Posted by Atex Blog on Thu, Mar 11, 2010
Many people in the media industry ask what the future looks like. Certainly nobody knows, but a solution might be easier to see than we think. In fact it might be right in front of our eyes. Think for a moment of all the things you do with your computer: You can watch movies, watch live feeds, read the news, listen to music, and a variety of other things. Similar functionality is found with your mobile. These devices are integrating many things into one single package.
Like a computer or mobile device, media companies are asked to provide numerous services from the same package. They have to produce a variety of content for different channels, like paper or online, in different ways, like radio and television, plus they need tools to track circulation, advertising and data mining. It would be wonderful to have a tool to do all these jobs, but like any user of a Swiss Army knife knows; it can do many things, but not any of them particularly well.
As users in any part of a media organization will tell you, they need exceptional solutions to solve their particular needs. But as some users have found, these exceptional solutions often don’t work well together as information feeders or receivers. There is often a need to develop cumbersome interfaces to make these solutions talk to each other.
INTEGRATION/INTEROPERABILITY/ADAPTABILITY
So what’s the future? How can we achieve the things that the customers will want in the future; things like Integration, Interoperability and Adaptability. Well the future may very well be in front of us—we just need to look at our own personal computer. It achieves these three things in one device. You have the integration of programs for music, movies, word processing, etc., which interoperate and allow us to create presentations from recorded audio files, saved images, spreadsheets, and other documents produced by separate tools. Finally there is adaptability—a PC has programs and tools you want and use; we can choose the locality that suits us and the way we want to arrange them on our desktop.
So how does the media industry achieve the same type of results as a PC? We need an operating system. The operating system for media companies would provide the hub where all the tools (programs) and solutions attach. It would also handle the communication between tools and other system (like and ERP), and manage the system’s objects (files). Objects in this case include a story, an image, a page, an ad, a circulation route, a customer etc.
But you may wonder: Aren’t we just adding another piece of software to the glut of software we already operate? Though this might not seem like the ideal solution, the advantages of such a scenario offset the disadvantages of keeping the status quo. To mention a few: For customers, an operating system allows them to pick and choose what they want without having to buy a complete solution. For developers to achieve interoperability they do not need to be aware of what other developers are doing, it’s just a matter of talking to the operating system. Other vendors can hook-up other types of products to the systems. Localization and some customization can be done in the operating system that will spread to all the tools that are connected to it.
It’s like the difference between a rock band and symphony orchestra. A rock band’s small size allows it to play great music without a conductor organizing each instrument. But with an orchestra, this is simply not the case. As the complexity rises, the orchestra needs a conductor to coordinate the performance.
Submitted by Aparicio Bernal, Application Engineer
Posted by Keegan Skidmore on Wed, Mar 10, 2010
So the date has been announced. April 3, 2010. Mark it on your calendars; take the day off; go camp-out at the Apple store because that’s the day the iPad is coming. Though all sorts of speculation exists as to how many devices will actually be sold, a better question remains are publishers ready. Not just ready with a product or service to put on the darn thing, but are they ready from a business perspective. For example do they know what the heck they are going to charge for it?
Sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how publishers are juggling this. With no real precedent to fall back on or large body of work with statistics and line graphs that shows a magical high water mark for online prices, publishers seem to be in the dark about what consumers would be willing to pay.
Alright so that last statement isn't exactly true. Publishers do have examples in the form of an e-reader or print product, which they could use as a model for the iPad offering. But it might not be that easy, as a Gawker article on the NY Times points out. At the NYT, both the digital side of the paper and the print side have vastly different views on what should be charged. One side because they don’t want to compete against print, and the other because they see themselves competing against the Web. Aren’t they all on the same team?
Regardless, even if a media company manages to overcome the charging problem there’s the added complication of how the revenue will be split. According to the Gawker article the split is 70-30 in favor of the publisher, which really doesn’t seem so bad. Until you realize that’s on every transaction, including reoccurring ones, like subscriptions.
But anyway, I’m curious to know what other people think about all this--what an offering on the iPad is worth and whether Apple is asking for too much with its revenue split. So I ask the question:What is content on the iPad worth and is Apple asking for too much with its revenue split?
Posted by Atex Blog on Tue, Mar 09, 2010
Atex Group CEO, John Hawkins, answers a few questions about the company’s recent acquisition of Kaango, a leading online advertising marketplace software and services provider.
Why did Atex buy Kaango?
Atex is the largest supplier to the newspaper industry. We are the publisher’s friend and yet too often we are treated as “just another system vendor”. The industry will win by collaboration and realising that companies like Atex are the enablers of change. Atex is at the forefront of the digital transformation taking place within newspapers and media companies around the world.
From a business perspective,
Kaango is premised on the notion that without relative market scale, no marketplace can effectively compete in today’s classifieds environment. Yet we also believe that simply aggregating ads and presenting them as commodities is a poor strategy because it results in a disjointed user experience as customers attempt to engage with individual ads from multiple websites. Worse, the practice relinquishes the newspaper’s control over transactions and ultimate user experience to an unknown third party.
Kaango addresses both scale and user experience with its unified syndicated approach to classifieds. Kaango’s affiliates bring scale to the network while the software environment allows customers to interact with any ad in the network right on the affiliate’s own website. The high quality experience is predictable and delivered under the newspaper’s brand even if the ads being viewed originated from a different publication.
Kaango has enrolled more than 300 newspapers and broadcast media into its network and we plan to add at least 130 more in 2010. We also see a great opportunity in expanding the Kaango Network in key regions around the world, enabling publishers to share inventory, build communities and grow vertical markets for classifieds.
What does this acquisition mean for Atex customers and existing Kaango customers?
The Kaango Platform will continue to be developed aggressively and the integration into their existing systems will be seamless. The Kaango philosophy fits exactly with Atex own philosophy. Atex will be looking at other cross-industry initiatives, such as Ad Serving, ensuring that our customers keep the revenues from their content, rather than giving it away to their competitors.
In an effort to maximize the reliability of our platform as it scales, the Kaango infrastructure now runs in the Amazon Cloud. This effort, completed in 2009, delivers maximum speed, maximum redundancy and maximum reliability for all our Kaango customers.
Some of the key benefits of our fully-hosted Kaango environment include the following:
• New servers can be brought online in less than 15 minutes (vs. several days).
• We can guarantee that server environments are identical, thereby eliminating release anomalies that result from differences between testing and live environments.
• By separating processor and database-intensive functions, we can significantly improve speed (e.g. search and imports are on different servers).
• In the event of a database server failure, we have a hot spare in the cloud that can be turned on in minutes (vs. hours).
• The cost savings of hosting in a virtual environment allows us to operate more servers, which results in better speed and more redundancy.
In addition to hardware changes, we will prepare the code for international deployment and deliver greater stability overall. This process will result in incremental changes that will make our code base more reliable and more easily extensible and serviceable.
Finally, in terms of economic stability, it is important for all our customers to know that Kaango is backed by Atex and its other key shareholders Hearst Corporation and MediaNews Group, who remain committed to the success of the Kaango network. The 70+ newspapers of both companies use Kaango in live production today.
How does Kaango fit into the long-term Atex strategy?
Kaango is an industry-wide initiative that benefits all of our publishers and helps them to better understand and profile potential customers, as well as utilising proven consumer techniques to win back ad revenues.
We will carry on with these initiatives by offering better ways to monetise content. We are currently sharing our vision with a number of selected customers around the world, and the feedback so far is that we are proposing the “Holy Grail” which is giving back to publishers the power to maximise the value of content through innovative software.
It is clear to us that we must help our customers make their print operations a lot more efficient, to generate greater revenues with fewer resources, and on the digital front, to provide them with the tools to maximise the value that they get from their content.
Atex is also committed to enabling publishers increase the value offered to their customers by being able to “transact” rather than just “Selling Advertising or Content.” With the Kaango acquisition, Atex now has an established ad network, as well as a very effective consumer tool that fits our philosophy perfectly of helping our Customers to develop and grow their businesses.
Posted by Atex Blog on Mon, Mar 08, 2010
If the billions of dollars spent on SEO every year teach us anything it’s that there is very little real loyalty on the web. Digital publishing is a dog-eat-dog, first-come first-served world—or should I say first ranked first clicked – with search engines leading us white rabbit surfers down the rabbit hole of information proliferation.
With so much content, flashy banners, scrolling headlines and catchy teasers all available at a click of a button this information wonderland becomes an advertiser’s nightmare. Gone are the days when an advertiser could reasonably expect 3-4 exposure points per unique site visit. Information super-portals have made it increasingly difficult to target today’s fickle surfers. As a result the perceived value of contextual advertising is dropping faster than Alice strapped to a lead balloon, so much so that it’s hardly surprising a growing proportion of online marketing budgets are now being redirected to social networks.
The beauty of social networks, aside from the mind boggling volumes of course, is that they can offer consistent one to one marketing whether I’m uploading pictures of my dog, messaging my university alumni group, checking the latest news on my favourite band or simply cringing at the group pictures I’m a part of and which my wannabe social paparazzi friends have posted online.
This trend is unlikely to change anytime soon but with the advent of high volume personalisation on the web it can be leveraged to revitalise the more traditional online marketing touch points.
Advertisers need to stop wishfully waiting for their target market on content specific pages but instead fingerprint these users and follow them throughout all the sections of a site. As an illustration, if I support XYZ team, I will still be receptive to merchandising offers whether I’m on the sports, weather, breaking news, fashion or any other parts of a website. This is a win/win scenario. Consumers do not dislike advertising. They dislike irrelevant advertising. By serving promotional messages based on users’ interests (regardless of the content consumed) advertisers stand a much greater chance of ROI for their online marketing spend.
In popular culture, movies such as the Matrix have seen the white rabbit being used as a metaphor for a wakeup call and I guess the symbol is quite appropriate here. The ball is now in the digital publishers’ court. The onus is on them to provide that level of “social network like personalisation” to their advertising customers. If Google felt threatened enough to fight back with Buzz there’s no doubt that the shift from contextual to behavioural advertising will affect all concerned.
Submitted by Nick Chaillier, Atex Sales Manager, Magazines and Digital
Posted by Keegan Skidmore on Thu, Mar 04, 2010
So I'm thinking about starting a new website for my foot. My right foot specifically and the website will be called My Right Foot. My Right Foot will be the newest entry into the next generation of ‘local’ content I’m predicting will sweep the media industry. More focused than local, more concentrated than hyperlocal—I’m talking überlocal. Überlocal content, for the uninitiated, is content focused specifically on a part, portion, or piece of a single person or thing. An appendage; the top of something small; the part of a country where only a single person lives; a label; all fall into the realm of überlocal.
Sound stupid? (is stupid) It might, but for anyone keeping an eye on trends in the media industry, you have to think überlocal is the next logical step in markets that seem to keep shrinking. Once a city paper seemed small enough, but now that’s been narrowed down to websites about specific neighborhoods and blogs about blocks. I want to make sure I get this exclusive market while I can, so I don’t wake up one morning and find a Craigslist Keegan selling my Spaceballs DVD and renting out space on my couch.
Although überlocal might be a stretch, local and hyperlocal are offering media companies valuable new revenue generating opportunities. According to an article on paidcontent.org, a representative from McClatchy said the publisher’s hyperlocal sites have contributed $2.5 million in revenue to the company so far. Another article on the website pointed out that The New York Times is expanding the hyperlocal initiative it started last year with CUNY, to include NYU faculty and students who will cover the East Village. Abroad, the use of hyperlocal content seems to be trending the same way. PPF Media in the Czech Republic, is transforming the entire news publishing model to focus on hyperlocal content. It will put journalists and advertising sales staff in cafés throughout the country so they have direct contact with the people reading and contributing content. It also gives them greater insight into the type of advertising that will interest consumers.
Let’s face it, advertising is really what this is all about or local advertising to be more specific. Media companies realize that local content is a resource that consumers can’t necessarily find everywhere—a common problem with national news stories, that an online consumer can find on several sites. With local content, a media company might be the only resource, and so they can attract the same group of visitors day-after-day. Such a focused group of consumers is valuable for advertisers who want ensure their ads are sitting in front of the people most likely to buy. A restaurant for example would love to know the person looking at their ads lives in their neighborhood, passes the restaurant every day, and might have friends who’ve already eaten there.
The local advertising market is expected to be around $130.2 billion or 55.2% of the total advertising spend, according to BIA/Kelsey’s “Annual US Local Media Forecast”. Of that $130.2 billion, 14% will be spent online, a percentage that could increase to 25% by 2014. Such statistics suggest that going as local as possible could prove a lucrative investment if media companies do it correctly.
At least that’s my thinking with My Right Foot. It’s a risk no doubt, but my operational expenses should be fairly low; there will be only one writer (me); who I don’t have to pay (?!?!) and I’m sure Atex will be kind enough to lend me some Polopoly software to get me started. And there you have it. Eventually, I predict this site will be a money making machine once I start selling ad space to podiatrists, Dr. Scholl’s, Wigwam, soccer teams, my mom, and any other companies looking to target people interested in my right foot. Heck, I figure if this goes well, there might be a market for what I call Ludicrously Local. That’s everything that’s überlocal, but with a focus on Mel Brooks and actor Rick Moranis.
Posted by Atex Blog on Wed, Mar 03, 2010
Although I have lived in the United States for more than 25 years and boast dual citizenship with Great Britain, I must admit I don't understand America's fascination with NASCAR.
For one thing, NASCAR racers drive mindlessly on an oval track, with banked corners so they can go faster, always turning left - around and around and around.... Even the race cars lack interest for me - stock items that are basically the same with chassis bought from a mostly common supplier.
On the other hand, Formula 1 is what racing should be. In Formula 1, every team builds a highly customized vehicle. Formula 1 spends over 10 times more on R and D than does NASCAR - they are in a different league, and so is Atex.
Over the years, Formula 1 teams have developed technological and engineering innovations that rival many of the greatest companies in the world. A simple example to this is the KERS systems (look it up), this system was developed by formula one and now is the basis for most electric and hybrid cars.
Interesting fact: Did you know that an F1 car has aerodynamic downforce that is greater that the weight of the car? What does this mean? It means that theoretically the car can sustain being driven upside down! The result is that rather than having identical cars, some teams make better cars than others and cutting edge technology makes a huge difference- and Formula 1 venues change every two weeks and many offer steep inclines and hair pin turns, street circuits, night races, countryside settings. Formula 1 drivers must approach every course with a different set of strategies that can help them win.
I like to think that Atex is more Formula 1 than NASCAR. We view every customer as unique, with different challenges and strengths. Our approach is to build media solutions that work for one customer at a time. We also believe that staying ahead of technological advances is critical in tough economic times in particular. That's why we invest more resources in developing emerging technology than our competitors. Atex cares much more about what's under the hood than a shiny exterior. If we hope to find answers to the challenges facing our industry, it will be up to us to find them. Driving around and around in circles doesn't make sense. And whilst our customers don't want to drive upside down, they might want some of the leadership in engineering from the resultant R and D.
Just call me Lewis Hamilton. Submitted by Malcolm McGrory, Senior Vice President, Sales
Posted by Atex Blog on Tue, Mar 02, 2010
Every so often (once) The Atex Blog gets a comment or email that’s simply too good to spend its days stuffed at the bottom of a blog post or hidden in an inbox. Its facts are informative, its points are relevant, and its message deserves our reader’s full attention. And so that’s what The Atex Blog tries to give it. The following was submitted by Diane DiNicola from the Village Reporter covering Topsfield, Boxford and Middleton, Massachusetts.
The Technology Buying Dilemma
I want a Kindle because it’s a good product. Wait, that was yesterday. I want an iPad. Now that’s a better product. In the recent past I had to have the Motorola Razor cell phone, another good product, then a smart phone, even better, and finally the iPhone, a great product. Now I want the new iPhone and I was not happy it came out one month after I bought mine, which then made mine the old iPhone. My two-year cell phone contract almost single handedly left me in the dark ages. Two years is a long time to wait for a change. I keep looking over my shoulder for the next innovative idea to come sneaking up behind me. It's an expensive and stressful existence for any consumer.
It wasn't too long ago I was traveling the world installing publishing systems. We stored our software on 67Mb. CDC disk packs that were so big they could hardly fit in the overhead compartment of an airplane. Now my iPhone and iPod fit in my jeans pocket and are loaded with gigabytes of storage containing music, videos and photos that I rarely access. It’s still not enough!
Everything changes so quickly. Kids were so excited about AOL instant messaging just a few years ago. It has since evolved to cell phone texting, video chat, Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. What’s Twitter for? I’m not sure, but I didn’t want to miss out on the next big thing so I dabbled. I created an account for my dog Matilda. She has more followers on Twitter than me (over 600) and she never tweets, but all her dog friends do. Will she too feel the pressure to keep up?
I recently lost my job as advertising sales manager for our local newspaper. The newspaper just stopped publishing in print. It’s expensive and time consuming for a small publication to stay on the cutting-edge of technology. With just a few editors and a sales staff no one had time to keep up, they were busy reporting the news. They waited too long and couldn’t catch up which put all of us in the unemployment line.
I will continue to consider my purchasing decisions carefully when it has anything to do with technology for obvious reasons. This won’t stop me from seeking out the next “better” thing, however it will slow me down. It’s hard to imagine how a big corporation can make purchasing decisions regarding new technology without the same fear. What seems like a great idea today could be old technology by the time it’s implemented. It’s a complicated balance. If you have a message you’d like to put on The Atex Blog feel free to email us, or do like Diane did and leave a killer comment.
Posted by Atex Blog on Mon, Mar 01, 2010
How far the Internet has come? Fifteen years ago – back in the days of those screeching dial-up modems – the Internet opened up for me a window into a whole new world of communication (which in the mind of a teenage boy refers normally to communication with members of the fairer sex). It was (relatively) expensive, slow, inefficient but man, was it addictive! Today however, apart from using the Internet to chat girls up (which to be honest, is happening less and less now that I am happily married), I find I am using it for everything from paying bills and submitting tax returns to being able to stream football matches involving my beloved Blackburn Rovers and making VoIP calls to my parents in New Zealand.
Indeed, apart from the fact that the Internet has made things extremely convenient, the fact that I don't have to pay for most of these services makes it a no brainer. Why should I spend two Ringgit on a newspaper when the news in it is already outdated (and indeed the same content – updated and corrected in most instances – is available for free on the newspaper's website)? What advantage does placing a classified ad in my local paper to sell my Proton Wira hold when any semi- Web-savvy buyer would know that shopping is so much more convenient when done online where everything is indexable, searchable and - best of all - free to use.
This does present a problem to traditional newspaper publishing as a whole of course; good journalism does not come free and with more and more people turning to online alternatives to get news and other editorial content, publishers are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet as print advertising revenue continues to fall. Indeed, with online services like Craigslist and Monster effectively giving advertising space away for free, newspapers clearly have to rethink their revenue strategy or risk irrelevance.
News Corporation – one of the largest users of Atex software in Asia Pacific and among the largest media corporations in the world – is taking the bold step of charging consumers for their online editorial content. It is bold because it could be extremely easy for them to lose a significant chunk of their readership to competing news organizations who continue to publish all their content online for free and indeed end up in a worse situation than they currently are in (which to be fair, is really not as bad as how some other news publishers have fared in the last year or so). However, if they do play their cards right, it is probably just as likely for them – as an early adopter of this approach – to lead the print media industry into the digital future where consumers willingly pay for content that is customized to their needs and lifestyle.
Whether or not Murdoch's approach to bringing news publishing into the future works out, one thing is for sure: operating a paid service is nothing like giving stuff away for free. Having paying customers mean that every system downtime is potentially revenue threatening. An online service that is unreliable but is free I can tolerate; after all I'm not paying anything to use it and well, it's easy enough to move to a competitor. But if I have paid for a service, I'm committed to it and if I can't use it when I need to; that's akin to making me pay for a product that I can't use.
Fortunately, Atex's Digital solution has an autonomous mode which continues to serve up content even when the backend is not responding; whether for routine maintenance work or something more serious like a database crash. Because reliability is key, especially when your customers are paying cold hard cash to get to your content. Read all about it and lots more here.
Submitted by Joseph Poh, Atex Development Team Lead
Posted by Peter Marsh on Fri, Feb 26, 2010
After 20+ years in the business, the Publisher had been through dozens of system implementations. Editorial, advertising, circulation, pre-press, post-press. You name it; he'd bought it. He'd installed it. He'd replaced it.
He brought this exabyte of experience with him as he walked into the executive conference room. The supplier's team sat to his left, all suited up with laptops poised. The customer team -- his team -- sat together on his right. Without a word, the Publisher walked up to the white board, picked up a red dry-erase marker and wrote in large, neat upper-case letters: WINDSCALE.
Turning to his audience, he pointed to the board and punctuated each letter with the red marker as he spoke. "What Is Not Down in Specification Costs A Lot Extra," he said to the group. Then he turned and left the room in strategic, deferential silence.
Through this simple, albeit melodramatic gesture, the Publisher communicated to the entire team his belief in the importance of the specification process when launching a new project. In addition, as the project's sponsor, he acknowledged the specification as the unifying document that describes what the system will and will not do -- and ultimately, what his company will and won't pay for.
There's a problem, however. Even if every person at that table agrees the specification is important, there are two widely different views as to what a spec actually is and does. The customer team would say that the specification defines what they want the system to do. The supplier team is likely to say that the specification describes how the system will work. The distinction between what and how often leads to misunderstandings that can jeopardize the success of the project.
The search and selection process often begins with a Request for Proposal (RFP) detailing all the things the customer wants in a new system. In the supplier's eyes, the focus is on implementation. The supplier may respond to the customer's RFP with a proposal describing all the features and functionality that their system has to offer. The customer is talking expectations, while the supplier is talking execution.
Disconnects occur whenever the customer feels their RFP very clearly states what they want the system to do, and the supplier feels their proposal defines exactly what the customer will be getting.
The trick here is to recognize that the specification must encompass the requirements as well as the solutions. The what is certainly important. So is the how. But, to ensure that the specification meets the objectives of both the customer and the supplier, the focus also needs to be on the why. If every individual gathered around that conference table can agree why each item appears in the specification, then both parties will be able to see the issues from the other's perspective.
Here are my six "Windscale Principle" rules to help produce good, clear specifications leading to highly successful projects.
1. A bad beginning makes a bad ending.
This ancient saying from Euripides is relevant today. Our Publisher understood this when he set the agenda for the project team during the kickoff meeting. The specification process is the foundation of the entire project. All subsequent tasks -- including design, development, manufacture, delivery, training, parallel and live operation -- will suffer if the time is not invested early in the project to write specifications that everyone agrees to.
2. Memories fade a lot quicker than ink.
Don't rely on collective memories when defining requirements. Complex projects involve many players, some of whom may be gone by the time the implementation phase rolls around. Verbal promises, assurances and commitments are difficult to verify, and are wide-open to misinterpretation. The specification should be viewed by all parties as the official rulebook for the project. If disputes arise, the team should be able to turn to the specification as the definitive document that captures each deliverable.
3. Keep it simple, succinct, unambiguous, precise.
The awkward acronym notwithstanding, this rule helps to ensure that everyone interprets the specification the same way. Each item in the spec should express a single thought. Simple declarative sentences should be used. With large projects, several different people often share in the spec'ing duties, so it is important to maintain a consistent writing style.
Use words such as "will" to state facts, "shall" to state requirements, and "should" to state goals. Avoid words that can cause misunderstanding, and that might lead to disputes. Words like "etc.", "TBD" and "fast" do not belong in a specification because they are vague, confusing and not verifiable. To allow validation, the terms must be specific and quantitative. A sentence such as, "The system will provide rapid, user-friendly access to menus..." may mean one thing to a customer and something entirely different to a design engineer. Try to choose words that are measurable, objective and straightforward.
4. Know the difference between necessities and niceties.
When putting together a specification, you do not want to end up with a one-off solution that will take many months to develop and install, and which will be difficult to upgrade and support in the future.
If there is any doubt about whether an item in the specification is really needed, ask yourself: What is the worst thing that could happen if this didn't get included in the final system? If the project team cannot come up with an answer of substance, then the item is probably not really needed.
5. No bull, no bullets.
Good specifications should be written in sentence form. But don't over-specify. People often write down everything they can think of, with the hope that the reader will somehow grasp the real requirement. Avoid long, run-on sentences that convey more than a single thought. And, try not to use too many bullets when listing requirements, as bullets by themselves often lead to misunderstanding.
6. Sponsorship is key.
Finally, as our Publisher illustrated, it is essential for the team's sponsor to buy into the importance of the specification process. Poorly written or incomplete specs can add many hours of rework time to the project, so the time investment at the beginning of the project is always worthwhile.
A good sponsor facilitates the specification process by developing a sense of shared leadership and common purpose. From the outset, the sponsor should take responsibility for guiding the project's mission, building team cohesion, maintaining focus, and resolving conflicts when appropriate. The challenge is great, but the rewards are significant.
Consistent expectations. Shared benefits. On-time/on-budget delivery. Happy end-users. Invoices paid in full. Long-term supplier-client relationships. By adhering to the Windscale Principle, and acknowledging the significance of the specification process, the likelihood of project success will be assured.
Posted by Keegan Skidmore on Thu, Feb 25, 2010
So I’m interested in what you all think (Part I):
Though the iPad apparently offers a grand new platform to help publishers monetize digital products, it might prove to be far from a publishing utopia. As the model works right now, a rather large hurdle stands in the way of publishers wishing to reap all the possible benefits from the iPad. Actually ‘hurdle’ might be the wrong word, because this obstacle is definitely in the shape of an apple (pun entirely intended).
According to an article published by Financial Times, any deal with Apple won’t be nearly as sweet as a publisher could hope for. Sure, the iPad offers a great new portal to reach customers, but as the music industry has seen, it’s going to come at a cost. And we’re not talking a revenue split, though there is one of those too. What might be of greater sacrifice to publishers is not what Apple is charging for, but what they aren’t offering at all—reader information. Apple will let them know how many are reading a publication, but not necessarily who is reading it. And the who, is really the sweet spot for publishers.
Just listen to any editor or marketing director and you’ll hear them espouse that the heartbeat of a successful product relies on knowing who is, and will be, reading it. Print publications can do it through subscription information, and now online it’s the website. Publishers are trying more than ever to use registration information to track who is reading what, where and when. This not only affects the content that’s created, but also, and maybe more importantly, how to position ads that go next to that content. So what happens if Apple takes all this away? That’s a very good question and I’d be interested to know what all you think. Is this a deal breaker? Are you willing to give up customer information for the ability to use the iPad? (Do you even care about the iPad?) Or do you think a happy compromise will be reached?
Feel free to leave me a comment or email me at kskidmore@atex.com