Define Irony

Scott Karp defines it by linking to a digital edition article with implications of the relative health of print.

More Widget Talk

Last week we previewed our forthcoming widget. If you want to skip the marketing pitch and just see it in action, this is our personal widget playground. If you can’t see the new widget, you’re one of the 15% of the population that hasn’t downloaded Flash Player 9. What are you waiting for silly? Get it here.

At any rate, we realize you might not quite realize where a widget fits into your business plan. Your best move? Read How to Widget, which nails what we’re doing perfectly:

Widgets should be built on top of a feed based architecture. I am stuck on my four rules and I plan on sticking to them a little longer. They are:

1 – Microchunk it – Reduce the content to its simplest form.
2 – Free it – Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it.
3 – Syndicate it – Let anyone take it and run with it.
4 – Monetize it – Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk.

Widgets are part of rules 3 and 4. Widgets are a syndication tool and a tracking tool. And hopefully they’ll become a monetization tool as well.

But when I put on the hat of a publisher, I want a simple way to do all of this. And that takes me back to the feed. I like the idea of write once, publish anywhere and everywhere.

Which is precisely what we’re doing with out widget.

Great NXTbooks of the Past Week

In no particular order…

American Cinematographer – This dynamite publication will be locked down before too long but the publisher is wisely keeping the content open for the first few issues. Check out the video on the opening page!

Missed ABM? Check out what Media Business had to say about it here.

My wife’s favorite NXTbook. It really is all about content, and teachers love Edutopia.

Fly much? Check out the US Exhibitors Guide to the Paris Air Show.

And finally, last week we talked about our forthcoming widget, which led some to speculate that a desktop NXTbook widget couldn’t be far behind.  This article from B2B Marketing Trends shows why speculation would be wise for anyone seeking to build customer loyalty.

Miss Circulation Management?

Psst.. If you missed the Circulation Management show or attended it and wanted to get your hands on some of the great PowerPoint presentations, you can view most of them here, most of which have been conveniently converted to NXTbook format, eliminating a long download time. Enjoy!

links for 2007-06-08

• The Official 2007 Guide to Tampa Bay
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• Compass Marketing Fall Travel Planner
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Tell Your Readers About Your Digital Edition.

Once you’ve launched a digital edition, one of the first things you should do is tell your readers about it. Why you’re doing it, what’s in it for them, etc… it keeps them in the loop! Here’s a perfect example of how to do it from Plant Services magazine.

links for 2007-06-07

• Circulation strategies for Digital Editions
  Christina Vasiliadis and Gloria Adams gave this presentation at CM 07.
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Circulation Management Round-Up.

Like the shirt says, “We love NY,” and we love it even more during Circulation Management. This year’s event was no exception and we were thrilled to be part of the festivities. In no particular order, here were some highlights:

• A great presentation on Circ. Strategies for Digital Editions, co-starring NXTbook customer Christina Vasiliadis from Institutional Investor. Check out her presentation here.
• If you see Mark Groeschen from f+w publications groovin’, that’s because he won an iPod Shuffle at our presentation. Congratulations, Mark! Incidentally, I just realized today that f+w produces one of my favorite magazines. So nice work, too, Mark. Keep in mind that if you’re not Mark Groeschen, you can still win an iPod Shuffle by going here.
• During our presentation, we pulled in two great outside videos, which we can’t recommend enough:

The Machine is Us/ing Us.
RSS for Normal People.

Awww, it’s a Widget. What’s that? A Widget!

OK, Wikipedia says a widget is: an interface element that a computer user interacts with, such as a window or a text box. Or, put another way, it’s something on your website that the user can play with.

With a release date of July 4th, the NXTwidget will be the first of its kind – a widget which gives readers a mini-view of the magazine content. The user can page back and forth through pages of the content and click to launch the content. Best of all for publishers? The widget is dynamically fed by the RSS feed of the publication, so once the widget is placed, it will automatically update itself when new issues are published.

Wanna play with the NXTwidget? You’ll find a few working prototypes right here.

Why You Should Care About RSS (Even if you don’t have an RSS strategy.).

A common misconception about RSS is that it can’t help you unless you’ve got a feed strategy and while we all know we should have such a strategy – hey, it’s summer time and living is easy. But here’s how NXTbook Media’s RSS Strategy helps you – even if you don’t publish feeds. (And if this post is confusing you, go watch RSS for normal people (and then come right back).)

Three of our publications are Clean Run Magazine, LCGC The Peak and Home Media Magazine. Of these three, only the second has an RSS strategy and pushes out content via feeds. However, because all three of them have their Table of Contents pushed out via a feed provided by NXTbook Media, all three have feeds that are captured and indexed by Google.

The following is a screenshot of recent feeds indexed by Google and published via an RSS reader. What you automatically see is an interactive advertisement which highlight the content of the magazine and drives people to the digital edition, even if you don’t have a digital edition strategy!

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