Pressure to Perform?

Dan Blank points out the body count in the war for attention:

“If the average paper has about 200 stories and the average reader has
about 20 minutes to read it, he can spend only about six seconds on
each story.”

By the way, that nugget is a piece of "reader generated content" or "user generated content" or "conversational media" which originally appears in the Washington Post. (As always, Dan pointed out the source, too – but I wanted to give him credit, also, because he finds lots of good stuff.)

 

What Would Google Do – the Publisher Version

A few years ago there were some trendy blog posts entitled “What Would Google Do?” The concept was obvious: Google was starting to make boatloads of money and there was a lot of healthy debate as to whether or not others should copy them.

That being said, most of the articles at the time focused on Google’s simplistic design and not on Google’s role as an information publisher, which is where current critical thinking about Google is focused. So, three years later, I find myself asking, “What would Google do?” again, but not as a designer: as a publisher.

Twice this week with two different publishers, I found myself asking this question.

Publisher #1 was the most perplexing to me. In this case, the publisher was concerned about their digital edition (one property) stealing traffic from their website (another property). Their proposed solution was to take their digital edition and bury it deeper within their website. They also planned on not linking to the digital edition from blogs or forums on the website, too.

They did, however, plan on sending e-mails to subscribers with a link to the digital edition.

And I asked myself, “What would Google do?”

Would Google make it more difficult to find what you were looking for? After all, if Google puts the best content on page four, wouldn’t that mean that people would scroll through three pages (with ads!) to find the good stuff?

Would Google send a batch e-mail out to thousands of readers instead of putting the content where they could find it when they wanted it?

In short, would Google make it more difficult to find the good stuff?

Of course not. Google knows that if you can’t find what you’re looking for, it doesn’t help Google and it doesn’t help the reader.

Publisher #2 was a more common scenario and one I hear more often.

In this case, the publisher was talking about competitive content. While they recognized that their competitors published good content, and would even quote it and cite it on their site, they wanted to stop short of linking to it, because that would only drive traffic off of their site and onto the site of their competitor.

Again, I asked myself, “What would Google do?”

Would Google display great results from a Yahoo article and omit the link?

What if Google only displayed textual summaries but had no links?

If they did that, would you use Google?

More importantly, since we know Google doesn’t do that, when you click on a link and leave Google and the information you’re seeking is what you were hoping to find, does that make you more or less likely to come back to Google?

This post isn’t to suggest Google is perfect. Far from it. But there’s a very important message here. Google understands that the best thing to do is to make it as easy as possible for users to find the content they’re looking for, regardless of where it is or where it makes traffic go. In doing so, they build loyalty, which should be the goal of any publisher, in any medium.

Next time, just ask yourself, “What would Google do?”

Scott Karp on Niche-y News

Scott Karp provides some key insight into the PEJ Social News Report. He focuses on how these sites don’t work well for mass media content, but here’s a nugget that shows how B2B publishers can benefit from using services like Digg, del.icio.us or Reddit:

Digg and Reddit are excellent sites for highly niche communities to share information of common interest.

Niche communities with common interests…. Doesn’t that sound like just about every B2B magazine? And many consumer magazines?

If you’re a magazine publisher, here’s your move: Pick 1 of these services as the "de facto" aggregator for your content (assuming there’s not one your users gravitate toward currently). Let’s suppose it’s del.icio.us. Make it easy for people to upload content on your website to del.icio.us. Use del.icio.us links yourself. Create del.icio.us feeds.

These aggregators work for many niche markets and not just high tech. Looking for chocolate cake? Users have uploaded 1600 different recipes to del.icio.us. Questions about insulin? Del.icio.us users have bookmarked nearly 2000 articles.  

Simply put, choosing an aggregator enables you to focus your content where readers can find it. It’s also absolutely free. And why mention it here? Because you can also use the page-specific permalinks inside the Nxtbook to upload your digital edition content there as well. In fact, traffic to Nxtbooks via del.icio.us has tripled in the past year. 

 
 

Sales & Marketing Management – As a Nxtbook!

I love it when we get to work with publishers that do books we loved long before they were Nxtbooks. This month, we welcome Sales & Marketing Management to the fold – dynamite content from a dynamite publisher.

You can check out their first issue here and be treated to a really slick animated ad as soon as the book loads. Now THAT’S how to get the readers’ attention. 

iPod-apalooza Coming to Folio!

This year at FOLIO, Nxtbook Media is celebrating new product features, a new office and even a new logo! To bring the celebration to you, we’re offering eight iPod Shuffles! Here’s how to win:

1.) Attend any Nxtbook Media program. Choose from four programs on Sunday and two on Tuesday. A lucky participant will walk away from each program with an iPod Shuffle!

Program Schedule:

Sunday, September 23 (FOLIO Pre-Conference Day):
1:15-2:00pm  Leveraging Technology for Event Promotion
Planning events requires great marketing, but with ever-changing agendas and schedules, what’s the best way to market and promote the event. Learn how digital editions can help you reach more people more effectively before and after your event.

2:15-3:00pm Loud Content
Great content isn’t enough. To be successful, your content must call to readers and be easily found by those looking for it. Learn how smart promote digital edition content to their readers and make sure that readers can find it via Google and other search engines.

3:00-3:45pm Mining the Edges
Digital editions create additional streams of revenue. Learn how savvy publishers are creating cash flow from rich media, RSS feeds and custom sponsorships. See how smart publishers ensure digital editions bring value to the bottom line.

3:45-4:15pm The Digitally Driven Association
Learn how associations use digital distribution to grow international distribution without the burden of overseas postage via digital distribution. Digital publishing has never been simpler, cheaper and better.

Tuesday, September 25:
11:15-12:15pm Nine Things You Need to Know About Digital Editions
This CORE level course introduces attendees to the basics of online revenue and circulation growth via Digital Editions.

2:15-3:15pm Digital Editions to the Max
This ADVANCED level course dives into the newest technology available, as shown in the recently released LiNKED Magazine.

TWO MORE WAYS TO WIN!!:

2.) Visit the Nxtbook Media booth! Conveniently located next to the Cyber Café at booth 520, company representatives will be on hand with the newest Digital Edition Technology. They’ll also gladly enter you in a drawing for an iPod Shuffle!

3.) Introducing Nxttext – “The Nxt Text Thing!” This year, Nxtbook Media introduces the magazine industry to an entirely new service. With Nxttext, your print readers simply send a text message placed strategically inside your magazine. When they do, bonus content, advertiser coupons and more are delivered automatically to their e-mail address. Text messaging is growing in leaps and bounds and Nxttext assures that you’ll be ready for the Nxt Big Thing! Plus, anyone who visits the Nxttxt Kiosk (also at booth 520) is automatically entered in a drawing for an iPod Shuffle.

If you’re counting, that’s eight iPods, six programs and one entirely new service to the magazine industry, coming to the FOLIO show, all courtesy of Nxtbook Media! We hope to see you there!

It’s a Small World, After All…

I met with the "sign guy" today about our new offices. His name is Ron Martin and the business name is Ron Martin Signs. He doesn’t have a website (at least not one that I’m aware of), but he’s been doing signs in Lancaster, PA for two or three decades now, so he must be doing something right. 

Towards the end of our meeting, Ron goes, "Be sure and tell your owners how much I like their product." Turns out Ron is a regular reader of Sign Builder Illustrated (most recent issue is here). He told me he loves to read digital magazines and wondered how many people were "crazy like him."

There’s several lessons to learn here:

1. You never know who would like your magazine in digital format. I would’ve guessed that a man in his fifties who owns a business that doesn’t have a website isn’t likely to read an online magazine. I would’ve been wrong. That’s why the #1 thing a magazine can do is a simple test issue with a survey tacked on. Very quickly, you’ll learn what your audience thinks and how successful you’ll be. This month, more than a million people just like Ron will open a Nxtbook; it stands to reason that some will easy to spot, but others will surprise you.

2. Not everyone is "crazy" like Ron, but most magazines can convert 10-20% of their print circulation to digital. When they do so, it pays for itself in cost savings. When they sell digital sponsorships, they end up making more money.

3. Ron Martin has good taste. Our new signs are going to be sweet.

links for 2007-09-12

• Singlocity, Resource for Singles in Denver and Colorado
  demonstration of widget on web page
  (tags: widget)

How Magazines Use Websites.

Via Rex, we’re lead to an update from the Bivings Group on how magazines use websites. Here are a few key findings, followed by Nxtbook insight:

1) Fifty-eight percent of the magazines researched now offer reporter blogs on their sites, compared to just 40 percent in 2006.

This is a great thing to see for many reasons. First, great magazine blogs link to great magazine content, which can easily be done with a Nxtbook. Secondly, Nxtbooks can also receive RSS feeds from blogs, meaning that blog and forum content can be published dynamically inside the Nxtbook. Check out a sample here.

2) Newspapers fared better than magazines in nearly every category in
2007.  The only exception is the use of tags; four percent of magazines
use tags compared to just one percent of newspapers.

Tagging is a great way for users to archive terrific content and find you more readers. Did you know that traffic from popular tagging site del.icio.us to Nxtbooks is up 873% from August 06- August 07, and that the average reader who finds a Nxtbook from del.icio.us stays in that content for nearly 15 minutes?!

 3) Video usage nearly doubled in 2007, with 60 percent of the magazine websites we researched now offering video content.

We see similar stats inside the Nxtbook – August once again had Nxtbook flirting with nearly a terabyte of rich media served! 

 

Your New Marketing Department

If you have great content and make that content easy and fun to read, your readers will find you other readers. Wanna see? Check out this online forum, where a reader of a Nxtbook about cruises pointed out the digital edition to other people interested in cruising. The result? More readers, happier readers and brand extension for the publisher.

For Your Teacher Friends.

With the kids back to school, every teacher can use a little help. How about sending them the latest issue of Edutopia?

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