At Mark Logic Digital Publishing Summit in NYC, we’re diving deep into new workflow for publishing. Be warned…what follows is a dive into the nerdhole.
Oprah Plus Kindle Equals Love
Best Practices to the Rescue
The most recent IDPF BSIG call highlighted the cost of success. Epub adoption has been happening all over the place with some publishers creating only epub and device manufacturers seeing the wisdom of supporting epub, but with this success has come the growing pains of a young standard in the wild.
Does Google Now Own the Long Tail?
Adobe Content Server 4
Nick Bogaty, who used to be at the IDPF and is now with Adobe, conducted a webinar recently to explain how ACS4 fits into the ebook ecology. Adobe is pushing their ACS4 (Adobe Content Server 4) to Publishers who sell direct (host their own content), distributors who provide protected content to retailers and libraries, solution providers, and retailers and libraries.
O'Reilly Webcast: What Publishers Need to Know About Digitization
The Next Big Things—David Pogue at DMC
Next Big Things:
- domystuff.com: list errands/stuff you want people to do for you; users bid on your unwanted job and you hire them
- prosper.com: hooking up good ideas with micro-investors
- kiva.com: loans to people in third world countries
- goloco.com: car-pooling with strangers
- e-petitions: anyone can start petition about anything
- tripadvisor.com: micro-reviews of resorts
- whoissick.com: map of how has what across the country
Big challenges for online marketers:
- Fear of losing control of message or brand
- Fear of the mob/comments—moderate comments
- Fear of resources
- Fear of being smeared by bloggers
Response: you can do it with little resources and generate positive response. It’s about the ideas. Three kinds of blogs: personal, news and institutional…let your people write a blog for your company even if it’s not polished or completely on-message.
Challenges: copyright; things can be made public even if you don’t want it to; you can’t contain it; if you trick your customers, they will never believe you again
Dealing with blogging abuse problem: Tim O’Reilly says what about a blogger code of ethics with a public badge that can be displayed on site?; Amazon’s review of reviewers; Rating the commenters and allowing for filter of low rated comments (i.e. SlashDot)
Missed Opportunities: let customers meet the people that work at your company; employee cubicle videos; design prototypes; customer submissions (ads)
Creative Competition—DMC
Best Effective (and Creative) Marketing:
The nominees
- Sarah Silverman—The Great Schlep
- Blyk: Free phones, texts and voicemail for 16-24 year olds in exchange for viewing ads. Used to deliver new Hornby book from Penguin with 7/10 recipients requesting more info on the book in UK.
- PHON3D: mobile apps that disrupt traditional use models (i.e. guitar tuner, handheld GPS, portable game devices, dictaphone)
- Nintendo Wii: Experience Wii—YouTube Screen ‘falls apart’ as clip is played
- iPhone apps: PhoneSaber, Shazam, Google Earth-derived apps combined with local maps
The winner
Sarah Silverman—The Great Schlep
Boxing Day Goes Digital—DMC
Possibilities of Mobile from Rogers—DMC
Challenges for media: increased fragmentation, decreased mass media reach, simultaneous consumption and other behaviour changes. Prices still high and increased focus on ROI. Hard to capture attention, have message stick efficiently.
Mobile: always with consumers, highly individual, potential to leverage behavioral data, timely information, interactive, superior call to action, great measurability of response, naturally viral, addition to other media.
Tactics: SMS, Mobile Web Display, Ad sponsored content, mobile TV/video, search, voting/contests.
Emerging capabilities: location-based services and electronic wallet with instant coupons (access, ID, transit, memberships, phone as wireless box office and ticket etc)
Case Study 1: Adidas Txt invitations which led to purchasing celebrity voice mail. Conclusions: must engage on ongoing basis in a way that’s relevant.
Case Study 2: Blyk (ad sponsored service for 16-24 year olds). Huge questionnaire to sign up, you receive advertising in exchange for free texting and voice calls. 12-43% click-through on ads.
What’s going on in Canada?
- Formats being tested everywhere and standards beginning to take shape
- Asia is farthest ahead, Europe ahead of North America, US ahead of Canada (yes, Rogers—why is that?)
- Indicators for adoption: mobile factors, maturity of online ads, strength of ISP businesses. More high-speed at home in Canada which means less need for mobile.
- Industry operating models yet to be defined.
What is stalling mobile?
- Complexity to execute: opaque market that needs custom programs and significant effort
- Still small percent of market
What do consumers need to accept this?
- Value—getting something back; discounts or other benefits
- Relevance—sensitivity to spam
- Control—opt in
- Privacy—they decide what is disclosed to marketers
Making mobile standard
- SMS standardized in Canada
- Advertising formats
- Measurement—how should success be measured
- Inventory and rate cards
Where to start
- Understand your target consumer and how they use their device
- Determine benefits that matter to them: engagement, immediacy, interactivity, mobile link to service
- Invest time to understand as it is high impact
