The Future of Publishing is Publishing
From breaking news to investigative research and analysis to book publishing and more, PandoDaily is really on to something.
Timely, relevant and super fast. Crazy smart.
If you’re watching what they’re doing, you’re seeing the complete future of publishing come together in one fell swoop - if (and only if) their Facebook IPO book becomes a “live” book and continues to follow FB through the post IPO process.
If it’s not a live book, well, we’re still being treated to 90%+ of the future, which is an incredibly strong position from which Ms. Lacy and her team will continue to build.
Questions will come up as to where Pando ends and Paul Carr’s NSFW Corp begins relative to the publishing process, but it doesn’t matter. Publishing is an ecosystem play, regardless of how you view it.
If the resulting works continue to progress accordingly - and their integrated ecosystem of news and book publishing stays intact - the future of publishing everyone’s looking for may very well be taking place right before our eyes.
Does familiarity with restricted content breed contempt?
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Aesop
Be it news and periodical content behind an unexpected paywall or a book with unexpected and difficult to manage DRM, unfamiliarity with restricted content quickly breeds contempt.
When what was expected to be an easy exercise in the consumption of media becomes a difficult to understand and execute process, the negative impact on the provider brands is measurable. Whether it’s the publisher or the author requiring these restrictions, the reader is left with a single impression - media from this provider is difficult to access.
Now, for every action there is an equal and opposite action. In the case of restricted content, the equal and opposite reaction is the lightning quick “click” or “tap” into the search window to find the same media (or similar media) via a different source.
In the instances where the same or similar media isn’t available, the reader is most apt to just give up on their quest. This is a complete worst case scenario - but one that happens tens of millions of times a day - and one that is having a significantly negative impact on publisher’s and author’s revenues around the world.
While it has never been my position to that authors and publishers should seek a 100% free content model, it is my position that the presence of restrictions for use be visible and clearly understood by the reader. Nothing is worse than surprises … and surprises when there are equal or better alternatives readily available is a recipe for disaster.
Instead of not presenting information that a piece of media will be restricted until after the fact (ebook purchase) or right when it’s restricted (paywalls), consider engaging your readers right away with the ways they can use your media.
A few things to consider:
- Note what content is available for free and what is restricted (a’la the WSJ w/ their key icon or ESPN w/ their in icon).
- Offer alternatives to the “direct cost” of the media (e.g. registration, sharing of the media with one or more other readers, a social action of the author / publisher (follow, friend, etc.), or an interaction with an advertiser who may provide direct monetary compensation for the media.
- Structure the transition from “free” to “not free” content. The challenge today is there isn’t really any rhyme or reason to the paid content strategy from the reader’s perspective. Help readers understand exactly what is free and when it transitions to “not free”. The more clearly a reader can see and understand this process, the more informed their decisions will become - and the more positive their perception of your brand(s) will become. (Note: A press release isn’t helping reader’s clearly understand this process. It has to become part of the actual discovery and consumption process on your site or in your app)
Most importantly, always remember that reading should be a positive experience, not a negative experience. The more negative the reading experience, the faster readers will become non-readers as readily available alternatives continue to increase (exponentially) on an hourly basis.
Who knew such insights into paid content strategies could have originated in c. 620-564 BCE.
How to solve digital content discovery? Think Social.
The answer to discovery will lie in social - but only social where the presentation of the stream is equal parts content and context.
It won’t be enough to know that a friend or colleague is reading something. Rather, it will be enough only when those same friends and colleagues are simultaneously presenting the content and context that caused them to highlight the particular work or a section of the work.
When content and context are present, the medium (book, magazine article, newspaper story, etc.) won’t matter - as the custom meta data that your social graph puts over the top will be the critical factors in your decision to read or not read this particular piece.
The open graph will then enable yet another, even deeper, layer of meta data over the top of your graph.
Delivering awareness and validation first from your social graph and then with the implicit validation of the crowd (if needed / as desired), will ultimately deliver the net new discovery experience everyone’s craving.
It’s only a matter of time before these capabilities are integrated into the discovery experience - and a race to see which of the major retailers or social networks gets there first.
You Get Your News for Nothing, But Your Scoops Aren’t Free
The scoop is the result of a serious effort that entails countless (and thankless) hours of research, preparation, drafts, trial and error. In order for scoops to be truly (and properly) monetized, they would have to contain more value than just the story itself. The scoop would need to be inclusive of the research, the path (if you will), the trials and errors and drafts that led to the story - not just the story itself.
Some people would call this concept open news.
Others would call it agile publishing.
The difference between open news / agile publishing and the selling of scoops is that the selling of scoops opens the door into the process only after the story has been published - when the asset is sold as a single, complex entity vs. the sale of the process itself.
In each instance (open news / agile publishing and scoops) there is significant value to be had for publishers who are willing to experiment.
The biggest question is, who will go first?
Most of the other news organizations I’ve worked at are fighting the delusion factor. There’s enormous pressure of economics on journalism. It’s an expensive, tough game to be in.
Andy Lack, head of Bloomberg’s multimedia operations via AdWeek
The Changing Face of News Apps
The descriptions for the Memphis Commercial Appeal iOS app and Android app aren’t much to write home about.
Enjoy local news and information from The Memphis Commercial Appeal on your iPhone. The newspaper named the best of its size in Tennessee by the Associated Press delivers breaking news along with daily coverage of government, education, business, entertainment, college and prep sports, religion, obituaries and more. The CA app for iPhone also includes daily classified ads.
Set your preferences for easy navigation of content from all sections of the daily editions, plus blogs such as Whining & Dining, University of Memphis sports, Memphis Grizzlies, the State of Q and Faith in Memphis.
Share articles, classified listings, events and more on facebook, twitter or email. Save items you are reading for later through our Saved articles area. We now provide you the ability to search for articles back 30 days within the app so you never have to miss a story that matters to you.
The apps, however, quietly represent the future of news.
Delivered by Scripps Media, Inc., a subsidiary of E.W. Scripps Company, The Memphis Commercial Appeal apps deliver a groundbreaking reading experience via a seamless integration to the paper’s publishing systems.
If the previous statement took you by surprise, you’re not alone. The Memphis Commercial Appeal apps are completely integrated with the paper’s publishing systems.
This unique architecture allows the paper to automatically transform and reflow any assets from the company’s systems into the app, all without recreating any of the work. Breaking news, top headlines, sports, business, local “daily deals”, classifieds, obituaries, weather and more, all flowing directly from the publisher’s systems (and existing operations) directly into one-of-a-kind mobile apps. This model lowers the total cost of ownership for the mobile apps while improving the publisher’s ability to reach its readers in whatever fashion they desire. Imagine that … a profitable digital strategy.
If you do a quick search of the “news” section in Apple’s App Store or Google’s Android Market, you’re going to find thousands upon thousands of apps … and the majority of them look, feel and work in an almost identical fashion.
The face of news apps is changing at the local level … and the regional and national players better watch out.
Limited Access v. Added Value, A Pay Wall Debate
Limiting access to content hasn’t been the right answer for anything on the web, and it isn’t suddenly going to become the right answer for news on the web, either.
Rather than trying to limit content, publishers need to experiment with the ways they engage their readers.
No one can begrudge a publisher for needing to realize additional revenue from their news content. In most instances, the news isn’t researched or written for free. However, everyone should “begrudge” the publishers for continually going back to a dry well - “off the shelf pay walls”.
Two simple “pay to play” ideas that need to receive significantly more exploration are:
- Limited ad content - remove a significant number of the ads from the content and allow the premium customer to select which advertisers they wish to receive ads from.
- Ad free content - remove all ads from the content and offer the reader the right to pay for this privilege.
With everyone from the WSJ, NYT and Washington Post to the MN StarTribune working at finding ways to cut their content off from readers with pay walls, it would be nice to see some organizations step up and offer value in exchange for an increased cost.
The speed of experimentation and testing around “pay to play” news needs to accelerate, rapidly. If it doesn’t, we are all going to be watching truly great resources vanish.
