Find Your (Digital) Niche…

We’re pleased to be a sponsor of a new and exciting show coming this Fall: The Niche Digital Conference, to be held in Minneapolis from September 21-22. Niche Poobah Carl Landau writes on his website:

Ready or not, here we come! All magazine publishers are grappling with digital publishing. So how do you integrate your print and digital components? Or possible go "digital only"? And most importantly, how do you build a digital strategy with small budget resources, but maximum profit potential? You can do all this and more at the new Niche Digital Conference! 

For fun magazine publishing events, they don’t come more special than Carl’s Niche programs. If you can work it in, work it in!

Bada… BING!

Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, launched last month and while it’s going to be tough to out-Google Google, early returns are interesting.

Already, Bing is the number three search engine referrer to Nxtbooks and if you google "see Des Moines summer getaway" (with or without the quotation marks), you’ll see Bing’s doing a nice job of indexing Nxtbook content. For what it’s worth, Google continues to do the "best" job. Visitors from Google read far more pages and stay way longer in the content from those from other search engines.

 

Nxtbook 3.0 - Starring… Nxtbook Media!

As part of our upcoming 3.0 release, we’re revamping the corporate video. Designed to show all of the features of 3.0, this version takes place at Nxtbook Media headquarters. While this is a rough cut (with more edits and features coming), we hope you enjoy it!

 

Dan Blank is on a roll….

If you do nothing else this week to help your magazine succeed do this: read Dan Blank’s latest posts. He’s doing a great job of helping B2B publishers not just understand how their jobs are changing but how to transition through the changes. Here’s a snippet:

Editors do an incredible amount of work for each article and feature they produce. However, they often lose the return-on-investment by focusing on a single product (an article), instead of building multiple revenue generating products that can sustain the business, and target the many ways their audience can consume the information that the editors are producing. A single effort can easily be extended to create several products, each with their own sales channel.

 

Nxtbook 3.0 is Here (Almost)

NOTE: This is a re-post from last week. I don’t think we’ve ever done a re-post, but it’s important. If you read it last week, skip it today. But if you didn’t, please read it now:

Later this month, the official version of Nxtbook 3.0 will be released. You’ve heard us blog about it, watched the videos and probably have even seen it, but now it’s your turn to treat your readers (and advertisers) to the coolest Nxtbook, yet.

To bring you up to speed with 3.0, we’re please to announce a special clients-only webinar where you’ll have the ability to see everything you’re dying to know about 3.0, including:

* What you can expect to hear from your readers regarding the new interface

* What new revenue generation opportunities are available to you

* How to utilize enhanced tracking

* How to grow circulation specifically with 3.0

* What you need to do to ensure your files look awesome in Nxtbook 3.0

* Much, much more!

The webinar will be held Wed. June
24th, at 2pm (EDT). Though we’ve done dozens of webinars, this one’s a
little special: it’s the first clients-only one, and the first
opportunity you’ll have to ask questions surrounded by other Nxtbook
customers. It’s going to be great! Register for the webinar here.

 

Hedging the E-ink Bets

So if the past year was all about devices: the Kindle, the iPhone, the Sony Book Reader, the PlasticLogics Reader (which isn’t even out, yet), will next year be about platform agnostics?

Evidence piece #1: Google doesn’t think you want a reader. Or at least, not a specialized reader. They’re going to start selling books right through the browser, recognizing that browsers go pretty much everywhere.

Evidence piece #2: The 3Qi monitor wants to merge what we love about LCDs (color and animation) with what we love about E-ink (low light, easy on the batteries) into a single uber-monitor. Sounds expensive, but then again, it sounds wholly useful right out of the box, too.

Meanwhile, are you aware that the new Alias 2 cell phone uses E-ink? For $79 bucks, you can be texting away on tomorrow’s technology today.

If You’re Not Bleeding, You’re Not Trying.

… and with those words (and an unusually high percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers) the Nxtbook Tricycle Team took 1st place at this year’s United Way Trike Race, held on the (thankfully closed) streets of downtown Lancaster.

While yesterday’s story in the local paper may have fueled the competetive fires of our opponents, it did little to prevent the crew from pretty much trouncing the other teams.

Though we all share in the victory, the true accolades go to the team:

   

 

 

Photos, courtesy of Chris "The Shutter" Shontz

Are You Going to Audience Development This Year?

That question is a teeny bit rhetorical as pre-registrations are (expectedly) down this year. Still, Nxtbook is thrilled to be a sponsor of this year’s event, the best of its kind for those in the circulation business.

If you are there, be sure to check out Nxtbook stars Eric Gervase & Beth Molloy as they deliver 7 Ways Digital Magazines are Changing Audience Development.

You’ll learn:

• Which social media tool brings you readers that stay 40% longer
• Which new digital magazine newsstand is open for business, regardless of what platform you’re using now
• How to grow your circulation on Kindles, iPhones, BlackBerries and more

Where: The Audience Development Conference, Chicago
When: Tuesday, June 9, 10:45 am

Upping the Interactive

There’s some Twitter-chat this week about SEED Magazine’s very cool interactive interface. In many ways, this is more of a website interface than a digital magazine interface, as the user controls what they see when and can’t really tell when they’re done looking. Those aren’t judgment calls, mind you, just facts. At any rate, we love different ways to visualize data and if you’re looking to drive engagement, you could do a lot worse.

Kindle DX Announced

The next generation Kindle was announced today - the first Kindle to allow publishers to maintain their graphics on the device’s screen. While not close to perfect, it’s a dramatic improvement, and publishers can be certain we’ll find ways to help get their content on the Amazon store.

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