way to reduce the volume and save the planet. However, we only need to have a smattering of science to realise that the printing process and the type of paper used here is a problem we may not wish to talk about.

18 years ago in a previous life, I was on the B&Q executive when we appointed our and the industry’s, first environmental controller. It was a bold step at the time and he had many issues to deal with, especially the sweat shops in Asia that produced many hardware lines. But it was a great step and way ahead of the current movement. It was also not an easy route with many conflicts, but it did start to clean up a lot of sourcing of base materials and lead to promoting water based paints and sustainable forest sourcing.

The interesting question we face is whether we can reduce the waste within our industry, the book miles, all those copies that are merely produced to promote the book, or those that end up making the return journey?

Congratulations on a Significant Coup

The news that Richard Charkin has left Macmillan and joined Bloomsbury is both interesting and intriguing. Jack Charlton when he was appointed as manager of his boyhood team, Newcastle, was asked if he would be there for life. His answer was an emphatic no and said that 5 years was the most he wanted and then it was time for someone new to continue the work and for him to move on. He did just that. Wise words, which are often misunderstood. Obviously these are words that are not lost on Richard.

It is It is a fantastic coup for Bloomsbury and one which will certainly leave a few in no doubt that the group will move with speed and purpose into the digital arena and potentially new markets. In his 10 years at Macmillan he built on the solid foundations and extended its reach into new technology and markets. It also signals the emergence of the new skill set that all publishers will have to embrace and the importance of that blend between technology and business that is all too often too far to either side.

I suppose the blog will now feature Bloomsbury books and authors and less global travel and board meeting schedules, but it will no doubt also have a fresh outlook and view of the challenges ahead. I would expect that Richard will play an even more prominent role the digital environment than he did before.

Congratulations Bloomsbury and Richard and don't give up the blog.

Author Care

Authors are the creators of the content the intellectual property that turns the wheels of the book business. The often all too forgotten heroes who make that connection and capture the imagination and interest of readers. So it great to see HarperCollins enabling them to communicate with the market through a web based toolset AuthorAssistant that enables them create their own pages.

Participating authors can include biographical information, blog posts, coming attractions, question and answers, photos, links to other articles and posts, browse inside widgets. They plan to add a video component and feeds to provide third-party syndication. Today the launch is with 40 Avon authors but it is planned to extend it to other imprints.

Social Networks Grow

Social network sites are clearly the in thing and are developing in many ways. Today we read that News Corporation is set to launch a mobile phone version of MySpace. The service will be advert supported free and enable users to transfer messages, comments and update blogs.

Separately, in that other social world of Facebook we hear of potential investors ready to table $300 to $500milion for just 5% of the company! That will give the company a valuation of potentially around $10 billion! Last September, Yahoo offered $900 million in order to acquire Facebook. An offer rejected by Mark Zuckerberg,(pictured) its 23-year-old chief executive Zuckerburg. Today Facebook has more than 40 million members, up from 9 million last year.

This time the investors are no other than Microsoft and Google. Facebook’s valuation could go even higher if the two rivals create a competitive bidding war. It is also rumoured that Facebook is seeking a minimum valuation of $10 billion but it go as high as $13 billion. Not bad for a company which Richard Greenfield, a Pali Research analyst, earlier this year, estimated generated revenues between $60 million to $96 million, with no real profit. Much of that revenue comes from a year-old advertising relationship with Microsoft.

One Laptop per Child

The One Laptop per Child programme has not received the backing many expected and has experienced what one may say is the difference between getting the handshake and PR and having a cheque in the hand.

The ambitious programme is being driven by the founding member of MIT media lab Nick Negroponte and is based on de-cluttering the laptop down to the basics, providing free open software and creating a computer that is practical, rugged, affordable and that has the potential to transform third world education. The early reviews have been glowing, and mass production is set to start next month.

Earlier, Mr. Negroponte had hoped for orders for three million laptops, but those pledges have fallen short. Orders of a million each from Nigeria and Brazil did not materialize, however Peru, for example, will take 250,000 over the next year and Mexico and Uruguay have made firm commitments. Western countries had also backed the programme with Italy having agreed to purchase 50,000 for distribution in Ethiopia.
Each country will have its own agenda with many using them to educate their children and substituting textbooks for online reading via the high resolution screens.



So why the slow take-up? The answer is probably as complex as politics itself and may not be openly supported by all technology companies and education suppliers. To give the programme a boost a new campaign has now been launch called “Give 1 Get 1,” in which Americans and Canadians can buy two laptops for $399. The give one to a child in a developing nation, and the other one will be shipped to the purchaser by Christmas. It is hoped that many will donate the extra to local schools and organisations.

The laptops are targeted to be $100 a machine, and sturdy enough to withstand harsh conditions in developing world, are energy efficient, with power consumption being 10% or less of a conventional laptop.

It’s a shame that the players can’t come together, governemts, development and aid agencies, teachers, publishers and the western public to make this happen. At a time when the UK booktrade debates whether there will be a digital iPod moment in the market we find ourselves waiting and not acting to make ‘one laptop per child’ provide the difference and be a true iPod moment for so many.

One More Cup of Coffee Before I go

So where is the money in the music business? Where do artists make their bucks?
Yesterday the channel was clearly defined and the money came through selling records and although the model still holds water times are clearly changing. On the artist side we have seen Paul McCartney turn his back on EMI and sell his latest album through Starbucks, Prince gave further sign of the times with his Mail on Sunday giveaway of his latest album and now we hear that Madonna wants to get out of her Warner deal, even if it costs 50 million, and line up with her tour promoters. For the major acts bums on seats and merchandising make money adding music to this make better sense that leaving with the ailing record producers.

We have also raised the question on free ad paid downloads from Sprial Frog and the growing no DRM movement. Times certainly look bleak in the traditional music houses!
Now Starbucks plan to give away 50 million free digital songs to customers in all of its domestic coffee houses to promote a new wireless iTunes music service that's about to be launched in the US. Between October 2nd and November 7th their 10,000 U.S. stores will hand out about 1.5 million "Song of the Day" cards each day. The cards can be redeemed at Apple Inc.'s online iTunes Store for 37 artists which feature songs from the first two to sign on with Starbucks' Hear Music label Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell along with Joss Stone, Dave Matthews, Annie Lennox and Band of Horses. The first song will be Bob Dylan's "Joker Man."

Starbucks will also start selling iTunes digital release cards that allow the download of a full album and bonus material. KT Tunstall's "Drastic Fantastic" will be one of the first two featured albums to be retailed this way. Starbucks also will offer a limited-edition re loadable purchasing card that includes two free iTunes downloads when customers register their cards online.

The from October Starbuck’s icon will also light up on the Apple iPhone whenever a user is within range of a Starbucks shop's Wi-Fi signal and consumers with the devices or a laptop with iTunes software will also be able to use the signal for free to browse and buy other iTunes music. This service will be launched in Starbucks 600 shops in Seattle and New York and in San Francisco in early November with plans for it to be in a quarter of its US stores by the end of 2009.

So what does this mean to the booktrade? We may see what many believe is the inevitable – STARBOOKS. In a crowded coffee market it is obvious that these savy retailers need to broaden their offer, build further loyalty and use their muscle to offer new innovative services. Do we think books are different? Today they may be but as digital options increase then so does the threat of the new entrant. As for the artist versus the author, who would have thought Stabucks would woo artists such as McCartney and Mitchell.

http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/pressdesc.asp?id=790

Borderline

Welcome to Borders beta web site http://beta.bordersstores.com/online/store/Home. It looks clean and fresh and the navigation also looks good.

I liked the ‘checkout the availability for store pickup’ as you can select your book and pick it up at the airport – smart. The bookshelf and record copy layout looks good but not so sure about the search which maybe is a bit clunky. But I did find it interesting as it told me that in music they have 293K compact discs, 300 DVD audio, 5 box sets, 355 dual discs and 98 super audio CDs but no downloads. Again I soon got the bug and discovered that they have; 390K hardbacks, 797K paperbacks, 24K audiobooks, 76 box sets and 2K board books and even listed some special features with 3 braille books 522K illustrated, 6K abridged and what everyone wants to hear 187K bestsellers and even the split of number of titles within each price band!
The lack of inside views on books and audio samples was a little surprising given that it is becoming accepted that they are a must and the music sample were there and well presented.

It is clear that the chains and retailers are now taking on Amazon but that they are still the ones pushing the envelope.

IBM Enter the Office Again

One day after the Microsoft bashing from the European Commission comes the inevitable first skirmishes of the potential pending wars. IBM is announcing IBM Lotus Symphony, at an event today in New York. The programs which will compete with Microsoft’s Office suite, Word, Excel and PowerPoint and will be available as free downloads from the I.B.M. Web site.
IBM will also be open-source software developed in a consortium called OpenOfiice.org whose free office software has long been available but has not yet made much progress against Microsoft’s Office. However IBM are banking of the power of their brand and backing to make the difference. IBM is joining forces with the likes of Google who already offer an alternative open-source desktop productivity programs as part of its Google Pack. Google also supports the same document formats in its online word processor and spreadsheet service.

The critical element will be the document format used, called the OpenDocument Format. It makes digital information independent of the program, like a word processor or spreadsheet and is based on XML. Microsoft has its own document format, called Office Open XML and unlike the OpenDocument Format, backed by I.B.M., Google, Sun and others, they failed to get it approved by the standards organization.

So it’s back to those days when IT department spent resource evaluating Office against Lotus and Wordperfect. But free and XML approved standard are powerful arguments.

Who do you turn to?

The other day I was clearing out some old journals and came across the Publishing in the 21st Century research papers that were sponsored by VISTA between 1996 and 2001. Having been honoured to be involved in the exercise I have always held the research as both informative and often groundbreaking. In fact the 2001 research paper on digitalisation made fascinating reading. It could have been written yesterday the issues it raised and prediction it made. The editorial team of consultants lead by Mark Bide and Mike Shatzkin I believe were second to none in the areas they covered and experience they brought to the table. Alas the 2001 paper was the last to be published.

Consultancy can come from many different quarters and will inevitably be bias to what people know and what they specialise or are interested in. You don’t ask a logistics expert to advise you on rights management and visa versa and the Publishing value chain is complex and covers many disciplines.
So where do publishers go now for digitisation help?

It isn’t always easy to find the perfect independent consultancy match and that is even a greater problem in a market where the different sectors are often moving in different directions and at a different pace. Independent advice today is becoming rare with many consultants having to juggle conflicts of interest.

I believe that the work that Mark Bide and Mike Shatzkin performed earlier this year on DAD (Digital Asset Distribution) research was a great start to demystifying the digital minefield for many. It is ironic that it is the same team we used at VISTA and I now hope that the likes of Klopotek will sponsor more such independent initiatives to help educate and provide impartial guidance to the market.

Audiobooks Move Forward DRM Free

We said that it would happen but we didn’t expect it so soon but the nail in the DRM audio coffin is now firmly being hammered home. eMusic is to offer over a thousand MP3 audiobook titles from publishers such as Hachette, Penguin, Naxos and Random House. Random will watermark their audio files and monitor file-sharing services for abuses. Again something we have been predicting.

This is a significant step and follows similar moves by the music industry. At last we may well start to see the digital audio demand we predicted in the Brave New World report and the demised of the proprietary DRM monopoloy of Audiable. It also clears the way to move away from the book club model and importantly set a price point that the consumer can relate to.

Well done eMusic and watch out for many more announcements and deployment in this exciting audio download market, as the shackles that have inhibited so long fall away. We would predict that this is not going to be the solution store or buying model but it certainly will shake the tree!

Digitisation Does Not Start at the Back Door

The question of what to do in the digital world and when to do it perplexes many today. Different sectors are clearly moving at different speeds and in different directions and the questions are still very focused on the consumer demand and that all elusive ebook reader.

Last week Elsevier and Oxford University Press launched major programmes to migrate e-book versions of front and backlist print titles onto their digital platforms. Elsevier made 4,000 backlist e-books available on its online journals site Science-Direct and aim to put another 4,000 backlist titles plus some 700 new titles onto the platform in 2008. OUP plan to publish 200 academic monographs in parallel with the print versions on its subscription-only site, Oxford Scholarship Online.
These moves may appear small but they are part of a growing migration that is becoming stand in the academic world. This sector realise, that the current demand from intuitions is for online ‘stuff’ and if they don’t move, it clearly places them at a growing disadvantage. Leaders such as Taylor and Francis are clearly making and benefiting from the digital transition today. Academic publishers are aware of the threats and opportunities from new entrants.

However as we have long agued, publishers need to change their upstream processes, and to digitalise these so that they have titles which they can quickly deploy in any which way. This change is starting to take place and again academic, reference and educational publishers are leading they way. Customised books are become a reality and digitisation is starting to replace the old analogue process. Online libraries are also become common and many are starting to look at books, chapters, articles and think outside the jacket.

Publishers should be less obsessed by the end product being digital and more focused at digitising the process from manuscript to finished product. This is where the benefit case is strongest, the asset development has its greatest opportunity to maximise its value and where market change can be kick-started. Converting backlist isn’t going to be economic unless the sell, digitising typesetting is a start but its at the finished product stage and often misses out on the digital promotion and marketing opportunities. Lets not forget rights, which in the true digital world should be tagged to every digital asset and track able but in today’s world are often sitting in a separate transactional database and lost in space and after all publishing is a rights business.

World's Greatest Bookstore?

The ‘world greatest ebookstore’ has been announced. Is it Amazon, Google Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo or any of the usual suspects? No it has been announced by the Athens based Floras Group. Are these major players in the global book trade? The answer that they own Greek's third biggest bookselling chain, have 12 bookshops and revenues of 10 million EUR. Seems a tall order. So what are they doing that is so special that they will succeed where others havn’t and on a global marketplace where their brand is unknown.

They plan to create a global network of wholesalers and booksellers in 60 countries around the world, with access to more than 30m titles. The reality is that there isn’t 30 million digital ebooks available today! Today they claim 8 million titles from 8 countries but this includes China and their def, but will that provide the consumer with any added any value added differential? Floras aims to have one exclusive partner per country and each will only supply books produced in their territory, sowhy have a global infrastructure if it is to be restricted by territory. It is true that the current demographic landscape of the world is transient and multicultural, incorporating millions of migrants, but is that enough to sustain global demand of what is often indigenous product that is today in a physical format?

Like many of the announcements that appear almost daily it is interesting to think about but it is difficult to see this going anywhere fast.

News or noise? Noise.

Books for Free?

Books for free where everyone gets paid, author, publisher and retailer! This may sound far fetched but it is happening today. The money will not come from the consumer but from the likes of Ikea, Walt Disney, Nike, Pepsi etc. We have seen the emergence of the advertising model all over the internet from Google to social networking sites, we have seen it spread to the music industry through new ventures such as Spiral Frog. Well now it could be entering the shelves of bookselling!

We have seen and reported on the move to bring an advertising based model into the medical journal market but this one is different in that it is customisable. The consumer selects the advertiser!

Shanghai-based Bookgg is exploring a new advertisement powered free book business model. The consumer selects the book and then selects the sponsors with their placement on your book until the price of the book drops to zero. The book is then printed and posted.

For every free book, you need to have a book ticket, which you get once you have registered. You then earn further book tickets by referring new users or orders or buying into an account, which will issue new tickets every month.

Every advertising sponsor can only be selected by an individual once so promoting you to spread your sponsors and in effect find out about others. The sponsor receives all personal information.

Finally the books are printed on demand by Bookgg and contain your sponsors adverts.

So does this make sense? In the Chinese market it probably does fit with both their culture and also the exploding distributed POD market where many bookstores are using POD technology. But will it influence the western markets? It is novel but raises many questions on copyright, royalties sales tracking and accountability and the author could have serious concerns about exactly who they wish to have sponsor their work.

Another Nail in DRM?

Microsoft has patented via United States Patent 20040204943 a digital watermaking technology refered to as Stealthy Audio Watermarking. Is it important? Well given the disarray in the music DRM world and the lack of ‘open’ audio DRM - the answer must be YES! Below is that actual patent abstract as described at www.freepatentsonline.com .

‘Described herein is audio watermarking technology for inserting and detecting watermarks in audio signals, such as a music clip. The watermark identifies the content producer, providing a signature that is embedded in the audio signal and cannot be removed. The watermark is designed to survive all typical kinds of processing and malicious attacks. In one described implementation, a watermarking system employs chess spread-spectrum sequences (i.e., "chess watermarks") to improve the balance of positive and negative chips in the watermarking sequences. The balance is not imposed in an orderly fashion, which might make the watermark sequence more easily detectable to an attacker, but in a pseudo-random fashion. In that way, better sequence balance is achieved while preserving its randomness for an attacker without knowledge of the keys. In another described implementation, a watermarking system employs an energy-level trigger to determine whether to skip encoding of a portion of a watermark within a given time span of an audio clip. If a large discrepancy in energy levels exists over a given time frame, then the frame is not watermarked, to avoid audible time-dispersion of artifacts due to spectral modifications (which are similar to "pre-echo" effects in audio coding). In another described implementation, a watermarking system begins encoding of a watermark at a variable position after the beginning of an audio clip.’

This now starts to offer a real alternative to both DRM but also for royalty tracking and collection. It is early days but if Microsoft have a deployable solution it could become pervasive very quickly.

A Facebook with Wrinkles

In the Brave New World report we intimated that the ‘silver surfers’ should not be forgotten as they had; higher disposable income, more leisure time, propensity to reading and were signing up to broadband services and the internet in droves. Some may say that targeteting the youth market was like herding cats. The New York Times today take the viewpoint further and reports that Silicon Valley’s technology investors and entrepreneurs, are starting a host of new social networking sites aimed at baby boomers and ‘graying’ computer users. They are creating Facebook with wrinkles!


The sites such as Eons, Rezoom, Multiply, Maya’s Mom, Boomj, TeeBeeDee and Boomertown are starting to attract attention and big investment dollars.
In the US there are around three times as many silver surfers (78 million boomers) than the number of teenagers. According to a market research firm Nielsen/NetRatings, the number of Internet users over 55 is roughly the same as those who are aged 18 to 34. Older user will also want a different experience and not always feel comfortable with the younger and hip MySpace, Facebook, Bebo or Friendster offers. Their social conversation and the topic too the older user wants to discuss will also be different to the teenager. Its also doubtful whether they will get a fulfilling experience engaging with the teenagers on their subjects.

These developments should be very important to publishers and are sustainable ones which support their current reader base. The question is whether the young marketing turks can and will relate to the needs of an older audience or continue to chase ‘me too’ offers?

Howlin' Wolf

What’s that noise? Is it a Beluga Whale, or a Boreal Owl, or maybe a Yosemite Toad? Maybe it’s the new ringtone from the Center for Biological Diversity.

Whilst the music world is starting to grapple with their new ‘ringles’. A new industry initiative to engage with their audience through combined singles and ringtones, others have clearly gone for something a little more unique and green.
Ringles are expected sold as a CD with a slip-sleeve cover containing three songs. The songs will be a hit and maybe remix and an older track and importantly one ringtone. The idea is encourage consumers to buy singles in the store as well as ringtones and enable stores to get involved in the ringtone phenomenon. So far the ringle inventor, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group are going to be the first to market and Sony plans to release 50 titles during October and November, while UMG will have up to 20 titles available.

Meanwhile back in the jungle, the Centre for Biological Diversity will let consumers download the haunting hoots, sensational songs and crazy croaks of endangered species from around the world to your mobile phone, for free. You can also download free wallpapers and screensavers. This is a great way to raise the awareness of the current plight of many endangered species.

Who wants a ringle when you can have a special noise that will certainly make everyone else wonder exactly what’s in your pocket and who's ringing you?

IPhone One million Units and Growing

Apple has just sold its millionth iPhone which it achieved in less than three months after it’s debut. Ok some may have found fault with it and Apple has just cut a third off its price down to $399 but its still to launch in the UK and other markets and it took two years for Apple to sell a million iPods!

Steve Jobs last week offered a $100 credit to customers who paid $599 for the iPhone when it came out June 29. The cut and credits have further increased iPhone demand. Apple now predicts that it expects to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008 to take a 1 percent share of the mobile phone market.

We stand by our prediction that the iPhone will be the biggest thing to hit the market this year and will have a fundamental impact on all mobile devices and services.

Quick and Dirty Snippets

Holtzbrinck Publishers has launched an online website offering free podcasts, called Quickanddirtytips.com. The website clearly suffers from an identity crisis and looks to have been dreamt up by some young hip marketing executive who wants to reach out to a mix of people from those setting up their own business, mothers wishing to learn about parenting, those wishing to improve their grammar, or invest and manage their money or wishing to create a second life at Second Life.

The short podcast often start with a disclaimer, followed by and advert and if you survive this, then the actual content. The site grew out of the publisher's relationship with podcaster turned author Migon Fogarty. She may have been downloaded millions of times and may be an expert podcaster, but the experience was very bland and uninspiring and very hard to take seriously. That’s without the background music and sound effects!

We are the first to support experiments and new and innovative ways to exploit digital opportunities but this takes a traditional publisher out of their comfort zone.

Medical Journals for Free

Where can the medical world learn about the latest practices and technology and know that these articles are valid and have been peer reviewed? The answer has been the very successful STM journal market. A great business model where in the main the material is given to the publisher , its reviewed for free and then sold at often high ticket prioces back to the institutions. We all know that the publisher is essential to this process and that the value reflects the quality of the material, its currency and authority.

Open Access has been steadily gaining ground and has questioned why material can’t be free to all after a period of time, let alone on release. According to Manhattan Research, the number of visits by physicians to online medical journals has increased 27% over the last two years, while readers of the printed versions declined 14%. So the switch to online is very real but pricing has always been and remains a thorny issue, but now comes news that times may be changing. Elsevier’s medical and scientific journal business is profitable, but revenue is flat and with online readership growing faster than print subscriptions the obvious question is how can you change the business model? Interestingly with only a very small amount of pharmaceutical marketing spend being online and with much more still going to consumer advertising on television and to reps who visit doctors there is the answer.

Reed Elsevier who publish more than 400 medical and scientific journals, has now introduced, www.OncologySTAT.com, that gives doctors free access to the latest articles from 100 of its own pricey medical journals which include The Lancet. It plans to change its business model from a subscription one to an advertising based model. It will ask professional readers to register their personal information and preferences and in exchange will give them immediate access to the latest related articles. Elsevier hopes to sign up 150,000 professional readers within the next 12 months and to attract advertising and sponsorships from pharmaceutical companies with drugs to sell.

Future sites are obvious and may focus on specialties like neurology, cardiology and infectious diseases.

There may be many questions still to be answered and the final solution may take time to evolve but the shift top the new model poses many opportunities for many publishers and is similar to the path taken by other media channels.

eBooks - the Next Chapter

The gloves come off and the digital wars really start this year.

Amazon is set to launch the much hyped and long overdue Kindle ebook reader with rumours rife that this will be in October (surprise surprise Frankfurt). The rumours also predict the price at $400 to $500 and that it will wirelessly connect to an e-book store on Amazon’s site. The device will also connect and download books and periodicals, and browse the Web, without connecting to a computer. It also has a keyboard, so its users can take notes when reading or navigate the Web to look something up.

The real key issue is the use of the Mobibook format which is proprietary to Amazon and which raises the format war issues between OEB, Mobi and Adobe PDF. Publishers who backed a single format may find themselves having to revisit that decision. After all if Amazon can’t make ebooks work who can?

So Amazon enters the iTunes world for books, with a device, the catalogue, the connection and of course the brand.

Also, Google plans to do what we all new it would do and be a bookseller. It is strongly rumoured that it now plans to start charging users for full online access to the digital copies of books in its database. Publishers will set the prices for their own books and share the revenue with Google.

What it planed with the masses of content it has hovered up from every library in its content vacuum exercise remains to be seen but the likelihood that these will not sit alongside the current titles is hard to believe. We now sit back and wonder how many rights queries will be raised.

The hands of Steve Jobs who yesterday announced Apple’s new iPod and Microsoft and its book programme are still unclear but it seems inevitable that they will follow.

Customised Childrens Books

HarperCollins together with publishing partner Penwizard are working with Noddy license-owner Chorion to launch printed "books on demand" with the first personalised books for children's favourite, Noddy. Consumers will be able to personalise characters and text in books ordered online and also choose from three Noddy adventures to create a book online at www.mynoddybook.co.uk. They can include a child's name, hairstyle and colour, eye colour and skin tone to create an image of the child within the book. They can also add a personal message and it can be printed in several languages.


Not only can you configure your own Noddy book but there are other stories too! Personally I tried the football story. I entered my name, my club and configured the image in the right shirt (blue and white stripes, black shorts, whites socks. Then I had to name the manager and two players and select and image for all plus a message. Then presented at checkout to but. Drat I couldn’t see what I was buying, not even a ‘browse inside’ standard look and feel. I didn’t know how many pages, what the story was about. Drat at £15 I can live without the fantasy! But it looks a great idea and certainly an interesting experiment to follow.

What do you want to call it?

Some of us have always struggled to see textural works as books or journals and remember the shock and horror of many when all works were first referred to as ‘product’ or worse still ‘stuff’. But the reality is that it is hard to keep these fine lines of definition when the works themselves are being digitally exploded. Books have always come in many formats, or renditions and often belong to a series or have associated works. Today there are now many more digital formats and as with training course packs and reference works, they are now also being fragmented within the works themselves. Journals were always broken down into issues and articles but in the online world the referential linking to supplemental information is very real.

Ingram Digital Group, and Swets, a leading worldwide subscription services company, have announced a joint initiative which combines the features of Ingram’s MyiLibrary and Swets offers, to provide organizations a single access interface to manage both their journal subscriptions and eBooks.

It is clearly a step forward in breaking down the demarcation barriers between subscription and purchased product and the article and book worlds. We also see others such as Cengage (previously Thomson Learning EMEA) starting to combine their article and book offers within services such as BizEd Premier. Others, such as in the travel sector, are starting to combine multimedia not as an afterthought, but into the original design and development. We are clearly entering the world of stuff or whatever we want to call it.

The Race to Drop DRM

The wars between Bezos and Jobs are starting and the first salvos are not to be books, but music downloads and the area that Bezos had previously given to iTunes. As we reported in our blog, ‘The Cat is out the Bag’ on 2nd July this year, this month Amazon.com will launch an online music download service. It plans to sell about 1m tracks from record companies Universal Music Group and EMI as well as songs from a number of independent labels.

So what’s special? Well as expected the price will be keen, charging $0.99 for new and popular songs and $0.89 for others, while albums are expected to cost between $7.99 and $9.99. So the price is better but prices can always be undercut.
The interesting fact is that as we noted in our blog that Amazon are doing it without DRM. Jobs already wants to go the DRM free route, but will iTunes still be a destination store if DRM is not an issue and aopens up a real competitor in the market?

If we look at audiobooks it is virtually guaranteed that it will end up following music as far as DRM. What will that do to Audioble who have built their platform on a technology offer that is looking shakier by the month? Audio DRM free is already avialble on public domain works from Naxos and Silksounds so the writing is clearly on the wall there.

We always said that books are different. One question is whether they actually will be seen that way in the market? The other question is the role of watermark technology and its place in a DRM diluted world.