How disruptive is social media for publishers?

Posted on by John Helmer
Social media is widely felt to be a disruptive technology – which is to say, a technology that alters a market in unexpected and not very predictable ways and one that has particular implications for publishing. However, a truthful answer to the question posed in our title if we take it to mean ‘how disruptive is social media to publishing now’, is probably very different depending on where in the industry you sit. At the extreme end of things, the rise of blogging, Twitter et al is causing many newspaper publishers to question and in some cases modify their customer proposition. Meanwhile, trade publishers, who have a similarly direct exposure to the rapid upheavals in the consumer market driven in part by social media use, are more likely to complain about the latest outrage perpetrated by their new and unwelcome gatekeepers, Google/Apple/Amazon than to worry about social media per se. This is certainly disruption but feels more like a spat between big old companies and big new companies. Continue reading →

Will e-reading make us stupid?

Posted on by John Helmer
A recent Gartner report marked a minor milestone for e-reading. Apparently, time spent reading on screen is now almost equal to the time spent reading printed paper text. And this apparent vote in favour of digital by readers is not only quantitative but also qualitative: ‘The huge majority of tablet and iPad users say they find screen reading either easier than reading printed text (52%) or about the same (42%)’. Some educators and academics however, have doubts about whether screen reading really does offer an experience of comparable quality to print. Much cited in these debates is Anne Mangen’s article ‘Hypertext fiction reading: haptics and immersion’ published in the Journal of Research in Reading (2008, pp. 404-419), which asserts that digital text makes us read, ‘in a shallower, less focused way’. As we pass yet another significant milestone, the 100th birthday of Marshall (‘the medium is the message’) McLuhan, our attention turns readily to the issue of how screen-based reading might affect not only reading habits but also our wider culture. According to Kevin Kelly we are undergoing ‘a second Gutenberg shift’ in the move to what he calls ‘screen literacy’. But will the results of this shift be injurious for the culture that print reading has given us? Will more e-reading make us all stupid? Continue reading →

Should publishers care about social media?

Posted on by John Helmer
99.5% of social media experts are clowns, according to Gary Vaynerchuk (a bit of a social media expert himself) interviewed on TechCrunch. As someone who lives in Brighton, with its thriving new media community and unfortunate penchant for trendophilia, I have to confess that his statement has a ring of truth about it. I have seen their collapsing cars, their oversized shoes, and on more than one occasion have had water squirted at my specs by their trick buttonhole flowers. In other words: I’ve attended a lot of social media presentations. As soon as the Powerpoint arrives at its final slide, you ask yourself: ‘Well it sounded great, but what did he actually say?’. As a topic, social media has become yawn-inducing. It’s high on the hype curve and trending downwards as typically most of what you hear is hot air. So, should publishers waste any time at all even thinking about social media? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Continue reading →

The hidden algorithms that control your view of the web

Posted on by John Helmer
A great TED talk by Eli Pariser about the dangers of living in a ‘filter bubble’. We found this via Scholarly Kitchen. Pariser has written a book about how filters applied to internet searches by Facebook, Google et al are moving us towards a situation where our view of the web tends to reflect what we already know and like, rather than what is really out there. Since search is a fundamental technology in digital publishing this is something all publishers need to be aware of. Continue reading →

Time to get paranoid about Android?

Posted on by John Helmer
Android logo Followers of this blog will have read quite a bit about Apple products for which we make no apologies. After all, Apple has been making most of the running in developing both the smartphone and the tablet computer as serious platforms for publisher content. Up to now, that is. Recent reports show Apple is facing some stiff competition from Google’s operating system, Android. In the smartphone category, Android has been ‘surging’ since last year according to Wired. Last October, Neilsen reported that Android was the most popular operating system among people who had bought a smartphone in the previous six months, with Blackberry RIM and Apple iOS tied for second place. When it comes to tablets, Wired has quoted a Wall Street analyst as saying: “Long term, we believe Android could surpass the iPad in tablet market share”. Now Android looks to be winning the content battle as well. Distimo’s report said that Google’s Android Market eclipsed Apple’s App Store for iPhone in terms of free applications. At current rates of growth, Google Android Market looks likely to beat Apple into second place for overall number of apps available later this year. Those who dislike Apple’s ‘closed’ model and the tight control the company exerts may well be cheering at this news. Android is open source after all: isn’t it? Well, up to a point. Some think that Android is becoming less and less open source, and for publishers this might not be bad news. Continue reading →