Speakers Announced for Making Information Pay: Constructing the 21st Century Publishing Enterprise

BISG will hold its eighth annual Making Information Pay conference (www.bisg.org/mip) on Thursday, May 5, 2011, at the McGraw-Hill Auditorium in New York City.

The conference will feature keynote speaker Kenneth Michaels, EVP & COO, Hachette Book Group, joined by a lineup of industry leaders sharing new ways to think about, create and deliver products that successfully connect with today’s consumer. Confirmed speakers and session topics include:

Kenneth Michaels, EVP & COO, Hachette Book Group “Publishers as 21st Century Content Providers”

Bill Kasdorf, Vice President, Apex Content Solutions “Toward Agility & Efficiency: Best Practices for ‘Future-Proofing’ New Content”

Andrew Savikas, CEO, Safari Books Online and VP, Digital Initiatives, O’Reilly Media “Flexible & Multi-Channel Content: Real-World Examples from O’Reilly Media”

Madi Solomon, Director of Content Standards, Pearson “Smart Content: The Importance of Semantics in Publishing”

Brett Sandusky, Director of Product Innovation, Kaplan Publishing “Building a Smarter Wrapper: Utilizing the Data Locked Inside Digital Content to Increase ‘E-’ and ‘P-’ Book Discoverability”

Heather Reid, Director of Data Systems and Services, Copyright Clearance Center “The State of Current Rights Management Systems: Initial Findings from BISG & CCC’s Joint Survey of Publishers and Vendors”

David Marlin, President and Co-Founder, MetaComet Systems “Content in the Wild: What Happens When Rights Management Goes Wrong”

Mike Shatzkin, Founder & CEO, The Idea Logical Company “The Key to Future Profits: More Transactions, Fewer Dollars”

Tara Catogge, Senior Vice President of Inbound Supply Chain, Levy Home Entertainment “Attention Shoppers: Building Opportunity Based on Customer Behavior Data”

REGISTER

For more information about Making Information Pay 2011 visit MIP

60mins Expose of Mortenson - And He Responds.

By now you will have heard and read of the 60mins piece that exposed yet another literary faker. Greg Mortenson, who wrote (the now apparently fictional) Three Cups of Tea, has actively participated in the education and emancipation of students and young girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan; however, according to CBS all his good work is based on a fiction. Even worse, there's the suspicion that in intermingling his business and charity works, it is the charity work which is getting short shrift. If you haven't seen the 60mins piece the link is here.

Meanwhile Mortenson has responded in an exclusive interview in Outside magazine and here are a few samples:

What happens then is, when you re-create the scenes, you have my recollections, the different memories of those involved, you have his writing, and sometimes things come out different. In order to be convenient, there were some omissions. If we included everything I did from 1993 to 2003 it would take three books to write it. So there were some omissions and compressions, and ... I don’t know, what that’s called?

Literary license?
Yeah. So, rather than me going two or three times to one place, he would synthesize it into one trip. I would squawk about it and be told that it would all work out.

This was my first book. I’m an introverted guy, running ragged for months on end, and in those days I was overseas all the time, and also trying to raise money. My regret—what I wish I would have done—is that I should have taken off several months and really focused on the book. But I was trying to raise a family, be gone most of the year, and work 16- to 20-hour days without stopping.

...

60 Minutes focused on financial matters, relating to the blurry lines between CAI, which is a tax-exempt nonprofit, and you, an individual who sells books and collects lecture fees at events promoted by CAI advertising. I’ve also heard from sources who have criticized the fact that you often use a charter jet when you fly around to engagements. What do you say to all that?

If you go to the Web sites for Stones Into Schools or Three Cups of Tea, I have most of my public events listed for the last five or six years. Last year I went to 140 cities, something like that, and I also traveled overseas plus trying to be home whenever I can.

When I do events, it doesn’t just mean a lecture. I go early in the morning, often talk to local schools, and then maybe I do a luncheon at a library, in the afternoon I go to a college. I’m often doing five lectures a day, plus tea with some little old ladies at the library. Then there’s some kind of dinner or reception, the lecture, a book signing, and those go on for two or three hours sometimes.

Mostly what the charters involved was having a plane and then getting on that plane at midnight or one in the morning, flying to the next city, crashing on the plane, getting on the ground, and then hitting the road again.

Donors could really care less, I guess, but I was spending more and more time away from my family, and it was really having a huge impact on my wife and kids. Using charter flights, which I only started doing in 2009, allowed me to pack in many more cities. I get about 2,400 speaking requests a year. About 400 of the ones last year were offering to pay money. So I mix them. And, since January, I have totally paid for all my own travel.

There's a lot more in the article.

New Jersey Library Association Critical of Google Privacy Issues

Via the LawLibrary Blog, NJ is leading the way in comments critical of Google's policy regarding privacy and reader confidentiality. Here is the text of the draft letter:

The New Jersey Library Association submits this comment on the proposed consent order, In the Matter of Google Inc., File No. 1023136, between the FTC and Google. The consent order comes as a result of the complaint filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center ("EPIC") regarding the privacy breach to Gmail users caused by Google Buzz.

The FTC complaint alleges that Google employed unfair and deceptive practices when it launched the Google Buzz social networking service.

The NJLA strongly supports the FTC settlement agreement, which applies to all Google products and services, including Gmail and Google Buzz. It bans Google from misrepresenting its privacy policies in the future, requires independent privacy audits every two-years for the next 20 years, and requires that Google institute a comprehensive privacy program to safeguard its users’ data and personal information.

NJLA’s interest in the settlement pertains to the rights of individuals to read anonymously. Reader privacy is an important component of intellectual freedom. In our experience, readers who visit websites and use Google have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That is to say, they believe they are anonymous. They are entitled to hold this belief, and should not be deceived by unfair practices that track their Internet use.

As part of the Comprehensive Privacy Program, the FTC should require Google to:

- Limit data retention to the minimum time necessary

- Establish user privacy provisions for Google Books

- Treat IP addresses as personally identifiable: they should be protected, not routinely collected

- Routinely encrypt all cloud-based services (Gmail, Docs, etc.)

- Not disclose user data to law enforcement without a warrant

- Allow users to use Google services anonymously

- Stop behavioral profiling of Internet users

- Limit Google's use of a web site's Analytics data

- Not require Google Accounts for Android phones

- Not track Android users without explicit permission

- Be transparent as to what data it collects on users

- Allow users to control the information Google collects on them

- Encrypt all Gmail to Gmail emails and chats using open standards like pgp

- Refrain from offering facial recognition services

The same requirements should apply to Google’s competitors as well.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Google Buzz settlement.

From LawLibraryBlog

MediaWeek (Vol 4, No 16): Alberto Vitale, Arab Market eBooks, B2B Magazines.

Former Random House CEO Alberto Vitale was interviewed Stephen J. Kobrin, publisher and executive director of Wharton Digital Press, and Knowledge@Wharton and he had this to say about protection publishers for publishers:

Knowledge@Wharton: If we think just about the English-speaking market, globally, will territorial rights survive? Is there any reason you can't publish a book in English, in New York, and have it downloaded from, say, Amazon servers onto Kindles all over the world?
Vitale: For as long as there is a copyright issue, it's going to be a problem. Things become illegitimate when you put obstacles to legitimate things. I agree with you that anybody in the world should be able to download a book from the publisher, or from Amazon, or from whoever it is. But, you have to also protect the publishers in England, in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand, [and] in South Africa. It's going to be something rather arduous, but it's going to have to be done. If the publishers don't do it, those books will find a way, anyhow ... through not-so-official ways and that would be a problem.
Knowledge@Wharton: Can I push that one step further? Why is there a reason to protect the publisher in Australia or New Zealand, or Tashkent?
Vitale: Excuse me? How is the publisher going to live? On thin air?
Knowledge@Wharton: No, I understand, but...
Vitale: End of the story.
Knowledge@Wharton: But the question is, in a digital world, where books can be sold globally, is there a role for national publishers, when people are going to be publishing books globally?
Vitale: There is a role. These national publishers are also publishing books, even in digital format. Those books can be distributed by Amazon in New York or in London. That publisher has to be protected.
Knowledge@Wharton: In the e-book world, is there a reason that the publisher -- if they're not publishing paper, but just electronic books -- shouldn't have global rights to the book, and be able to market it globally? In those instances, is there a reason to protect publishers in other countries?
Vitale: In that situation, obviously not. But that's utopia. Paper books are going to be with us for as far as I can see. But the digital book will change guise many, many times, because of what the technology allows you to do. Amazon [in January began] publishing $2.99 or $1.99 books ... or the Amazon [Kindle] Singles [short works of between 10,000 and 30,000 words]. That's a major development. Whatever anybody innovates, it will be taken a step further by the establishment.

The National newspapers looks at the availability of Arabic language eReader software and the presumed lack of interest in catering to the worlds' fifth largest language group (National):

Last year, the global e-book market grew by more than 200 per cent, according to Futuresource Consulting, a research company. But no one has yet calculated the full extent of the vast global market for e-books.

At the moment, Arabic is the fifth-largest spoken language in the world. With internet penetration spreading across the region, there is a growing demand for e-books in the Arab market that stretches well beyond the Middle East.

"E-publishing in Arabic is not confined to a specific geographic region - because there are Arabic readers in South America, Asia and Europe," says Emad Aldoghaither, the president of the electronic publishing software company Semanoor, based in Saudi Arabia.

"Arabic speakers outside the Middle East often have greater access to credit cards and internet access than those in the region," he says. "The growth potential for e-books within the Middle East is very high as the younger generation prefer electronic to printed media."

Semanoor is trying to tap into that market after developing the software needed to support electronic versions of Arabic books. The new version of its SBoook services is currently awaiting approval as an application to run on Apple's iPad tablet computers.

The company supports e-books covering the Saudi curriculum and university publications in addition to more general titles. But at the moment Semanoor offers only about 10,000 Arabic-language e-books.

"There are different platforms, such as Sony e-readers and Android tablets. But the best platform for Arabic-language e-books is the iPad," says Mr Aldoghaither. "Android is also good but does not have the same penetration in terms of users numbers. Our software does not merely deliver a PDF as the existing technology already out there does. It actually supports the text itself and allows right-to-left reading."

The Spectator has the briefest of summaries of the London Bookfair including this quote from one of the seminars (Spectator):

First, most publishers and agents agree that the e-book will soon outstrip the paperback. This, insiders claim, is an opportunity. Speaking at an event on Tuesday, Corrine Turner of Ian Fleming Publications argued that the e-book was more flexible than the strict format of the paperback, which means that publishers can reach a more diverse range of customers. Production costs are also significantly less, so an ever greater number of books can be published to exploit niche markets across the globe. The upshot is that the days of vanity publishing are numbered – trust a convocation of publishers to arrive at that conclusion.

The market may be depressed (March 2011 saw the worst performance since 2005), but some of the big-wigs are in bullish mood. MDs and CEOs are pitching everything on securing the rights for English language books, as the rise of the internet and digital editions makes publishing an increasingly globalised industry. Speaking at a seminar called ‘The Book is Dead: Long live the global book’, Bloomsbury’s group sales and marketing director Evan Schnittman argued that protecting ‘territoriality’ was essential if publishers were to compete: ‘

Selling the English-language rights to different territories opens up the opportunity for competition. The internet will undermine all the protections we put up. The most important thing to do as a business is to make a decision as to how to manage territoriality.’

I don't buy that argument at all.

Mediashift looks at how B2B magazines are redefining themselves:

Today's successful B2B magazines have redefined themselves as multi-platform brands that provide a variety of information and services to their audiences and advertisers.

"We wouldn't be here if we continued to say we wanted to be a traditional print magazine," said Rich Reiff, CEO of Advantage Business Media, which produces a variety of technology-oriented B2B magazines and web media.

Publishers are now applying their B2B magazine brands to a variety of products that serve their already existing audiences in new ways. Some are developing webinars, sponsoring trade shows, and creating online databases of information related to their topics, in addition to the now-commonplace websites, social media outreach, and digital editions. For example, Reiff's company is creating a "self-service digital directory" that will list industry-specific companies and the products or services they provide.

The role of actual print B2B magazines has shifted as well. Most of the news that these magazines once offered can now quickly be found online, so their publishers have had to focus on other kinds of content and find ways to play upon the unique strengths of print.

"We have to be very careful that what content we provide in the print property will stand the test of time and also be very valuable. It has to go in depth on something that's going on in the industry," said Reiff.

Research suggests what we might already know: That we're not very good at researching (Jacob):

During our user testing in Asia-Pacific last month, I watched users conduct more than 100 searches for a broad range of tasks. Only once did I see a user change strategy.

Given the rarity of strategy shifts, we'd need much more data to precisely estimate how often they happen. In this round of user research, our goal was to update the Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability seminar, so we focused on website design, not on search engine statistics.

Still, the rough estimate from our available data is obvious: users change search strategy only 1% of the time; 99% of the time they plod along a single unwavering path. Whether the true number is 2% or 0.5%, the big-picture conclusion is the same: users have extraordinarily inadequate research skills when it comes to solving problems on the Web.

In our study, for example, an interior decorator indiscriminately entered queries into any text box that caught her eye, with no understanding of which search system she was using or whether it was searching the entire Web or only the site she was on.

This example offers a striking case of confused mental models. It also highlights a big problem with search today: it doesn't facilitate any conceptual knowledge because it relies on quick in–out dips into websites.

Online revenues grow even for television (Mediapost):

Major growth of U.S. online television has pushed the business to $1.6 billion in all revenue in 2010.
The online revenue rise -- a strong 34.2% gain over 2009 -- came from both advertising and consumer fee revenues, according to IHS Screen Digest. One highlight of this growth was in advertising sales, which climbed 64.7% to reach $719 million in 2010, up from $436.8 million in 2009. Other surveys note that all U.S. digital video advertising was over the $1 billion mark for 2010.
...
"The relatively modest growth in the streaming video area reveals a still tentative approach toward the Internet from some big media companies, which are reluctant to jeopardize their lucrative cable carriage deals by aggressively pursuing online opportunities," stated Dan Cryan, senior analyst and head of broadband media at IHS.

And in Sports PaidContent notes how important mobile access was for the Cricket WorldCup:

ESPN (NYSE: DIS) says the mobile version of its ESPNcricinfo site accounted for 45 percent (45 million) of all the brand’s page views during the April 2 final, in which India beat Sri Lanka. That’s the highest share of any of the digital media through which ESPN covered the sport, and doesn’t even include the app versions of ESPNcricinfo.

It’s significant that mobile use outweighed desktop use. ESPN claims ESPNcricinfo’s mobile site took 63.6 percent of the global mobile audience in its industry segment - far outweighing the 36.1 percent share ESPNcricinfo claims it took in the desktop web market.

That effect came from Indians, who supplied the largest slice of mobile traffic to ESPNcricinfo (377.3 million page views through the tournament). There are around 700 million mobile phones in use in India - nearly the entire population of 1.15 billion. Many of the handsets are unsophisticated, but broadcasters nevertheless supply subscription audio content. In neighbouring Pakistan, BBC Urdu offered five, two-minute World Cup audio reports every hour for on-demand listening by dial-up during the competition.

From the Twitter:

Eight Things You Didn't Know You Could Do With Your Kindle: TechNews

Authors Sign eBooks Electronically NYTimes