Dust Up between Libraries and Publishers Possible
October 16, 2009
The New York Times reported that some libraries are lending digital books. You will want to read the original article “Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending” yourself. For me the most important statement in the write up was:
Publishers, inevitably, are nervous about allowing too much of their intellectual property to be offered free. Brian Murray, the chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, said Ms. Smith’s proposal was “not a sustainable model for publishers or authors.”
I am intrigued that Microsoft and Yahoo pulled out of the digital book game. Google faces tough sledding but a compromise seems to be possible. Even government national libraries are slow to the starting line.
The world’s traditional book foundations seem to be under increasing stress. Exciting. The business model of libraries is about to collide with the business model of publishers. After centuries of living in harmony, friction seems to be increasing.
Stephen Arnold, October 17, 2009
Easing Data Transformation Woes
October 15, 2009
Transformation is the Latinate mumbo jumbo that information technology professionals use to flummox chief financial officers. File A is in one format. The enterprise system understands File A only when it is transformed into something that the enterprise software system can * really * process. XML, for example, is not created equal. There are weirdnesses in common file types such as the wonder RTF from Microsoft ages ago and still kicking after all these years. In my work, I have established that transformation can chew up 25 to 35 percent of the information technology unit’s budget. CFOs don’t know where the money is going because “transformation” is not taught in MBA school and CFA online courses.
If you track this type of information processing, you will want to read “Convert PDF to XML and Save Up to 60% Cost”. I found the assertions in the write up interesting. Here’s an example passage:
Outsourcing XML Conversion – A trusted and well known xml conversion outsourcing organization provide PDF to XML conversion services & solution worldwide at lowest possible rates. We offer high quality PDF to XML conversion services with savings up to 60% on PDF to XML conversion cost. You can also try our free PDF to XML conversion services to test our quality of our PDF to XML conversion.
What I have learned is that getting PDFs to yield usable tagged content is a tough problem. The Adobe crowd in the 1980s seemed to be looking for a way to render the printed document on multiple platforms. Somehow the PDF became the “new” PostScript which was wild and crazy too. PDF files make it tough to figure out what content object goes with what content object. Stated another way, PDFs do string searching because the format is clueless when content is rendered in columns. The text is unpredictable when simple copying of a sentence or two from one PDF is required. The text will have more fleas and ticks that my pet goat in Brazil had when I was a “kid”.
I wanted to capture this info because transformation troubles often yield only to a full, complete list of vendors and some hammer dialing.
Y0u can also try Online OCR which cuts out the humans entirely.
Stephen Arnold, October 15, 2009
I wish I knew how to get paid for writing about transformation outfits in far off lands. I will keep trying. No dough for the goose on this write up.
Google Wants to Be a Media Company = Content Delivery Network Rumors
October 15, 2009
Barron’s is one of those business newspapers that blends caution with molecules of nouns to whip investors into a frenzy of uncertainty. Barron’s “Akamai Rallies on Rumor of Google Bid” is an interesting write up. CDNs or content delivery networks are complicated. Akamai has proprietary technology, legions of ISPs on board, and nifty methods for getting popular content to a user quickly. An investor type, who actually bought me lunch at Taco Bell, floated this idea past me. I pointed out:
- Akamai is sophisticated outfit
- Akamai has plumbing in place and on-board ISPs who get financial and bandwidth benefits from their support of the Akamai methods. These involve the injection of smart bits in packets and some other magic
- Video is becoming the method of communication in the emerging semi literate world of the US of A
- Companies with a plan to be a media giant can benefit from owning an Akamai or similar outfit because it generates revenue and provides a convenient way to slash certain operational costs.
Barron’s said:
Briefing.com notes that AKAM calls are seeing buying interest this morning amid “GOOG for AKAM chatter.” I’m not sure that Google really wants to be in the content delivery network business, particularly given a spreading view on the Street that AKAM’s results could be hurt by intensifying pricing pressure in the CDN market. But clearly, somebody believe the rumor.
See fan and back peddle. Fan and back peddle.
With churn the name of one popular game on Wall Street, I sure don’t know if Googzilla is going to gobble up the staff and the technology at Akamai. Google has its own CDN in place, but with the volume of rich media that will be coming down the road in the months ahead, this type of acquisition makes sense to me. Akamai has technology, ISP relationships, plumbing, and people. Did I mention really good people?
Stephen Arnold, October 15, 2009
Sadly no one paid me to write this article. The investor on Friday bought me a chicken thing with a made up name, though.
The Microsoft UX Wins AP Love
October 14, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me the link to Gawker’s “AP’s Betting the Farm Microsoft Will Crush Google”. The story reports that Microsoft’s new interface (user experience or UX) approach is going to allow Microsoft to catch up with Google. If you are a fan of the AP’s view of technology, check out the article. If you think that Google’s 80 percent market share is too large a gap to narrow, you may want to skip the article. For me the most interesting point in the write up was the hint that Google and the AP have not been engaged in productive, frequent discussions. I don’t think the AP is sufficiently Googley to click with the Mountain View crowd.
Stephen Arnold, October 14, 2009
Google Wave as a Publishing Tool
October 12, 2009
Yep, sooner or later someone was going to realize that Google Wave is a component of the “digital Gutenberg”. If you want to read the breathless prose of a professional journalist, navigate to “Exploring Google Wave – How Could It Transform Journalism and Publishing?” My reaction to the write up is that, like most Google analyses, the comparisons are based on what is familiar, comfortable. Google Wave is one component of a larger data management capability. Publishing will not be transformed. The Google platform creates a way to push beyond what’s familiar and comfortable. That’s going to be deeply disturbing and disruptive across a number of information centric business sectors. Wave is a subsystem. The real powerhouse is the Google data management system. We need a new term to describe what this platform makes possible. “Publishing” does not carry the freight of meaning in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, October 12, 2009
Google and Content Processing
October 12, 2009
I find the buzz about Google’s upgrades to its existing services and the chatter about Google Books interesting but not substantive. My interest is hooked when Google provides a glimpse of what its researchers are investigating. I had a conversation last week that pivoted on the question, “Why would anyone care what a researcher or graduate students working with Google do?” The question is a good one and it illustrates how angle of view determines what is or what is not important. The media find Google Books fascinating. The Web log authors focus on incremental jumps in Google’s publicly accessible functions. I look for deeper, tectonic clues about this trans-national, next generation company. I sometimes get lonely out on my frontier of research and analysis, but, as I said, perspective is important.
That’s why I want to highlighting a dense, turgid, and opaque patent application with the fetching title “Method and System for Processing Published Content on the Internet”. The document was published on October 8, 2009, but the ever efficient USPTO. The application was filed on June 9, 2009, but its technology drags like an earthworm through a number of previous Google filings in 2004 and more recent disclosures such as the control panel for a content owner’s administering of a distribution and charge back for content. As an isolated invention, the application is little more than a different charge at the well understood world of RSS feeds. The problem Google’s application resolves is inserting ads into RSS content without creating “unintended alerts”. When one puts the invention is a broader context, the system and method of the invention is more flexible and has a number of interesting applications. These are revealed in the claims section of the patent application.
Keep in mind that I am not a legal eagle. I am an addled goose. Nevertheless, what I found suggestive is that the system and method hooks into my analysis of Google’s semantic functions, its data management systems, and, of course, the guts of the Google computational platform itself for scale, performance, and access to other Google services. In short, this is a nifty little invention. The component that caught my attention is the controls made available to publishers. The idea is that a person with a Web log can “steer” or “control” some of the Google functions. The notion of an “augmented” feed in the context of advertising speaks to me of Google’s willingness to allow a content producer to use the Google system like a giant information facility. Everything is under one roof and the content producer can derive revenue by using this facility like a combination production, distribution, and monetization facility. In short, the invention builds out the “digital Gutenberg” aspect of the Google platform.
Here’s how Google explains this invention:
The invention is a method for processing content published on-line so as to identify each item in a unique manner. The invention includes software that receives and reads an RSS feed from a publisher. The software then identifies each item of content in the feed and creates a unique identifier for each item. Each item then has third party content or advertisements associated with the item based on the unique identifier. The entire feed is then stored and, when appropriate, updated. The publisher then receives the augmented feed which contains permanent associations between the third party advertising content and the items in the feed so that as the feed is modified or extended, the permanent relationships between the third party content and previously existing feed items are retained and readers of the publisher’s feed do not receive a false indication of new content each time the third party advertising content is rotated on an item.
The claims wander into the notion of a unique identifier for content objects, item augmentation, and other administrative operations that have considerable utility when applied at scale within the context of other Google services such as the programmable search engine. This is a lot more interesting than a tweak to an existing Google service. Plumbing is a foundation, but it is important in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, October 12, 2009
The AP Snaps and Snarls
October 11, 2009
Dogs can be surprising. TechCrunch explains that the AP is “yapping again”. Read “You Can Ignore the AP’s Bluster. It Is Just a Negotiating Bluff” and get a good analysis of the 2009 Don Quixote event of the day. I think some content should be free. This Web log, written by an addled goose, is offered without charge. Complain and I refund your money and quack at you. Other information should carry a fee. If people don’t want to pay that fee, well, that’s a form of market research.
I try not to quote the AP in this Web log. I am a goose and terrified of those qualified to practice law. TechCrunch, as I recall, also avoids AP content.
In my opinion, the new types of services that I write about in my column for Information World Review, a Incisive Media property in London, England, present a user with interesting and accessible services. These next generations services, whether Tweetmeme.com or Trendsmap.com, represent what information delivery mechanisms are becoming. The notion that new services will embrace older business models has to be proven.
The AP is about to prove its hypothesis; namely, users will pay for AP content. The outcome of that test will be Googley. Data are going to make obvious what works and what does not work. In my opinion, the AP has a great opportunity to prove that its strategists are able to generate sufficient new revenue to make up for the lost revenue the firm has experienced. Furthermore, the AP will be able to prove or disprove the assertion that profitability will be sufficient to fund research and development, increased salaries, and staff additions.
The stakes are interesting. AP is betting the farm. Most of the poker games on TV hold this type of play to the end of the show. Maybe the AP is in Act III of a three act play. Exciting.
Stephen Arnold, October 11, 2009 No dough
Do Not Stop the Presses
October 8, 2009
One of my two or three readers called to my attention that certain sectors of publishing are doing well. I asked this former newspaper professional and licensing expert to expand on her email. The original essay by Patricia V. Roberts appears below:
If you’re waiting for paper publishing to die, don’t hold your breath. Gloomy headlines notwithstanding, the total audience for magazines has quietly increased over the past decade. MediaDailyNews reported recently that an analysis of 81 top titles shows an overall audience gain of 8 percent between 2000-2009. How can that be? Print is going the way of the dinosaur, isn’t it? Nobody reads on paper anymore, right? Well let’s just take a peek and see.
Magazine subscriptions reached a ten-year high in 2008, and 21 percent of new subscriptions came from the internet. And magazines return the favor. Paper publications outperform internet and email advertising, online communities, and WOM in influencing consumers to do a merchandise search online. In the past five years, the number of issues read per month has increased 5 percent among the total population, and that’s not just among older readers. In the oh-so-attractive 18-34 year old segment, the number of issues read each month rose by 8 percent. In fact, the median age of magazine readers consistently trends younger than the total population.
It makes sense if you consider a few of the key characteristics of paper publishing that aren’t easily translatable to the electronic world. Magazines are portable, they can be shared easily, and they can be beautiful. You can’t tear a page out of an electronic newsletter, and even if you print a copy of a travel article with a gorgeous photo of the Rainbow Bridge, the quality of your printer and your paper will determine how pretty it looks tacked over your desk. Magazines can be kept and read again, or passed along to others. They can cover topics in depth versus the “new right this minute” blurbiness of the internet. Don’t be fooled by the “soft” nature of these benefits. Smart publishers are using multiple channels to delight their readers. So don’t stop the presses just yet.
Sources: Media Post Publications, FOLIO, DMNews, MPA.
Patricia Roberts, October 8, 2009
Books? Napsterized?
October 5, 2009
Short honk: I read the New York Times’s thought piece “Will Books Be Napsterized?” Interesting. From Harrod’s Creek, I am flapping away from this question. Music has a grip on the desirable demographic. Napster is important because it made clear the grip’s strength. Books are a different animal, appealing to a different demographic segment. Music is one thing; books are another. The likelihood of print becoming Napsterized seems to hinge on the demographic data. Book and magazine buyers are in my opinion heading for the sunset. Napsterization won’t work in the retirement home or the extended care facilities for another 30 or 40 years. I suppose that means I failed the Stross examination. My answer, “No.” Different medium. Different economics. Different markets.
Stephen Arnold, October 5, 2009
Time to Be Time in Five Years
October 3, 2009
Let’s think a moment. In April 2008, BearStearns and then a lot of other banks disappeared. Before I left for work in the UK, 91 banks had failed in 2009. I have a list of companies that I don’t hear much about anymore; for instance, EZ2Find.com (French metasearch system), Siderean Software (semantic system), Grokker (content processing), and Oracle’s SES10g (the secure enterprise search system praised by Martin Butler and used by Boeing of 787 fame). Newspapers? I have lost count of the shut downs. Magazines? Some growth but I just see a thinning selection at the local airport newsstand and at my trinket shops. Ooops. I meant Barnes & Noble and Border’s. Both outfits have more games, notebooks, and cards than real books. Media, particularly mainstream media, is under some stress.
I read, therefore, with considerable interest Daily Finance’s “Time Warner CEO: Well Still Own Time Inc. in Five Years.” The person who made the statement is Jeffrey Bewkes. Daily Finance links to an Atlantic Monthly story and the Time chairman and CEO was apparently in the fortune telling business for a short time.
I don’t recall seeing Mr. Bewkes’s name on the list of big winners at either this year’s Kentucky Derby or any other gambling venue’s Hall of Fame. I don’t recall his being listed as the top stock picker in the Wall Street Journal’s round up last year. In fact, I don’t know much about Mr. Bewkes’s predictive expertise.
My hunch is that if – and this is a big if – could tell the future, he might be in another line of business; for instance, buying islands, building palatial homes, and sitting on the beach. Prediction can be a lucrative business. Maybe he has these possessions and is banned for life from the roulette wheels at casinos worldwide.
I doubt that, however.
The notion that a prediction made today in 2009 will be accurate in – what is it? – 2014 strikes me as pretty wild and crazy. BearStearns was not for sale but as I recall it sold over a weekend. Time Warner like other companies is going to have to find ways to reduce costs and increase revenues. That’s a difficult job. A failure such as losing control of traditional revenue streams can prove catastrophic.
My hunch is that Time in five years has a less than 50 –50 shot at owning Time Inc. Media companies are like snow on the side of a mountain in Chamonix. One perturbation and the snow rushes down. Wait. Maybe 40 – 60 now that I visualize an avalanche.
Stephen Arnold, October 3, 2009
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
