Pragamatic Approach to the Free Business Model
September 15, 2009
Greg Sandoval conducted an interview with Mike Masnick, founder of Techdirt. Mr. Masnick, like the addled goose, finds some of the antics of traditional publishing outfits amusing. The interview, in my opinion, is a must read. I want to quote one segment from the interview, which appeared on Cnet on September 13, 2009. The question Mr. Masnick answered was, “Are you profitable?” Mr. Masnick, according to the write up, replied:
We are profitable. The project itself has definitely been profitable. We didn’t want to set too high of expectations ourselves, we kind of wanted to see where it was going. Some of our basic assumptions we’ve learned were wrong but in a good way. We sort of naturally expected that least expensive levels would be the top sellers. That hasn’t been true. To date, the top seller has been the package called the Approaching Infinity Package, which is a book based on a series of Techdirt posts about understanding the economics and business models. We took those posts and expanded on it a little more. People are buying that package, which also comes with a T-shirt. It is our best seller so far.
I found this comment quite suggestive. The Disney approach of having collateral like T shirts and packages like a weekend package at Disneyworld strikes me as a potentially useful model to explore.
Stephen Arnold, September 15, 2009
Google Gives Traditional Media a Triumph
September 15, 2009
The Roman triumph celebrated certain military leaders. Google has appropriated the method and is showering content creators with technology, not flowers. In my opinion, the approbation is a political move to get publishers to work with Google (what I call “surfing on Google”), instead of fighting Google. I scanned a number of write ups about Fast Flip, Google’s new reading service. I found the Channel Web story — “Google Fast Flip: A Quick Browse through the News” – clear and concise. Will it work? Google is just as late in the building bridges business as the publishers are in the understanding Google business.
My view is that micropayments, AdWords type of administrative controls for a publisher’s content, and this type of reader technology were needed years ago. Both sides in this content dust up have made errors. Neither Google management nor the leaders of the publishing industry are likely to be mistaken for Mother Theresa. One example warrants a comment. As the rose petals and olive branches were being tossed, Google introduced another data management function that is going to have significant implications for those in the data and statistics business. “Liberate Your Data!” Yep, but from whom? Publishing and other commercial organizations. Google is a tactical player. It is a good idea to know what the game is, however.
Stephen Arnold, September 14, 2009
Google Opens Up Its Digital Books
September 14, 2009
I read an interesting news item on a Web site with which I have no familiarity. The site is Khabrein.info. The story was “Google Opens Up Its 10 Million Books Archive for Booksellers.” I knew Google was doing some soft shoe in an attempt to win over a hostile crowd for its book scanning slam dancing over the last five years. I did not know what the Khabrein Web site reported:
Google said in a statement that it believes strongly in an open and competitive market for digital books. “We will let any book retailer sell access to these books. Google will host the digital books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any Internet-connected device they choose…”
The story concluded with a strong statement: “Critics said that the proposal still left Google in near-complete control of the digital files.”
Stephen Arnold, September 14, 2009
ZDNet Education Writer Wants Google Get a Break for Books
September 14, 2009
Wow. I wonder if cheerleading and supporting Google is going to be the new black. “Give Google a Break!” argues:
This book scanning thing is getting completely out of hand. I want Google to make money. I want them to make lots of it because that means that all of the services I use for free will remain free. It also means that they will have the capital to keep moving forward with bringing millions of books into the digital (and public) domain and advance the technology that will help electronic texts go mainstream.
I heard a similar sentiment on a recent Adam Carolla podcast. Mr. Carolla pointed to the profit motive as the reason for progress by pharmaceutical companies. I think Mr. Carolla is an entertainer and television / movie star. Is the method of argument the same in show business and the ZDNet Education online publication the same? Just slightly congruent? Anyone have a view point? I am undecided on this matter, but I think this is a step toward what I called the Pogue Opportunity in my essay “The Pogue Problem, Maybe the Future Opportunity?”
Stephen Arnold, September 14, 2009
Australian Publisher in Bid to Get His Own Chapter in Bartlett’s Quotations
September 13, 2009
What outstanding phraseology. Amazing quotes. You can read a summary in “Publisher: Time to pay up, Google”. Let me give you two examples, but, please, buy a hard copy of the Daily Telegraph Australia. I cannot do justice to this wonderful material.
Quote 1 allegedly crafted by APN News & Media chief executive Brendan Hopkins:
“We don’t need to be reborn, we just need to be paid properly for what we do,” Mr Hopkins told the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association (PANPA) conference.
And quote 2, same fellow:
To use an analogy, I see search engines as breaking into our homes, itemizing the contents, walking out and listing everything for everyone to see. And they get money out of that process,” he said.
Great word smithing. I should have remained in publishing. I need to perfect my analytical skills and my writing. Maybe I can nab an internship.
Stephen Arnold, September 13, 2009
Google Book Download
September 12, 2009
Short honk: I search Google Books every once in a while. I find most of the page image services clunky. When possible, I try to visit a library and check out the real McCoy. If you are not the book pawing kind, you may be interested in the Google Book Downloader. You can obtain the software by navigating to http://googlebookdownloader.codeplex.com/. Its features include:
Download any book from Google Books marked as ‘Full view’
Partially download any book from Google Books marked as ‘Limited preview’
Access to any book available only for US citizens (instructions)
Searching for hidden pages (not indexed by Google Books)
I have not downloaded the software so I can’t offer a goose honk or quack. Enjoy.
Stephen Arnold, September 12, 2009
Sony Is Looking for Revenue in Interesting Places
September 12, 2009
I don’t know if this story in Kotaku is accurate. I found it odd and somewhat disturbing. I don’t care much about Sony after buying one of their cameras that used a proprietary driver to create a mini CD. Never worked. Good bye, Sony. But Google has a bit of a crush on Sony, so I am using my Overflight service to watch the former Japanese superstar in the intramural leagues. What did I spy? “Adult Films Push For Presence on Gaming Consoles.” The most interesting comment in the write up was:
“Our point is pretty simple,” Hirsch [X rated content executive] told Kotaku. “As long as age verification is in place that (Sony) feels comfortable with we see no reason why adults shouldn’t be allowed to access adult movies on the Playstation 3.”
I do not want to think about the implications for books on Sony’s new line of eBook readers. I don’t know much about the PSP, but it sounds like something kids would use. I suppose desperation leads to a certain ingenuity.
Stephen Arnold, September 12, 2009
Google Becomes a Bunny thats Cuddles
September 11, 2009
I was surprised to read in several different stories that Google is tossing olive branches left, right, and sideways. Even the Google is savvy enough to know when lots of guns aim at Googzilla. Googzilla is tough but Googzilla knows that Gulliver ended up hogtied with some small people standing on his forehead. You can get a sense of the shift by reading Wired’s “Amazon Scoffs at Google’s Offer to Share Book Search Sales”. The article explains Google’s olive branch and the Amazon response.
Several comments:
- I think the Google has realized that it may have a fight on its hands with or without its controversial settlement.
- Google’s cavalier attitude may have contributed to the controversy. Its attempts to assuage fear takes place as the company hops in the sleeping bag with Sony, a company with an interesting track record in treating its paying customers with respect.
- The amount of money sunk into the Books project is now sufficiently large that Google wants to craft some type of deal without pushing the button on thermonuclear information war; specifically, Google could go directly to authors and become a publisher. Google can promote, deliver, and collect for these original work.
My hunch is that Google is going to give the Cold War tactics a try. But that button is sitting there begging to be pushed. What happens if shareholders demand that Google maximize its revenues by becoming a full service, vertically integrated publisher. I would jump from my four publishers to Google in a heart beat. The Google can definitely sell online. Someday maybe?
Stephen Arnold, September 11, 2009
Google Throws Life Preserver to Newspapers Again
September 10, 2009
The Google assumes that users will “get it”. As a result, the company is not into bicycles with training wheels. The newspaper industry got thunked on the head with Google’s approach. Now the company has inflated a big, yellow kiddy duck and pushed it toward the newspaper industry. You can read the story in the Nieman Journalism Lab story “Google Developing a Micropayment Platform and Pitching Newspapers: “‘Open’ Need Not Mean Free”. Not much to summarize. Google is pretty good at microbilling, so in my opinion, the Google flipped some bits and inflated the yellow kiddy duck. Will it be enough? I don’t think so. Three reasons:
- The cost structure for news is going to be tough to “blogize”; that is, generate good info with new content methods
- The newspapers will find themselves competing with other folks who are generating “good enough” content, content to survive on fame, AdWords, or a sponsor
- Google itself has some nifty content combinatorial tools. When those are made available, software – not humans – can generate some nifty outputs. I describe some of these in my Google: The Digital Gutenberg.
So, the duckie is there, but it won’t get some newspaper publishers out of the deep end. Quack.
Stephen Arnold, September 10, 2009
The Pogue Problem, Maybe the Future Opportunity?
September 8, 2009
I am not a journalist. I don’t have the first clue about what goes on in journalism classes. I don’t think the university I attended had a journalism department. True, I worked at a newspaper and at a magazine publishing company, but I was more of a manager / nerd type, more concerned with cutting costs and generating revenue than writing about the hoe down at the local courthouse or the school board meeting. Now I write a Web log that is nearly 100 percent marketing beef. I do commercial work, but that is a very different way to monetize my knowledge, as modest as it may be.
As a result, I look at publishing in a way that is different from and often incomprehensible to those who are trained journalists. Here’s an example. TechCrunch published a very good story “Losing Its Religion: the New York Times Compromises”. I understand the point of view that a reputable, traditional newspaper should make the distinction between news and advertising. I think Mr. Arrington’s write up puts a nice cap on the “Pogue problem”. Mr. Pogue is an author, a lecturer, and a columnist. He gets very excited about Apple products. Mr. Arrington writes:
The NY Times ethics policy also says “When we first use facts originally reported by another news organization, we attribute them.” But in our experience that isn’t always the case. The one thing the NY Times has is its brand and its people. They aren’t first to stories but they generally get things right. Trying to hide conflicts of interest hurts that brand, particularly when they hide, hypocritically, behind an ethics statement that prohibits the behavior they’re hiding. It’s far better to keep everything in the open. Transparency is what’s important, not appearances.
I don’t disagree with Mr. Arrington’s viewpoint. I want to stretch and idea in a different direction.
What I see in the “Pogue problem” is an opportunity. In my view, the “ethics” that were spelled out when the New York Times was rolling in money have been marginalized. The New York Times does not have the money or the staff to ride herd on the people who generate content. My recollection is that the New York Times and I believe the Washington Post ran stories that were, in effect, mostly made up. In the good old days of the newspaper wars, the moguls would create news. The “ethics” that major papers enforced were largely a reaction to the some of the more creative ways newspaper moguls handled the news in the good, old days. For many years, newspapering was lucrative. People read newspapers at the breakfast table and then on the subway or tram ride home from the mills outside Chicago and Philadelphia. Advertisers wanted to reach these people and the newspaper was the only game in town for a while. Eventually radio and TV came along and newspapers jumped into these channels. Some were successful like the Courier Journal & Louisville Times Co. where I worked for many years. The CJ< was a monopoly and Mr. Bingham had a letter from some higher legal authority that said it was okay for the CJ< to own TV, radio, commercial databases, direct mail ham outfits, door knob handing distribution companies, and printing plants that handled the New York Times Magazine when it was done via rotogravure. Life was indeed good.
But those days are gone.
Newspapers have not been able to make the leap into the channel broadly described as “new media” or “the Internet”. Sure, there are some marginal successes like the Wall Street Journal Online, but I take the hard copy of the paper and I get spam every day to urge me to subscribe again. The New York Times had a sweetheart deal with LexisNexis. Then the NYT pulled the plug, blew a million in royalties, and sank another dump truck of millions in its largely ineffective money making online efforts. The CJ< made money in online as early as 1981, yet when I talk with publishing executives, I get the “what do you know” treatment. Well, I know that the CK< knew how to make money online because I was there and contributed to that effort. I have a tough time taking the feedback I get from publishers about online seriously. Clueless is the word I use to describe most of the meetings I attend.
Now back to the Pogue Problem. I think the idea that troubles some people is that Mr. Pogue is close to Apple, so his objectivity is skewed. Let’s think about the upside of this model. In fact, forget Mr. Pogue, let’s talk money.
First, if the newspaper or any other publishing company has a way to get money from people who have money, the company—if it is publicly traded—has an obligation to figure out how to take this money without running afoul of the law. This means that if it is necessary to create a new type of editorial product, then that product should be created. If the person who writes the auto column stuck behind sports in the Sunday New York Times gets a request to write about a particular car, why not figure out how to sell that “content hole”? Make the deal a transaction and take the money. This happens with consulting firms who sell slots in industry charts. It happens at trade shows where those who buy booth space get to be speakers. One trade show organizer told me, “I don’t know how I can get all the exhibitors a speaking slot on our program.” Google is predicated on selling messages to people. This model deserves greater consideration among traditional publishing business thinkers. Yep, sell advertising messages in the form of “news” and “opinion”.
Second, the problem is that publishing companies have reinvented themselves and their business model. The only problem is that the revenue part and the cost control part have slipped through their fingers. What’s left is a business method that does not match with today’s fast changing world. What were the ethics of the newspaper companies at the turn of the century in New York? What were the ethics of a Barry Bingham in the 1980s? Those times and their “ethics” don’t match up with today’s opportunities. Therefore, change the definition for “ethics” and explore and possibly seize certain opportunities.
Finally, the journalists who follow the rules often find themselves under great pressure. When costs get chopped, some journalists have to turn to new types of research or information collection methods. These folks write pretty good stories, but they user different tools and methods. I can’t get too excited when a journalist uses blogs instead of telephone interviews. When was the last time you were able to get someone on the phone straightaway. Even my wife’s phone rings to voicemail. For my kids, it is SMS or nothing. When these new methods collide with a journalist who is trying to do the best job possible given the constraints, I cannot get worked up when a story is off base or a personal view gets into the article. My thought is to find a way to accept these changes and charge for them.
In summary, the Pogue Problem should be explored as the Pogue Opportunity. How can these situations be monetized. If the demand it there, my thought is that information companies have to consider how to deal with the opportunities, not react reflexively. If new sources of revenue are not found, the problem takes care of itself. Change is needed; new classes of information products and services are needed; and fresh thinking has to be brought to this new opportunity space.
Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, September 8, 2009
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