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A Dispatch from the Publishing Frontier

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As part of my research into the positioning of TextFlows in the world of authoring and publishing, I’ve been tracking a number of sources from the publishing world.

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While there’s been a lot of talk recently about the demise of newspapers, its pretty clear that the publishing world as a whole is bracing itself for the digital onslaught. In large part this is coming to a head because of the massive recent success of the Kindle and the creation of reading titles on the iPhone.

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I’ve posted from a WSJ journal article below but heres another good one from the Publishing Frontier blog: At the Apex by John Warren. While a passionate advocate for the beauty and value of books and the printed word, John sees the value of an interactive and evolving form of publication. Here’s a (longish) quote:

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“Jumping just a bit into the future, let’s grab our podkinfliptop, with its color touch screen and multimedia capabilities, and run. Placing the cursor next to an unfamiliar term in Cunliffe’s book, like Bosphorus, brings up its definition. Clicking on the place-name of Tyre deploys Google Earth. Maps of migrations or empires, instead of static, depict the spread and flow over time. Instead of a single picture depicting the ancient city of Miletos, or a bronze warrior god from the 12th century, a gallery of photos is embedded in the e-text. Links lead to further scholarship or modules about topics of particular interest to the reader. Cunliffe’s tome is a big book, nearly too hefty to curl up in bed with comfortably for a nice reading session, but in its e-format it poses no problem on the podkinfliptop, which you read while touring the Aegean region with your family. At the ruins of the Byzantine fortress in Anadolu Kavagi, you take a striking photo and instantly upload the photo to the book’s gallery.”

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Its going to be very interesting to see how things evolve.

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Clearly aesthetics are important in these new formats. The business model is the big stumper. Beyond that however, exposing the ‘dark matter’ of the printed word to the digital, indexed, social and hyperlinked world seems to me to hold great promise.

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At TextFlows we are currently focusing on poetry as our content matter - it fits most appealingly with the initial versions of our tools. We can leverage the visual beauty (IMO) of a Flow, to help expose the cerebral beauty of a poem, and present it in stark simplicity on a handheld device, like the iPhone. (Check out some Frost).

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Both of my cited authors (above and below) note the potential for texts to be broken apart, and to be sold or consumed in smaller chunks. This seems to me to be particularly applicable to poetry. I’m hoping this might be rich enough soil in which to plant our first commercial seedlings…

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\x0a How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write \x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a Excellent article from the WSJ (maybe subscription access only?) on the migratation of books to digital formats. The author describes his ‘aha’ moment of ordering a novel to read while having dinner alone on a business trip. Besides the spontaneity he also explores the upcoming social aspects of reading, the additions of search and hyperlinking, and the potential (good and bad) for fragmentation of written works.\x0a

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Clay Shirky and the State of Publishing

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Clay Shirky has a great blog post up about the state of the publishing industry, particularly newspapers. No answers but a brilliant summation of the dynamics. Anyone interested in whats going on in publishing should give it a read.

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http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

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With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.

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\x0a Seth Godin on the Kindle\x0a \x0a \x0a

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Interesting thoughts (as always) from Seth on the Kindle and how it could be made more useful. I’ve been discussing it in an email thread with Kevin and some other Sonus friends. In particular I love the idea of sharing margin notes on books. If nowhere else this would be great in a corporate setting - while reading the latest business howto or tech books see what your colleagues thought about how it relates to your specific business.

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The question does get raised of the longer term trend and how value is being squeezed out of the publishing industry. Interestingly I had meetings yesterday both at E Ink (the makers of the screen technology behind the Kindle and similar products), and at the classic Harvard Bookstore. On the one hand the eInk folks paint a picture of a wonderful world with foldable plastic screens automatically updated with todays news complete with active animations (think newpapers like in Harry Potter). On the other there’s just a different kind of magic to the feel and heft of a book, and to being surrounded by them like in Jeff’s store. I’m just an old fashioned boy from Ireland, but I’d hate to trade the latter for the former…

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\x0a “Experimental innovators don’t over analyze or put all of their hopes into one big bet - they quickly, creatively, and inexpensively use experiments to learn, gather insights, and identify unique opportunities - they then rapidly iterate, relearn, and refine to achieve success.”\x0a

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Nice writeup by Peter Sims on the Harvard Business blog - like Chris Rock we should be trying stuff to see what works and what doesn’t, and then focus on the things that do.

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Innovate Like Chris Rock - http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/01/innovate_like_chris_rock.html\x0a

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\x0a The inaugural speech went by too fast to really appreciate. A growing number of commentators are noting that it needs to be read to be fully appreciated. Here it is as a TextFlow.\x0a

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I think there in lies the bigger problem with the widget sector as a whole: no one seems to have come up with a business model that makes sense. The widgets have become too successful, and have created too much inventory that keeps growing but doesn’t perform as well, forcing advertisers to re-adujust their efforts. Yet you have companies like Sprout getting funded, which tells me that there is a mismatch between market reality and VC expectations and lack of understanding of this sector.

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The big opportunity is in analytics that lead to a better widget advertising system does a great job of behavioral targeting. The other opportunity is in developing new kind of ad formats that can be scaled.

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\x0a For Widgets, VC Money Easy, Revenues Not So Much - GigaOM\x0a

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\x0a Secondbrain - All Your Content\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a Google Sites\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a Google sites looks like a pretty good way to create and share an information space. Or maybe just a family homepage.\x0a

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\x0a Seems to sum it up.\x0a

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