Sci Tech Publishers: Doom Looms for the Tech Challenged
July 3, 2009
Quite interesting essay by Michael Nielsen: “Is Scientific Publishing about to Be Disrupted?” The answer is soon. I don’t agree. Sci tech publishing is in the midst of a crisis. If you want to know about Mr. Nielsen’s good news interpretation of the coming disruption, dive in.
Mr. Nielsen, in case you haven’t been keeping up with quantum computation, is a real life wizard. He is one of the pioneers of quantum computation. Together with Ike Chuang of MIT, he wrote the standard text on quantum computation. This is the most highly cited physics publication of the last 25 years, and one of the ten most highly cited physics books of all time (Source: Google Scholar, December 2007). He is the author of more than fifty scientific papers, including invited contributions to Nature and Scientific American. His research contributions include involvement in one of the first quantum teleportation experiments (related), named as one of Science Magazine’s Top Ten Breakthroughs of the Year for 1998, quantum gate teleportation, quantum process tomography, the fundamental majorization theorem for comparing entangled quantum states, and critical contributions to the formula for the quantum channel capacity.
He explains that publishers are victims of a local optimum; that is, publishers know where they should take their companies. Publishers just can’t bridge the gap. He provides a useful discussion of the knocks traditional media deliver to the digital door to online information.
But the guts of the write up are gathered in his discussion of non traditional publishing of scientific and technical information. The links are useful and the examples are compelling. Let me mention one; the others you can glean directly from his write up. He wrote:
Or consider startups like SciVee (YouTube for scientists), the Public Library of Science, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, vibrant community sites like OpenWetWare and the Alzheimer Research Forum, and dozens more. And then there are companies like Wordpress, Friendfeed, and Wikimedia, that weren’t started with science in mind, but which are increasingly helping scientists communicate their research. This flourishing ecosystem is not too dissimilar from the sudden flourishing of online news services we saw over the period 2000 to 2005.
He concludes his essay with some examples of new opportunities. His recipe for success is that publishers must understand technology in the way Steve Jobs and Messrs Brin and Page do. That’s where he and I part company. A technologist like Mr. Nielsen assumes that a motivated manager can identify, recruit, and manage a world class technologist or somehow edge closer to this capability.
Won’t happen. Technologists like Mr. Nielsen come from a different dimension; sci tech publishers adopt a very different technology world. Nevertheless, the essay is interesting and worth reading.
Stephen Arnold, July 3, 2009
WSJ: Now Upgraded to Viagra Class Spammer
July 1, 2009
Short honk: Yep, 7 56 am the Wall Street Journal began spamming me to become a subscriber. Well, the newspaper achieved one objective. I have suspended my Wall Street Journal subscription. I did enjoy this type of information about the proud, oh, so proud New Jersey publication. I wrote. I called customer support. I posted two previous stories about this company’s spamming of existing customers. Now there is one less customer and my legal eagle is writing the consumer complaint entities in the great state of New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. One person asked me not to describe newspapers as the “dead tree” crowd. Sorry. When a paying customer gets spammed, not only is the organization a fully fledged dead tree publisher, it has achieved the rank of Viagra class spammer. As an observer, I can be critical. As a customer, I can be miffed. The spammer—Rupert, are you listening?—has lost one real, live, paying customer. How many more will your silly marketing methods drive away. Oh, I know. The Wall Street Journal is too important, too big to fail. Gee, I hear an echo.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Google Offers a Digital Olive Branch July 1
July 1, 2009
In my Google: The Digital Gutenberg, I describe an invention disclosed in a Google patent document for a “partner” to use Google like an integrated motion picture studio. The invention, in effect, allows a partner to create content, post it, control access to the content, run an ad campaign using Google tools, and essential operate like those fun loving moguls Sammy (I am a lamb) Goldwyn and Louis (I am a cupcake) Mayer. Google, according to Reuters, is promoting this “run your own business” service to newspapers. You can read Joseph Tartakoff’s “Google Wants Newspaper to Post Their Videos to YouTube” to get the Thomson Reuters’ slant on this story. For me, the most intriguing comment was:
That [the new offer from Google] contrasts with Google News, where publishers do not get a cut of any of the revenue from the ads that are placed around their headlines. Still, it’s unlikely that many publishers will want to abandon other video platforms, like Brightcove, which also allow them to sell their own ads against their video content—and to link up with several ad networks. Google had already begun to slowly integrate YouTube news videos with Google News last month, when it added videos for the first time to Google News, and the new push should further that. For Google, it’s also a free way to add more professional content to YouTube, and thus attract more premium advertisers.
Will newspapers grab the digital olive branch? Good question. I think that some publishers may do the math and conclude that Google has tipped the odds in favor of the house. I think that’s a wrong way to look at the Google offer, but that’s why I am a fat, addled goose, paddling in the pond with mine drainage run off. I don’t sit in an office tower with air conditioning cooling my pin feathers.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
XyEnterprise Goes for $15 Million
July 1, 2009
Publishing companies relied on specialized, expensive, and very exotic systems to make magazines, books, technical manuals, and other serious types of documents. Then along came Word—unstable, unable to number, and miserable at layout. Then along came long document software for the desktop computer. Within the last five years, the number of low cost, free, subscription, host, and open source publishing systems have flooded into the Beyond Search computer lab in a damp hollow in Kentucky. The addled goose relies on the aging Framemaker program and when he has sufficiently low blood pressure the whizzy Adobe InDesign.
Life became tough for the specialized high end developers of bespoke publishing systems. These software systems cost six figures or more and could create a footnote that could occupy most a book page. Today’s software decides where to put the footnote and how long it may be, thank you. Most folks don’t get too bogged down in footnotes because the systems available in Word and InDesign can be quite challenging to manage.
Trading Markets reported that XyEnterprise is now part of a global integration company. The name of the company is now SDL XySoft. What’s interesting to me is that venerable company changed hands for $15 million. “SDL Acquires XyEnterprise for $14.7 Million” reported:
The acquisition is being funded from SDL’s existing cash resources. A global business, XyEnterprise has a turnover of $9.9 million.
I think that other content management companies will face a similar bargain basement sale price or simply fold up their tent and move to another business sector. Why? Check out free content management systems in Coding Cow. Alternatively, look at SquareSpace.com. The writing is on the wall in our office in Harrod’s Creek. You can follow SDL XySoft on Twitter, which will definitely generate some new sales here in Kentucky.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Wall Street Journal Continues Spam Attacks on ArnoldIT.com
June 30, 2009
For the sixth day in a row, the hapless Wall Street Journals spams me to become a print subscriber. I wrote. I called. I now document these annoying and pointless injunctions to become a subscriber to the print edition. I am a subscriber, and I am now enjoying the demonstration of ineptitude from a newspaper that once had this addled goose’s respect. I nominate the WSJ for the spammer’s Hall of Fame.
Very tasteful colors. I wonder if the WSJ executives consider these “tie colors” for that professional look?
I hope to get a suitable award prepared before this outfit goes out of business. Wow, the nation’s financial newspaper operates like Sean Casey, fake bank officers in China, and the colon cleansing crowd. Must be something I am missing. I don’t think it is just desperation. Seems closer to the type of behavior Tess demonstrates when she can’t find her chew toy: frantic, non productive behavior. She’s a dog. I wonder how one should describe the WSJ behavior? I will do some thinking. This will make a wonderful anecdote for my talk at the Magazine Publishers Association in October 2009. Is Barron’s a magazine or a newspaper? No matter. I think the example will work either way?
Stephen Arnold, June 30, 2009
Struggling Ziff Davis Bids Farewell to Newspapers
June 29, 2009
One deep breathing publishing company has gone out for a long swim. Tom Forenski’s “Disruptive Technologies Disrupt – Goodbye Newspaper Companies” has a simple message for newspapers:
“What could the newspapers have done to survive this disruption?” Even if newspapers had done everything right: started blogging five years ago, offered free classified online advertising as Craigslist, etc. It would not have been enough to avoid the continued disruption of their business models. This is an important point. What’s happening to newspapers, and other media companies, is not a business cycle. It’s not their fault. When an industry faces a disruptive trend there is nothing that can be done — except a complete reinvention of your business. You can’t just tweak a few things here or there. Newspapers cannot survive in the online digital world because the economics of the new world can only support the disruptors — the companies in the forefront of disrupting the old business model.
Keep in mind that ZD has killed its print publication PC Magazine. eWeek is thin. You know the old adage, “You can never be too thin or too rich.” It doesn’t apply to publishing. A few days ago I received a message that Ziff Davis’s Extreme Tech Web site was shutting down. Whoops. I learned a day later. Extreme Tech will be repositioned.
Here’s what Yahoo Finance had to say:
Technophiles in search of reading material have a friend in Ziff Davis Holdings. Through its Ziff Davis Media unit, the firm is a magazine and online publisher targeting the technology and videogame markets. It publishes the print magazine EGM, which covers games and hardware platforms. On the Internet, Ziff Davis operates PCMag.com, along with popular game sites 1UP.com, GameVideos.com, and MyCheats.com. The company also offers consumer events and direct marketing services. Formed in 2000, Ziff David Media filed for Chapter 11 in 2008. It emerged from bankruptcy later that year. In 2008 the company ended the print publication of its 27-year-old flagship, PC Magazine, taking the title online only. [Emphasis added]
As a former laborer in the Ziff Communication cotton fields, I can tell you that the present line up publications does not look like big money to me. There are some weird podcast type of shows. There is the complexity of finding a story from the UK side of the ZD family. There are former Ziff stars who seem to be working for other folks and promoting their Web logs. There are quite a few signs that ZD has itself not been able to make an online business model work in a way that generates the type of cash that the Ziff of old relished.
When one publishing company wheezes that newspapers are losers, I hear the panting and wonder if oxygen starvation is an issue.
It is one thing for an addled goose in rural Kentucky to point out the problems with traditional publishing. It is quite another for a publisher that has tried to go digital to make the statement. When that company has emerged from bankruptcy, the write up by Tom Forenski becomes a message from some dimension to which I am blind.
Stephen Arnold, June 29, 2009
Wall Street Journal, Spam, and a Hint of Desperation
June 28, 2009
I have been running around for a week. I returned to dozens of spam emails from allegedly the Wall Street Journal. I clicked on the “don’t mail me these” link and learned that it takes the alleged Wall Street Journal 10 days to process an unsubscribe request. Odd, I thought software scripts executed more quickly. Well, maybe at more progressive outfits. Here’s the deal:
Now I must say that this graphic approach in the dozens of spam messages I have in my inbox is as catchy as anything from the Viagra vagrants, the PediPaws pushers, or the refinancing idiots.
I don’t like spam, and companies that mail me unsolicited baloney get laser sharp coverage in this Web log. Look at the howls from the Nstein crowd. Bad goose for objecting to multiple copies of meaningless to me email messages. I get lots of email, and I want to get only email directly germane to what I do to get antibiotic shots from the avian vet I frequent. Mine drainage is bad for a goose like me.
Quite professional is the alleged WSJ these days, and after the unsourced story about Steve Jobs’s liver transplant, I think the use of spam to get a person who is * already * a print subscriber to order another subscription is indicative of the desperation at the venerable newspaper.
I spoke yesterday to a former information technology professional about the alleged WSJ’s online service. I think the word he used was “clueless”. And – get this – I have a source too.
I set up a rule to put this enticing missives directly in the trash folder for autodeletion. Unless the WSJ finds a solution to its present troubles, I don’t think I will have to worry too much about this type of AOL-inspired marketing much longer. Nope, I can see the guys who have the Pitchmen TV show tackling subscriptions to the alleged WSJ. I wonder if the Slap Chop writer will be enlisted to explain why I would want to deal with an outfit who spams an existing customer. Oh, oh, I know why. The WSJ marketing manager and / or the alleged WSJ information technology people will say, “We’re sorry. We had no idea that we were sending these messages.” Yeah, I believe that. Perhaps I will dig into my files and recount the sequence of events surrounding the alleged WSJ’s online efforts, culminating with the Factiva fizzle, the direct mail spamming, and the abundance of alleged WSJ content that I can locate on various Web servers? On the other hand, why bother?
If you want this deal and email like I receive, click here. Careful. This outfit might not be the alleged WSJ. I wonder if the WSJ attorneys are checking into this nuisance. Probably not. It’s Saturday. Better things to do.
Stephen Arnold, June 28, 2009
Future of Journalism
June 26, 2009
Short honk: I read “Exploring Journalism’s Future. Civic Media Conference Helps Hatch New Ideas” within interest. MIT is a great place to talk about technology. But what struck me was this quote from the MIT News Office:
“How could anyone worry about the future of journalism after being with these people and seeing what they and so many others are doing?” Gillmor [director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University] said.
When I read this, I asked myself, “Why not ask those journalists who have lost their jobs in the last nine months and those journalists who must endure furloughs without pay, editors at New York publishing houses now looking for freelance work, and the new journalism grads seeking their first job?”
No need to ask an old, addled goose. Not even an online search can turn up jobs for these people who are collateral damage of mismanagement in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 24, 2009
Rhode Island and Rooster Pricing
June 24, 2009
When a lad in Illinois, I recall visiting one of my relative’s farm. I learned how to kill a chicken. Learned what tough bird meant. Rooster pricing one of the farming Arnolds told me was that a good bird would fetch a pretty penny. The problem was that once a farm had a rooster, two roosters would be a problem. So roosters had a chance of not being worth too much.
I thought about my early rooster pricing lesson when I read “Why A New (And Unusual) Pricing Strategy By A Rhode Island Paper Will Fail.” This quite interesting article explains that a newspaper reader in Rhode Island (lots of roosters at one time) would charge a premium to get the newspaper in electronic form. Paper only was cheapest. Paper and online slightly more expensive. The online newspaper costs about $350 per year.
PaidContent.org’s write up said the idea will fail.
My view is that it might work when someone really needs only that digital version of the Newport (R.I.) Daily News. I don’t agree. The problem is rooster pricing. I think a few people who want only the digital edition will pay. In my opinion, the number of buyers will be as rare as hen’s teeth. A couple of sales won’t pay the bills. In my opinion, bad idea that rooster pricing. This article inspired me to collect my nine mysteries of online essays in one PDF and make the set available without charge. I will announce the download link in this Web log. No strings attached. No registration silliness. Some of that information will offer alternative pricing ideas. Sorry, no rooster option included.
Stephen Arnold, July 24, 2009
Twitter Tools
June 22, 2009
Now that outfits like the New York Times and CNN have concluded that Twitter is useful when reporting certain events, the Social Media Guide’s round up of Twitter tools may find some use in the newsroom. The round up “The Ultimate List of Twitter Tools” is long, grouped, and quite good. Highly recommended for dinosaurs and new forms of sentient information life. A reminder: there are other sources of real time info as well. Keep those options open, the addled goose honks.
Stephen Arnold, June 22, 2009
