European Powerhouse on the Future of Publishing

Another great interview with Robert Scoble and European publishing powerhouse Hubert Burda on the past and future of publishing.

 

Pivot Focuses On Marketers Who Target 18-34 Demographic: #pivotcon

The Pivot Conference, a new conference dedicated to branding, marketing and social media is coming up from October 17-19, 2010 in New York.

The event singularly focused on marketers who target the 18-34 demographic — their attitudes, technologies and preferences – and the media and marketing that addresses them.   

Today, the brand marketers' job is made even more difficult by the rapidly changing media and the flood of new technologies and tools.  Pivot is designed to help marketers sort through these issues, to better understand their customers and the environment, and to come away empowered to create a successful brand strategy and market more effectively to young consumers.

Speakers from Arianna Huffington to Evan Cohen and Doug Rushkoff (who says "Pivot looks to become the TED of marketing conferences"), will share their ideas and experiences and provoke 'Aha!' insights among attendees who are targeting the largest, most unique and influential demographic we've seen in 50 years.   

Pivot partners Magic Sauce Media and We Blog the World are able to extend special pricing to attend for only $995. Please use the discount code MPPC401 when registering at pivotcon.com.

Highlights of the agenda include:

• Who Are You? Profile of the Always-On Consumer

• Mind the Gap: Measuring the Divide Between "Us" and "Them"

• Motives and Motivations: What Drives the Always-On Consumer

• Media and Advertising at a Crossroads

• The New Marketing Organization

• New Rules of Engagement: Listen, Engage, Measure

• Social Marketing: The Grand Experiment

 

Media Coverage of Technology News

The below is a repost of an excellent summary by Laurent Haug who recapped findings from a new research study done by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The study “was designed to examine the media coverage that occurs when technology news crosses beyond technology-oriented outlets or news sections to the top of the American news agenda—to front-pages, the national nightly news, cable prime-time and other general interest news outlets. It did not delve into specialty publications or sections.”

The press reflects exuberance about gadgets and a wonder about the corporations behind them, but wariness about effects on our lives, our behavior and the sociology of the digital age.

• The mainstream media’s coverage of technology was not vast. It made up less than 1.6% of the total coverage over the course of the year, ranking it 20th out of the 26 identified topics. That puts technology news in same range as the environment, sports and education. And while it trails far behind crime (4.7%), it comes in ahead of religion (.6%) and immigration (.9%).
• The study examined which technology companies generated the most media attention in these venues. Apple, with its flashy press events and often drawn out releases of new products, narrowly outpaced Google in total coverage. Twitter and Facebook ranked third and fourth. Microsoft, on the other hand, once the feared technology behemoth, fell far behind—attracting just a fifth of the coverage of Apple and less than half that of Twitter.
• For Apple, the most heavily covered technology company, 42% of the stories described the company as innovative and superior, and another 27% lauded its loyal fan base. But there were doubts. The most common such negative thread, that Apple products don’t live up to the hype, appeared in 17% of stories about Apple. For Google, the company’s advancements in making content easier to find topped its coverage at 25%. But it was only half as likely as Apple to be framed as having superior, innovative products (20%).

Meet Blio: It Transforms e-Reading

  K-NFB Reading Technology, creator and developer of the Blio e-reading software, today announced the launch of Blio, an incredibly advanced and innovative e-reading application.

Available immediately, Blio features a library of full-color, interactive media content and today’s bestsellers. Apps for iOS, Android and Silverlight platforms are apparently coming soon.

"By providing a full-color, flexible, and interactive experience, Blio redefines the boundaries of the e-book, opening up entirely new categories of multimedia content and, as a result, engaging new groups of readers of e-books," says founder and CEO Ray Kurzweil.

Through its partnership with Baker & Taylor, the world’s largest distributor of print and digital books, Blio will not only offer today’s bestsellers but also interactive rich-media, video, slide-show, and audio enhanced content from more than 100 top publishers, including Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Group, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster.

Blio offers a library of more than 1 million paid and free titles, and is currently adding new publishers and thousands of new titles weekly. Currently, Blio supports English, French and Spanish, with Italian, German and Asian-language options to follow.

With its ability to reproduce the color, layout and original fonts as in the print version of a book, Blio brings to life a large selection of books that are not available with E Ink devices. Categories such as children’s books and lifestyle books, encompassing travel guides, cookbooks, and textbooks, finally have an e-reader that can deliver the experience to the reader that was intended by the author.

Blio has a host of functions that make it smart, fun and easy to use. Highlights include:

• Blio mimics a book’s printed format like no other e-reader, with files presented in XPS format, which allows digital books to stay true to their original print version. Blio also supports the more limited ePub-formatted books.
• Blio is powered by the most advanced text-to-speech technology, using the Nuance Vocalizer, which allows readers to download two lifelike voices (“Samantha” and “Tom”) for hands-free use. To facilitate reading and learning, Blio provides unique synchronized highlighting of the words being spoken.
• Blio’s full-media functionality allows users to insert notes into digital pages, highlight sections and even look up references on websites, without leaving their e-book.
• Downloaded Blio titles are stored in a personal virtual library, enabling flexible access to content. This library can be accessed easily from numerous devices, allowing users to begin reading their book on a home PC, then pick up where they left off on a netbook or laptop. Future Blio versions will also support tablets and mobile devices and iOS, Android and Silverlight platforms.

The Open Media Revolution for Better or Worse

Last week at AlwaysOn, Tony Perkins moderated a panel of some really great voices who are either building social media platforms and tools or using them. In a discussion that addressed the question whether we are better off in the new open media revolution, we heard from TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, rapper and singer Chamillionaire of Chamillitary Entertainment, Robert Scoble now with Rackspace, Quentin Hardy of Forbes and Six Apart's CEO Chris Alden.

I captured the panel in five videos - you can either view one or all of them below. A few great observations and quotes I thought were worth summarizing.

"I don’t like silos and I don’t like things that don’t communicate and share with each other – why are we investing in more silos?" asks Scoble about new tools that are coming to market and are another silo rather than a tool that integrates and communicates with the world where you already live online.

Other issues come up, "Discovery of good content is still a huge problem," says Chris Alden who is a big believer in discovery of social content. "We all figure out what we’re going to read based on our social graph." He also adds that Twitter lets publishers be less dependent on Google which is becoming tremendously useful.

On content and the 'amount of it,' we all have to weed through and compete with, Chamillionaire adds with wit and humor: "I have to compete with crazy content up there – like a bomber rapping gets drunk and then gets hit by a car and then a naked girl kisses it or a crazy cat jumping up and down." We all laugh - how could you not? It's not only true but he says it with such authenticity that you almost have to laugh at the mediocrity we're faced with that gets attention, otherwise you'd cry.

"The question is," says Tony, "are we better off? Scoble, I and Arrington don’t have to get ‘real jobs’ because of the open media revolution and WE ARE better off. The new media revolution has enabled that. Chamillionaire gets more access, but are we all better off as an industry?"

Scoble says, “we’re in the cycle between the old school and new school – by having more people connected on the network, we’re getting access to better and more information. The City Council isn't get covered in the same way it was ten years ago and they haven't invested in a new way yet, but the mayor can blog, the guy who sits on a City Council can blog, the guy who builds houses can blog and they can all tweet. Chamillionaire challenges and wonders whether its really BETTER information though.

I don’t worry about the openness, or the ‘free’ but I worry about the opposite," says Alden. "Look at the control in Iran and China. Even here, more control is happening aorund us."

In the music world, Chamillionaire says he preaches to his colleagues that they need to have equity in something. He says, "I have a friend who worked for a radio station for 14 years and then got laid off. Now what? He has no brand, no equity, nothing." It upsets him that people just keep chasing the next pay check.

Perkins asks the panel for predictions on where we're going to be in 5 years. Their responses below:

5 Year Predictions:

Chris Alden: "BusinessWeek will go for less than $5 million, a ham sandwich. Newsweek will be up for a fire sale…..there will be a few smart ones that will survive. You’ll see a migration of talented people from traditional media who are going to say I can build my own media empire. You’ll see a different landscape – news will come from independent sites."

Quentin Hardy: "It’s going to be pretty freaky in ways we don’t even understand yet. People always imitate the old model because that’s all they know. TV started out looking like radio and Internet started looking like magazines and newspapers. We’re still looking at the pre-existing model of advertising – we’re still trying to figure that out and how we’re going to get paid that isn’t advertising and we need to get figure that."

Robert Scoble: "We’ll be able to talk to devices and that’s going to happen to media as well. Show me the Mercury News, or show me all the information about Chamillionaire or put his music on my phone because I’m not familiar with him and I’m sitting next to him right now. It’s going to be revolutionary. This will be part of our everyday life in 5 years – our devices will be communicating with us and vice versa."

Chamillionaire: "The record people who are controlling agencies and musicians are either going to get smart and hang with you guys (meaning tech industry), or they’ll be dinosaurs and drop off the grid. They’re either going to try to stop it or get a piece of it. The rest of them will die off. Technology is growing. Even though I’m an old school person, I’m also a new school person. I use Sidekick but I also have an iPhone. I study the old and the new and use both. I feel like it’s going to change pretty dramatically and I’ll be here taking advice and stealing as much information from you." (again, meaning his pals in the tech industry.

Mike Arrington: Whenever there are predictions, they’re wrong. Steve Jobs didn’t put the iPad team together until December 2008, but they didn’t start going hard at it a little over a year ago. I don’t think predictions are that interesting. Things are changing so fast that we don’t know what is going to happen around the corner and that’s what I love about it."

Tony Perkins: "I think devices like iPad and the Kindle will create a renaissance --- we’ve gotten used to reading very short pieces lately. Writing long form books and thought provoking pieces still provide a lot of value and we’ve been missing out on those because we haven’t had the right form factor. In the future, we will. There’s going to be advancement in something along the lines of ‘engagement advertising’ as well."

Below are five videos that captured the entire discussion:

 

NetShelter Gathers a Great Crowd

NetShelter Technology Media, had a networking bash at San Francisco's ROE on Howard Street last night. NetShelter pioneered the concept of the vertical media network and has passed CNET to become the #1 tech news web property online. They now reach 18 percent of the total U.S. online audience, have 37 million U.S. unique visitors and 108 million monthly unique visitors globally, according to comScore.

Pat Houston, Dana Oshiro

Le Monde's Fate: Over After 66 Years?

Like virtually every other newspaper in the world, Le Monde is losing cash. As respected by Europeans as the New York Times is to Americans, it appears that the 66-year old newspaper may be out of cash within a couple of weeks. Monday Note reports on the evolution of French press over the past several years that has led to this moment:

* A steady erosion in readership.

* A lack of budget discipline, made worse by loose governance.

* The core newsroom’s reluctance to support the digital strategy.

* The collective certainty the “brand” was too beautiful to fail and that a deep-pocketed philanthropist will inevitably show up at the right time to save the company.

* A difficulty to invest into the future, to test new ideas, to built prototypes, or to invest in decisive technologies.

* A bottomless investment in the heavy-industry part of the supply chain, in costly printing facilities.

* An excessive reliance on public subsidies which account for about 10% of the industry’s entire revenue. Compared to Sweden, French newspapers have 3 times less readers, but each one gets 5 times more subsidies.

They are apparently seeking (needing?) at least €100m. Filloux gives an excellent account of its history, including his opinion and an assessment. He also includes a great set of stats and raw numbers. Take a look at the past three years. Source: Monday Note.

Their opinion of what they need? At a minimum, Filloux suggests an editorial and industrial project, restructuring, a strong and decisive human resources initiative and a long term approach - in other words, renovation won't be done overnight. If only newspapers understood this five years ago and started then, we wouldn't be reading about so many newspaper death marches ONLINE.

TechCrunch Turns 5

TechCrunch turns 5 and has an anniversary party at Twilio & SocialGold on Folsom Street in San Francisco. While I didn't really see any TechCrunchers there (they may have been mingling but I just didn't run into any), over 400 people showed up to take part in the celebration that a handful of start-ups sponsored.

Taking part meant PPT karaoke, free beer on one side of the room, boxes of pizza on the other and three hours into the event, a dozen or so bottles of champagne popped open -- all at the same time.

Two other things worth mentioning: Yet again, Foursquare was on the fritz and it took me several attempts to check in AND I ran into people who were either from or had lived in the following countries: Czechoslovakia, Russia, Korea, VietNam, China, Sweden, England, France, Germany, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Japan and Bulgaria.

Pearling the Best of D8: All Things Digital Conference

One of great things about Pearltrees is the ability to develop a compelling story or series of stories through the pearls you create around an event. There was so much noise and media and blog buzz following the D Conference (D: All Things Digital) last week, that having a series of links just wasn't as useful as gathering all of them into a Pearltree so I could view them later at ease, not to mention in a more visually interesting way.

Below is a Pearltree I created on D8 Blog coverage. And, of course I could have created whatever categories I wanted and displayed them in any way I chose.

Below is a Pearltree I created on D8 Media buzz.

Lastly, I created a Pearltree of the video coverage from the interviews with the D8 speakers.

NPR's Vivian Schiller on the Future of Media

President and CEO of NPR Vivian Schiller, the only female interview on the D Conference stage (D: All Things Digital Conference) this year, was both articulate and refreshing about her views on where the media industry is heading. She says that the broadcast side of the house at NPR isn't being cannibalized - digital content is all supplemental for them and it's obviously growing.

NPR has been tapping into the developer community more and more and plans to expand their API in the near future. They apparently get over a billion requests for the API and the hope is that by extending it, it will lead to more creative forms of expression and distribution.

Says Vivian, "The sky is the limit. You can imagine combining stories from NPR with information from stations who have data and then creating some kind of news product that tracks trends, such as the flu epidemic or the oil spill. We don't know what will be created but we know that mashups will lead to more innovation and creative content for consumers.

There are guidelines of course. For example, they don't want their content to be used to support a cause nor do they want the meaning of their content to be fundamentally changed. What they do want however, is to harness the intelligence of their audience.

Vivian says, "Our fundamental business is audio and programming and making the migration to other platforms. The broadcast tower will be gone in the next 5-10 years. Internet Radio will replace it. Mobile is the second coming of radio. On your mobile devices, you can listen to anything you want."

"The power of what we have is the combination of national and local. And, we are free. As web traffic becomes more substantial, then we can figure out a business model that makes sense such as a licensing fee," adds Vivian.

She reinforces that they don't plan on charging the end-consumer. She feels that it's important to separate the issues of whether people in large numbers are willing to pay and whether publishers need to make money from a fee.

Kara Swisher who is interviewing Schiller asks, "How do you look at the overall news business right now and the challenges they face?" "We're in the midst of creative destruction," responds Schiller, who says she loves that phrase. "All the new online organizations are sprouting up. Traditional journalists are starting start-ups, such as the Texas Tribune and San Diego Tribune. They're now online and some of them are not-for-profits."

The biggest problem is aggregating the content. She says, "we have a huge megaphone so its critical to have even more content than ever before." Because of that, the notion of partnering with others is the way to go for NPR right now. They're not trying to create a mega-portal but a mega-network, a community. She makes an important distinction that the partnerships she is referring to are not acquisitions but arrangements with regional sites so they can provide really great local content to their audience.

"Is this where journalism is going?" asks Kara.

Schiller feels that the business model for public radio is more suited to commercial media than traditional media today. She says, "we have five revenue streams. When we get hit with one, the other revenue streams can sustain us so, even when we had a blow, it wasn't a failed blow."

"Where will people be consuming information?" asks Kara. Schiller touches on both the iTouch (which she wonders if it will be obsolete very soon) and the iPad, which she claims has been extremely successful for them.

They have had about 300,000 downloads on the iPad. She says, "what we have on the iPad is suited for that form factor - it doesn't look anything like what you'll from us find online. You can listen to it, you can touch content, you can be moved by it from interactive text -- whatever the best form of media is right to share the story is what we offer." She adds with conviction, "our purpose is to serve our audience." Love that word serve when it comes to customer service. People who 'get' that always succeed in the long run.