Jenn Webb
Jenn Webb is a veteran of the newspaper industry turned freelance scribe, editor and researcher. She is a nerd with a passion for publishing, technology and cultural disruption.
Publishing News: Two publications shift focus from print to digital
Newsweek ends print, The Guardian hires a digital strategy director, libraries own Random House ebooks, and Kindles go to school.
Here are a few stories from the publishing space that caught my attention this week.
Navigating the print to digital shift
After 79 years of print production, U.S. weekly news magazine Newsweek will be shutting down its printing presses and going all-in on digital by the end of the year. Darrell Etherington reports at TechCrunch that the final print edition will publish on December 31, 2012, and the digital edition of the magazine will be renamed Newsweek Global. Etherington quotes a memo from Newsweek editor Tina Brown explaining the thought process behind the move:
“Currently, 39 percent of Americans say they get their news from an online source, according to a Pew Research Center study released last month. In our judgment, we have reached a tipping point at which we can most efficiently and effectively reach our readers in all-digital format. This was not the case just two years ago. It will increasingly be the case in the years ahead.”
There is much speculation as to whether or not this strategic move will succeed. Felix Salmon at Reuters argues in no uncertain terms that it’s not going to work:
“Once upon a time, Newsweek was a license to print money; from here on in, it will be a drain and a distraction. Merging it into the Daily Beast never made a huge amount of sense, and now it’s being de-merged: instead, its journalism ‘will be supported by paid subscription and will be available through e-readers for both tablet and the Web.’ … The chances that Newsweek will succeed as a digital-only subscription-based publication are exactly zero. If you had a team of first-rate technologists and start from scratch trying to create such a beast, you’d end up with something pretty much like Huffington — which lasted exactly five issues before bowing to the inevitable and going free. “
In somewhat related digital publishing news, there were rumors recently that The Guardian would be ending its print publication to fully embrace digital. These rumors were solidly squashed, but Guardian News & Media is making a move to put digital front and center: this week, the company appointed its first ever digital strategy director.
According to the press release, Zeit Online chief editor Wolfgang Blau will begin his new postion April 1, 2013, and “will work across GNM’s editorial and commercial teams, helping them to grow global audiences and revenues by developing new digital platforms that deepen reader engagement and provide new opportunities to commercial partners.” A spokesman from GNM told Robert Andrews at PaidContent, “We have never had a single person in charge of digital strategy. Given the scale of our digital audience (30.2 million monthly uniques, according to the last comScore), it’s clearly time.”
Publishing News: Judge rules fair use in Authors Guild v. HathiTrust
Summary judgement in favor of HathiTrust, Arment's magazine experiment, and 10 steps to a publishing reformation.
Here are a few stories from the publishing space that caught my attention this week.
HathiTrust book scanning ruled fair use
Last week, Google reached a settlement agreement with McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin, John Wiley & Sons, and Simon & Schuster over its book-scanning project. The Authors Guild was none too happy about the settlement, as it may not bode well for its pending lawsuit against Google. This week, as the Authors Guild called upon the DOJ to review whether or not the terms of the settlement, which were not disclosed, violate Federal antitrust law, the group suffered yet another setback: Judge Harold Baer ruled in favor of the HathiTrust Digital Library in Authors Guild v. HathiTrust, ruling that the libraries that gave books to Google to scan are protected under the principle of fair use.
Mathew Ingram at GigaOm argued this week that the authors are standing on the wrong side of the book-scanning issue. He points out that Judge Baer’s decision was a summary judgement, meaning that the judge felt the arguments for fair use were strong enough to make a trial unnecessary. Ars Technica’s Timothy B. Lee takes a nice look at the factors the court considers in fair use cases and which held the most weight in Judge Baer’s decision.
Law professor James Grimmelmann noted that this ruling together with last week’s settlement might be “a moment for a reevaluation of the Authors Guild’s suit against Google.” Ingram and Lee both point out that Google’s fair use argument might not be as strong as HathiTrust’s, but Lee stresses the nuance of the decision may be a positive sign for Google:
“The libraries’ fair use argument is somewhat stronger than Google’s because they are non-profit organizations with fundamentally educational missions. But significantly, Judge Baer did not rely heavily on this fact in siding with the libraries. Instead, he focused on the transformative nature of the libraries’ use. And since Google is making virtually the same use of its own scanned copies of the books, it’s a safe bet that there are some happy lawyers in Mountain View this evening.”
Publishing News: Google and publishers settle lengthy legal battle
Google settles with publishers, publishers are getting back to actual business, news gets mobile, and Google wants to charge for content.
Here are a few stories from the publishing space that caught my attention this week.
Publishers and Google reach an agreement to disagree
Seven years of litigation came to a close this week as Google reached a settlement agreement with McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin, John Wiley & Sons, and Simon & Schuster. Hayley Tsukayama at the Washington Post reports:
“Under the settlement, the publishers … will be able to choose whether or not to make work that Google has already scanned available for the project. If they choose to make the material available, Google will provide a digital copy for the publisher’s personal use. If they choose not to participate, Google will remove the material. Going forward, publishers can negotiate directly with Google to allow additional material to be included in the database.”
Claire Cain Miller at the New York Times notes that all questions regarding Google’s digitization project are not answered: Google has yet to come to an agreement with the Authors Guild about copyright infringement issues with its book-scanning project, and the issue of orphan works still remains unaddressed. The settlement, Miller writes, “essentially allows both sides to agree to disagree, and gives publishers the right to keep their books out of Google’s reach.”
Publishing News: B&N improves its ecosystem
B&N Nook HD tablets launch, with Nook Video on deck; Bjarnason argues against web-based ebook formatting; and taxes won't save journalism.
Here are a few stories from the publishing space that caught my attention this week.
B&N pursues the “low-end tablet throne”
Barnes & Noble’s new HD tablet launch was the headline news this week. Reuters reports B&N introduced a 7-inch Nook HD tablet for $199 and a 9-inch Nook HD+ tablet for $269 — a price point B&N CEO William Lynch called a “wow price point.” Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps told Reuters the devices were a big improvement over earlier iterations and that they even “one-up Amazon in some areas.”
Laura Hazard Owen took an in-depth look at the tablets over at GigaOm and outlines a few of the improved areas. First, B&N is looking to improve discoverability with the new devices and bring the tablet shopping experience a bit closer to the in-store experience. Owen reports that readers can browse the store from inside ebooks to discover additional titles by that book’s author and similar titles in the genre. B&N also is launching Nook Channels to help readers discover books that are similar to other books they’ve liked. Owen reports the channels are curated collections of books with 40 to 50 titles — many of which are curated by B&N’s in-store booksellers. There also will be a new “Your Nook Today” button on the Nook home screens, which most notably will provide book recommendations based on the device’s content.
B&N also announced plans to launch a Nook-branded video store this fall, called Nook Video. Lauren Goode at All Things Digital has the need-to-know info on the service. Goode writes that it won’t be video subscription service, but will offer rentals and download purchases for streaming, and all content will be stored in the Nook Cloud. Goode also highlighted an interesting feature regarding owned physical DVDs:
“Nook Video will also create and store digital copies of the DVDs that you normally play on UltraViolet and Blu-ray players. So if you purchase a Blu-ray or UV DVD and sync your console with your Nook Video account, it will create a digital copy in your Nook Cloud. You could then, theoretically, watch it on another gadget, via the Nook app.”
Kind of like iTunes Match for DVDs. Joe Arico at Mobiledia argues that the Nook Video announcement takes the new Nook HD tablets to the next level and fills a crucial gap in the B&N ecosystem, making B&N “much more of a legitimate contender for the mid and low-end tablet throne.”
Applications of altmetrics allow for nuanced innovation in publishing
The digital transformation in publishing is bringing forth more than new reading platforms, gadgets and distribution options — it also brings a wealth of data publishers have never before had access to, data that can be applied to new marketing and production strategies, and used to help create more efficient business models.
As data becomes more and more central to publishing ecosystems, traditional methods of metric collection and analysis are proving insufficient. This need for new measurement techniques has given rise to a new metrics approach called “alternative metrics.” I reached out to Todd Carpenter, Executive Director of NISO, to find out what’s behind the changing data needs and more about how altmetric applications can benefit publishers. Carpenter will explore this topic further at TOC Frankfurt on October 9, 2012. Our interview follows.
What are alternative metrics?
Todd Carpenter: Alternative metrics — referred to as “altmetrics” — are a suite of assessment criteria and measures that are being developed, particularly in the scientific and academic communities, to assess the importance of a particular work of scholarly output in a new way.
Traditional metrics have been downloads, citations, or sales — generally based on publication-level data. For example, the Thomson Reuters Impact Factor, one of the most widely used metrics in scholarly publishing, measures quality at the journal level by measuring the number of citations to it in other journal articles. As academic publishing has expanded and diversified, these traditional metrics have been increasingly criticized for issues such as their granularity (i.e., measuring at the publication level, not the item level), or their bias toward citation, which is a common practice among researchers but doesn’t reflect more applied, practical, or public use.
The scope of measures that could be considered altmetrics is actually quite broad, ranging from analysis of usage data to social media references; Google Page Rank; deep statistical data analysis techniques, such as betweenness centrality; and other relatedness statistical measures. Also considered for inclusion in alternative metrics are measures of non-traditional types of content production, such as the release of scientific data sets, blog posting, or social media activity — none of which are addressed in traditional metrics.
Publishing News: Control over data is where the real war is being fought
The ebook price war is a "red herring," copyright needs the public's attention, and Wal-Mart (finally) breaks up with Amazon.
Here are a few stories that caught my attention this week in the publishing space.
Publishers, price is a distraction — focus on data control
Suw Charman-Anderson at Forbes took a look this week at Alison Flood’s report at The Guardian on the ebook price wars in the U.K., which are “prompting concerns from writers that the ‘relentless downward pressure on book prices’ could lead to industry ruin.” According to Flood’s report, authors and others in the industry are concerned that readers will get conditioned to these bargain basement prices, thus devaluing ebooks, and expect pricing at levels independent bookstores can’t afford to sustain.
Charman-Anderson argues that readers are smarter than that: “[t]he whole concept of sales, coupons, discounts and price wars is that the consumer gets something that’s worth more than the price paid, and they do so knowing full well that they’ve got a bargain. That’s what a bargain is.” She also argues that all these concerns over ebook price wars are a “red herring” diverting attention from the real problem. Referring to a post by Nick Harkaway at Futurebook, Charman-Anderson writes:
“Harkaway basically says that publishers need to become retailers in order to regain control over customer data, and he’s absolutely right. …. The value of customer data cannot be underestimated. Retail these days isn’t just about buying and selling; it’s about what additional value you can offer your customers based on the information you have about them.”
“The ebook price war is not the problem,” says Charman-Anderson. “The problem is that publishers have ceded the most valuable ground to the retailers.” Charman-Anderson’s piece is this week’s recommended read — you can find it here.
Kindle Fire vs iPad: “Good enough” will not disrupt
Horace Dediu addresses the Amazon-Apple threat level.
With its recent release of the new Kindle Fire HD tablets, some have argued that Amazon has declared war on Apple and its iPad. But how serious is the threat? Are the two companies even playing the same game? I reached out to analyst Horace Dediu, founder and author of Asymco, to get his take. Dediu will speak on all this and more at TOC Frankfurt on October 9, 2012. Our short interview follows.
How disruptive is the Kindle Fire to the low-end tablet market?
Horace Dediu:The problem I see with the Kindle is that the fuel to make it an increasingly better product that can become a general purpose computer that is hired to do most of what we hire computers to do is not there. I mean, that profitability to invest in new input methods, new ways of interacting and new platforms can’t be obtained from a retailer’s margin.
Also, there is a cycle time problem in that the company does not want to orphan its devices since they should “pay themselves off” as console systems do today. That means the company is not motivated to move its users to newer and “better” solutions that constantly improve. The assumption (implicit) in Kindle is that the product is “good enough” as it is and should be used for many years to come. That’s not a way to ensure improvements necessary to disrupt the computing world.
Lastly, the Amazon brand will have a difficult time reaching six billion consumers. Retail is a notoriously difficult business to expand internationally. Digital retail is not much easier than brick-and-mortar. You can see how slow expansion of different media has been for iTunes.
Perceptive Media: Undoing the limitations of traditional media
The BBC R&D department's Ian Forrester talks about the broadcast company's Perceptive Media experiment.
Recent research indicates a clear desire for interactive engagement in storytelling on the part of audiences. Researchers at the BBC are pioneering the concept of engagement and content personalization with their Perceptive Media experiment. The Next Web’s managing editor Martin Bryant took a look at Perceptive Media and its first incarnation Breaking Out earlier this summer. He describes the experiment’s concept:
“Essentially, it’s media — either video or audio — that adapts itself based on information it knows about individual viewers. So, if you were watching a game show that you’d never seen before, it might show you an explanation of the rules in detail, while regular views are shown bonus, behind-the-scenes footage instead. … Other smart ideas behind Perceptive Media include the idea that TV hardware could automatically recognize who was watching and tailor the content of TV to them automatically.”
I reached out to BBC R&D researcher Ian Forrester to find out more about Perceptive Media and the potential for the concept. Our interview follows. Forrester will further discuss the Perceptive Media experiment and its potential applications at TOC Frankfurt Conference on October 9, 2012.
Literally, Our Weekly Nod
The crutch words we use speak volumes.
What is your crutch word — you know, that word you, um, use when you need, um, a minute to think while, um, speaking in front of an audience?
It’s OK if you have one — so does Joe Biden. His word, apparently, is “literally.” Jen Doll at The Atlantic reports he used “literally” 9 or 10 times in his speech at the Democratic National Convention (mostly improperly, at that). Enough to get a lightweight drunk in a convention speech drinking game, she notes.
Doll basically, at the end of the day, takes a look at what your chosen crutch word says about you. Here are some of our favorite excerpts:
Publishing News: DOJ settlement, the aftermath
A look at a looming Amazon monopoly and the DOJ settlement effect on ebook pricing. Also, a chat with The Atavist CEO Evan Ratliff.
Here are a few stories from the publishing space that caught my attention this week.
Digital evolution or government-assisted monopoly?
LA Times writers Dawn C. Chmielewski and Carolyn Kellogg took a look this week at Judge Cotes’ decision to approve the proposed settlement in the ebook price fixing case and the turmoil it’s causing in the publishing industry.
Chmielewski and Kellogg cite a statement by the Author’s Guild “warning that the ruling would turn the clock back to 2010, when Amazon sold 90% of all e-books,” but author and publishing attorney Jonathan Kirsch warned that the decision will have much bigger picture implications:
“By putting the legal approval on this settlement, the district court has pushed us over a certain kind of cliff. In terms of the real-life experiences of publishers, authors and readers, this will represent a fundamental change in how books are published and sold … The court says we recognize that we’re in the birth pangs of a revolution of book selling, but we’re not going to torture the antitrust law into permitting one way of doing business over another way of doing business.”
Literary agent Gary Morris told Chmielewski and Kellogg that Cotes’ decision basically handed Amazon a monopoly and that publishers’ biggest fear is “that by solidifying Amazon’s indispensability as a retailer, they’ll drop wholesale prices to a level that’s unsustainable for the publishing business.” On the other hand, Forrester analyst James McQuivey said for the piece that fighting the digital evolution is folly and that “[t]he companies in a position to focus on digital distribution — which is Amazon and Barnes & Noble — those are the companies positioned to take over.”
In a related piece, LA Times writer Michael Hiltzik dug into the background of the case and the history of Amazon’s position in the ebook market, and laid out how the antitrust suit plays into Amazon’s grand plans to build a monopoly. Hiltzik argues that in pursuing the antitrust suit, “the government walked blithely past the increasing threat of an Amazon monopoly and went after the stakeholders who were trying to keep it from taking root.” And he boils down the overall takeaway from the entire situation:
“[T]he most important concern that should be shared by all participants in the publishing world — readers, publishers, retailers, device manufacturers — is that it’s in no one’s interest to have a single company controlling 90% of the market. No one, that is, except the big player, which is Amazon.”