Media's last diehard? -Victoria Barnsley (HarperCollins) - The Diigo Meta page

• 09 Nov 08
  

  Catriona Potts

  books publishing digital

• 08 Nov 08
  

  e-books publishing publishing_industry technology social_network digital_media president_obama Google

  • The technology of these e-ink screens is developing rapidly. Right now, put in television terms, we’re still in the 1950is with a black and white model.  But the future is bright and colourful.  In the months to come we’ll have foldable screens, colour screens, screens which can handle moving images, screens with interactive clickable advertising   And a company I think you’ll be hearing a lot about soon is Plastic Logic.  Using technology developed in Cambridge they’re going to be producing an ereader with a flexible screen.
    
  • all the different players that make up the digital landscape - the network owners, the device manufacturers, the platform operators and the likes of us, the content providers. All l of these players, derive their value from different parts of the chain. The problem for us, is that for the first three – content is something to be squeezed in the value chain. For them, content is like petrol in a car -the relatively cheap motive power of a costly and complex machine.  Whereas, for the content providers, content is more akin to wine in a bottle -something of high value in a cheap encapsulation.  We want to retain the high value of content, but have it delivered on cheap, multiple, globally available, platforms, networks and devices.
    
  • Can everyone have a profitable future?  Because the digital revolution is being driven by the first three, surprise, surprise, the price of content is being driven down.  This is obviously very worrying.  Equally worrying, is the fact that some of these players, are able to fund the development of all aspects of the value chain themselves.   This brings me on to my fourth challenge which is media convergence.  Sky is a good example of a company, that started as network player which went on to invest heavily in content and finally in hardware.  Of more relevance to publishing, are the likes of Google and Amazon, who are broadening their remit and are both now in the hardware game.
  • Unfortunately, the book publishing industry, is probably too fragmented, and undercapitalised, to follow this route.  Instead, it has to make sure it adds sufficient value to content, to retain its place in this converging world.  Publishers recognise that they can’t subsume the activities of other players but they have to work with them, in a model that protects the value of content, and their role in developing it and selling it.  That’s why the recent deal with Google, is of such historic importance.
  • Thankfully, the book industry is in better shape than the music industry.  And I’m not as worried as some by risk of disintermediation.  A publisher’s job is complex, and I believe we still have an important role to play going forward.
  • The old model whereby a publisher commissioned a work and then went through a series of steps to deliver it to a retailer, who delivered it to an unknown reader, isn’t enough.  The interactivity of the Web allows readers to play a part in the process, to engage with authors and each other and in some instances, become authors themselves.  The old linear model is becoming circular. For 500 years, the consumption of books was largely a private affair but the Internet has socialised that experience.  If publishers are canny, they will see this as an opportunity to add more value and to create new revenue streams.
  • Going forward, we need to operate two models: - the existing model, whereby we add value by selecting, nurturing, marketing and finally selling content to the consumer – in whatever form they demand and a second model whereby we create value in the experiences around that content  where we facilitate the dialogue between writers and readers. 
  • This project is a purely marketing exercise aimed at increasing the continued relevance of Doris’s work to new generations but it also illustrates the kind of value, that can be added, by a publisher, to the experience of consuming a text.  Connecting readers, writers, scholars, reviewers and bloggers, is all part of a publisher’s new mandate and with this project, we’re doing just that.
  • The interesting thing about authonomy  is that by putting us at the centre of a hub of interactivity, between readers and would-be writers it provides us with a new business model.  In addition to being a new pool for talent spotting, we’ve also created a community of people who love reading and writing.  It’s growing at such a rate - over 2m page impressions in just 6 weeks – that we’ll soon be able to start generating advertising income. 
  • The last initiative, I’d like to mention, is our most ambitious project to date – which we’ll be launching in January next year.  It’s called Book Army and it’s a fantastic social networking site organised around books and authors.  Every book and every author that’s in print
  • the secret weapon, in BookArmy’s arsenal, is a sophisticated algorithm, which generates book recommendations, based on feedback from other readers about their likes and dislikes. 

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