Editor & Publisher: Trade Publication Goes Dark
December 11, 2009
You have to admire the magazine sector. On one hand, the mainstream magazine folks in the US are creating an iTunes for magazine articles. On the other hand, according to CIO, “108 Year Old Editor and Publisher Going Out of Business.” The subhead is clear:
A going concern since 1901, Editor & Publisher — “America’s Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry” — is going away a time when that industry continues to get smaller by the day.
I wonder if Google could have saved this publication. I wonder if a mainstream magazine publisher could have saved this publication. I wonder if News Corp. could have saved this publication?
The answer must be “no” since the story said:
From a memo issued this morning by the publication’s owner, Nielsen Business Media: “We’ve made the decision to cease operations for Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews. This move will allow us to strengthen investment in our core businesses – those parts of our portfolio that have the greatest potential for growth – and ensure our long-term success.”
The author of the story seemed to speak directly to the addled goose when he wrote:
Those media bashers who gloat over these losses are sadly misinformed, and, in some cases, cruelly oblivious to the pain being suffered by journalists and their families. Those who believe these losses won’t matter are simply wrong.
There are blogging opportunities galore in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009
I wish to report to the US Forest Service that I was not paid to write this short recycled news item. The trees in my backyard seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Nah, just my imagination.
Burn and Churn in Content Processing 2010
December 10, 2009
The addled goose is awash in rumors, claims, and counter claims. We are now trying to unravel the following bits and pieces of information:
Is Siderean Software alive and well or in hibernatino? The Beyond Search team heard that one of the founders of Siderean, a developer of semantic content systems and methods, has moved to a big European publisher? The news on the site has been frozen at February 2008. We liked the firm’s approach to semantic content processing.
What are the properties owned by Mondo, a Danish company that was the subject of a Computerworld story? We have conflicting reports about who owns what software properties and the financial health of the various companies with similarly named products. We anticipate more local color from Hamlet’s home and the “to be or not to be” of these firms.
How can reports of a certain software company’s record breaking year match statements by a former employee? This vendor is in the womb-to-tomb business and operates from a location near Washington, DC? This is particularly baffling because public information reports a firm with the heart of a decathalon winner. The former employee is not on the same athletic field which is a crowded one when it comes of scanning and indexing paper documents.
What is the state of the acquisition of a search technology company that may be the object of desire by one of the world’s largest software companies? Sorry, the goose cannot point to the wooer or the wooee. This is a particularly troublesome item because it surfaces each year and then fades away. Baffling because the * big name * vendor’s search system is quite a challenged table tennis player.
Who is running the search and content processing show at Microsoft? The addled goose thought he heard one of the firm’s senior mangers reference a new sheriff in town? One rumor is that the new guru hails from the country trying to put Google executives in prison. We are chasing our pin tails on this one.
What’s going on in search and content processing? The addled goose is more confused than ever.
Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009
Alert the US Postal Service! The goose buys stamps. No one at the USPS or anywhere else pays for this marketing Web log.
Reed Elsevier and Trade Newspaper Paywall
December 10, 2009
Reed Elsevier is trying to deal with the digital avalanche that is sweeping down Mount Information. I read in the Straits Times’s “Variety to Begin Charging.”
We fundamentally believe that the readers should pay one price and get all or any of our content,’ said Neil Stiles, president of Variety Group, a unit of London and Amsterdam-based Reed Elsevier Group PLC. ‘If you don’t pay, you don’t get anything.’ While the 104-year-old newspaper expects to lose many of its roughly 2.5 million monthly online visitors, it values more highly the 25,000 subscribers of its daily printed version and 30,000 subscribers of its weekly printed version.
The question is, “Will there be enough Hollywood hungry folks to make the content generate enough revenue to keep the lights on?” My hunch is that there will be some people who will pay, but the margins of the print publication from 10 years ago are not going to be achievable.
What will happen? I anticipate these events:
- Big splash.
- Lousy numbers
- Regrouping
- Relaunch
- Sale of the property.
Don’t get me wrong. Silobreaker’s consumer service is generating cash. That service uses smart software, not humans. AOL and Yahoo offer entertainment sites. I can create a Hollywood feed on Congoo.com with a few mouse clicks. These competitors are not performing equally well. That’s not the point. There are lots of sites that generate Hollywood content. You can download a podcast from KCRW that delivers “the Business.”
Something more than a paywall will be needed to keep Variety healthy. I have some ideas, but these are not for this free, Web log. Get my drift?
Stephen Arnold, December 10, 2009
I feel compelled by the imperative of a 40 page movie script to report to the custodial contractor for the Old Executive Office Building that I was not paid to write this opinion piece. Wow, confession cleans out the doubt.
Silobreaker Applies Intelligence Technology to Consumer Topics
December 9, 2009
Silobreaker, http://www.silobreaker.com, started out as a intelligence service for government agencies and competitive intelligence professionals. Its search function targets news and current events in Global Issues, Technology, Science, Business, Energy, and World topics. But it doesn’t just return a list of results, it aggregates a collection of information around the key words entered and presents it in a visual interface. Now Silobreaker is expanding into a more consumer-targeted market and offering its search aggregator’s services in the highly popular fields of sports and entertainment. http://sports.silobreaker.com/ and http://entertainment.silobreaker.com/ offer fans the chance to create their own targeted Silobreaker page with widgets to keep track of top stories, news, blogs, reports and research, audio and visual material, trends, quotes, and even material at YouTube.com. You can start with the standard generated page and filter results, or the customized user page can be shared with others. I think sports and entertainment fanatics who are willing to spend the time to set up the widgets would really enjoy this search service. Silobreaker likes the new services as well. Ads on the sites are generating “real money”, the managing director told Beyond Search.
Jessica Bratcher, December 9, 2009
I paid Ms. Bratcher to write this article. Silobreaker did not pay me one red cent, but I was assured of herring 12 ways when I am in Stockholm in May 2010. Yummy!
Search, Its Biggest Change, and Yawns
December 8, 2009
I try to steer clear of the search engine optimization crowd. A reader sent me a link to a write up called “Google’s Personalized Results: The “New Normal” That Deserves Extraordinary Attention”. The idea is that Google can personalize search results for every user in the world. Search Engine Land slaps the word “biggest” on this Google announcement. The idea is that users should be revved up, excited, concerned, involved, etc.
I suppose I should be excited, but the personalization can be turned off. I have noticed shaped search results for quite a while. The scale interests me. Personalization is one consequence of Google’s adaptive functions. Newly visible to users, not new.
Stephen Arnold, December 8, 2009
Oyez, oyez, I want to disclose to the Geological Survey (USGS) that this new world has been explored already. I did my write up without any payment. Tough to charge money to state the obvious.
Libreka: Belgium Builds a Google Killer for the Europeans
December 8, 2009
I am not sure if this headline is accurate, but that’s what I wrote in my notes after I saw a demo of Libreka. This is not a new service. Ars Technica wrote about it in October 2007. You may find this write up useful: “German Publishers Challenge Google Book Search with Libreka.” The article said:
The new program, called Libreka, has attracted plenty of German publishers who like its “opt-in” approach. Publishers who don’t want to make snippets or sample pages of their works available have that option, unlike with Google, which shows tiny snippets of text even from copyrighted works. Those who want to offer sample pages and make their books searchable can do that too.
I saw a document on Wikileaks that suggested that the Libreka service was not scoring hat tricks at the cash register. You can find that document here.
Libreka has hit my radar a number of times. I have in my files a copy of presentation given a year ago. You can find the document online here. The Libreka business model is quite ambitious, maybe too ambitious:
The document asserts:
- 100,000+ books fully searchable online
- 30m+ book pages online
- 11,000+ E-Books for sale
- 1,200 participating publishers
- 600 participating booksellers.
According to my source in London last week, Libreka is software built by Bureau Marcel van Dijk. You can run queries on the system. Notice that it has a number of Google Books features. The service offers a “wish list”, which allows me to “reserve a book”. I am not sure I will use this feature. User query terms are highlighted in the page displays. I set up a user account, and then I was able to run a query and display a number of pages. I installed the Adobe Digital Editions software. (Once I ran a couple of queries, I uninstalled this software. Yuck. Adobe.) The system also supports PDF “flavors”. (Yuck. Adobe.) My estimate is that the pages displayed are dictated by the publisher participating in the program. If you read German, there’s an FAQ at http://www.libreka.de/help#faq. If you are a Google Translate fan, the Google system cannot parse this particular url, so you will be on your own or you will need to find a German reading friend to assist you.
Too little, too late in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, December 8, 2009
Oyez, oyez, Library of Congress. I wish to disclose that I am writing this article for free and in English. My German is rusty but I figured out enough to conclude that German booksellers are pushing the wrong way in the digital data flows.
Government 2.5: Traditional Information Technology Evolves
December 7, 2009
I have just returned from my endnote at the International Online Conference in London. On December 14, 2009, I will be taking one of the 10 trends for 2010 from my London UK talk and expanding on the idea of dataspaces, not databases. Most governmental entities are anchored in traditional database technology. Although state of the art in the 1970s, the RDBMS framework is ill suited for the rigors of Government 2.5 information.
I will be attending the CoolBlue Government 2.5 conference in Washington, DC, on December 14 and 15, 2009. You can get full details about the conference from the program’s Web site.
You can get a glimpse of what’s in my talk. Just search this Web log for the term “dataspace”, and you will get some background information. The dataspace technology is one of Google’s crown jewels, and it a core capability little known outside of a small circle of wizards. You can see a tiny fragment of the dataspace technology in action if you navigate to the Google Wave information page and do some exploration.
My remarks created quite a stir in London on Thursday, December 3, 2009, and I anticipate a similar reaction in Washington on December 14, 2009. Googlers are largely unaware of the dataspace technology, how it embraces the Google programmable search engine, and the company’s push to become the Semantic Web.
I will be linking these technologies to likely government use cases. If you want to talk after the event, just write me at seaky2000 at yahoo dot com. I will make time to visit with Government 2.5 attendees.
Stephen Arnold, December 7, 2009
Oyez, oyez, I want to alert the mayor of Washington, DC, that I was not paid to write this blatant self promotion or mention the CoolBlue conference. I think the conference’s PR manager will buy me a Diet Pepsi. I have my Web feet crossed.
Maggwire: A Remarkable Reinvention of a 1980s Database
December 7, 2009
I saw a reference to the “iTunes of magazines.” I took a few minutes to track down this reference. I located what may be the ur-reference, an interview with Ryan Klenovich and Steve DeWald, two former investment bankers with Deutsche Bank. You can find the full text of the interview in which this phrase appears in Mr. Magazine’s Web log article “Magazine Innovation in Practice: Maggwire, the iTunes for magazines?” Several points in the interview made it into my paper notebook via a goose quill pen. For more insights about this “iTunes for magazines”, read the article and watch the video.
- “We’re trying to become an online destination for reading magazines, similar to YouTube where users associate YouTube as the online destination for viewing videos.”
- “Initially, the excitement is going to come from the added traffic.”
- “You can call us the Google of magazines, where we crawl the web for these great magazine articles, the users go on there to read and rate the articles, and the idea is that the best ones will come to the top.”
- “The ideality is to create this marketplace using one ID.”
- “Like I said, we’re not going to replace print, what we’re trying to do is compliment the print magazine.”
- “Another thing that we have thought about is, after we do reach a certain critical mass, we believe people will be willing to pay a nominal subscription for our service especially as the publishers continue to expand their offerings and partner up with us and our site will just get better and better and better.”
- “I think now we’re really in an interesting phase where you have these e-ink devices and iTablets coming out so the hardware will be there, so you need some kind of central destination to back that up.”
Interesting premise.
Stephen Arnold, December 7, 2009
Oyez, oyez. A freebie. I wonder to whom I report this fact. Perhaps to the iTunes of the US government, the National Archives, maybe?
AOL Finds Role Model: Apple
December 7, 2009
Short honk: This International Business Times’s article “AOL CEO Looks to Apple for Turnaround” is not about search. It struck me as somewhat unusual. I have been out of the country for a week and I am trying to readapt to the American business scene. Apple is a hardware company that has used software to lock in customers. AOL is an online company which seems to have been the inspiration for Yahoo. The phrase that caught my attention was:
Armstrong, a former Google Inc executive, has used Apple’s experience to create his own plan for a turnaround which he sums up in the report as: “New Products and services that people find necessary.” AOL Inc., which dominated the online experience for many computer users in the mid to late 1990s, suffered as customers migrated from its dial-up online service to Internet service providers.
Yikes! Will AOL try to get into the hardware business like Barnes & Noble and TechCrunch? Must have information services are those that make money for greed crazed MBAs on Wall Street, doctors trying to save a child’s life, and lawyers who want to win the big one so a larger yacht can be purchased. AOL is a precursor of Yahoo.
The Associated Press reported in “AOL Ends Ties with Time Warner” that AOL is an “independent company.” Sink or swim time.
I think the former Googler may want to hunt for another role model. A good place to start is with the search experience for AOL users. Then go from there to monetization. I am not sure Love.com will do it for me. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, December 7, 2009
Oyez, oyez, Securities & Exchange Commission. I know you are ever vigilant, tireless in your scrutiny of publicly traded companies, and working on nights and weekends to get the economy righted. Please, take time to accept my admission that I wrote this news item without compensation, inducements, kick backs, promises for future considerations, free travel in corporate aircraft, paid vacations, meals at the Willard Hotel, or any other type of compensatory action. Just like you guys because you are my role models.
The Google Gong Rings for ProQuest and Dissertation Content
December 7, 2009
A MOVIE CAMERA BUSINESS TRIES TO ADAPT
In June 1986, I was sold along with the electronic publishing assets of the Courier Journal & Louisville Times Co. to Bell+Howell. B+H owned a new media company, which in the late 1980s did business as University Microfilms with the acronym UMI. At that time, the company’s product line up spanned a number of media. At one end of the spectrum was the original business based on creating microfilm replicas of documents. These microfilms were sold to libraries. Generations of students used technology perfected during World War II for their access to information not in a library’s collection. At the other end were the electronic products from the Courier Journal: ABI/INFORM, Pharmaceutical News Index, and Business Dateline (the first full text local business news database with corrections made when the source updated the story’s facts).
Now this is an efficient research tool for today’s student. Source: http://www.archivalsuppliers.com/images/Picture%20284.jpg
When I was a student, I did research with microfilm. It was okay but it took a long time to get the reels, get them set up, and reviewed. Getting a hard copy of a document was a hassle. Some of the prints turned black and became unreadable quickly. I once dropped a reel and watched in horror as it unspooled, picked up dirt, and was unusable. I had to pay the library for a replacement. I think in the 1960s, a single reel cost me about $45 which was more than I made in my part time job. I loathed the stuff.
At the recent Online Information 2009 event in London, my colleague Ulla de Stricker was the keynoter for the “Publishers Delivering Value” track on December 3., 2009. In her talk – which she mentioned the Google move into dissertations. Her reference inspired me to write this opinion piece. You can get iinformation about her at DeStricker.com. One of her example was the fact that Stanford University students may now submit their dissertations to Google while it is optional to submit them to ProQuest.
So I wandered over to the exhibit hall to visit with ProQuest, all the while reminiscing about my past experience with that company – known as UMI at the time.
MICROFILM: HARD TO USE, EASY TO DAMAGE AND MISFILE
When I was working on my PhD, I remember my fellow students talking about the costs of getting their dissertations “published” and then included in the Dissertation Abstracts index. I never had this problem because I took a job with the nuclear unit of Halliburton, never bothering to submit my dissertation once I got a real job.
A microfilm readers. Source: http://www.ucar.edu/library/collections/archive/media/photographs/481_1976_microfilm_lg.jpg
The whole system was a money making machine. When a library burned down, backfiles could be acquired when physical copies were not available. When a university got a grant for a new field of study, a collection of journals could be purchased from UMI on microfilm. Bang. Instant academic reference material. I don’t recall how much content the “old” UMI moved to microfilm. My recollection is that there were books, journals, newspaper, and, of course, dissertations. With all this film, I understood why B+H had paid tens of millions for the Courier Journal’s electronic publishing expertise. Buying expertise and using it are two different things, in my opinion.
MECHANICAL PRODUCTION WRONG FOR DIGITAL PRODUCTS
The production process for creating a microfilm was quite complicated and involved specialized cameras, film, and chemicals. The image I have of the UMI facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the first time I visited was a modern day castle surrounded by a moat. The castle was a large, one-story building surrounded by a settling pond. The chemicals from the film processing were pumped into the moat in order to separate certain high value residue from other chemicals. UMI processed so much film that the residue silver from the photographic process warranted this recycling effort.
Dinosaurs struggle with the concept of an apocalypse. Adapt or get grilled I suppose.
UMI had a silver mine in its monopoly on certain types of content. My recollection of UMI was that its core product was getting universities to require or maybe strongly recommend that doctoral dissertations had to be “published” by UMI. The microfilm copies of the dissertations were sold back to the doctoral students and to libraries interested in having a compact, relatively easy way to store volumes on a mind boggling range of topics. I did a project that required me to use a microfilm copy of something called the Elisaeis by a wild and crazy religious poet named William Alabaster, and several dissertations written about that nearly forgotten literary work. I also did a project for the Vatican and worked through microfilms of sermons from the middle ages in Latin. Now that was fun! Pretty sporty content to. Nothing like a hot omelie.
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