• Edutopia - February/March 2008 - Page Cover1
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Writing the "long tail" in a blog title in 2008 sure has a tired feel about it. After all, the phrase has been around for four years now. Still, it reared its long neck just yesterday, so I assure you it’s timely.

Commonly, we’re asked by publishers how we’re different from the competition. If the question is coming from a technical perspective, we provide answers such as those provided on the Why Nxtbook? section of the website. But sometimes the question is being asked from a business model perspective. Likewise, sometimes the competitor being asked about is Zinio. That’s what this post is about.

In a press release yesterday, a new Zinio partner had this to say:

“The Zinio Global Newsstand is ‘long tail’; at its most powerful. In a marketplace where access is traditionally defined by geographic scale of demand, Zinio enables mass and niche interest communities worldwide to connect with specific magazine content regardless of local market demand viability,” said Joan Solã, Acceso Group’s CEO.

For those unfamiliar with the terms, long tail economics states that businesses that serve as aggregators (Amazon is the best-known example) make a ton of money by selling small quantities of lots of stuff (Longer definition here.).

The curious thing is this: The benefits of the long-tail are far greater for the aggregator than for the individual vendor (or publisher in this case). David Hornik explains it thusly:

I have come to the conclusion that there are essentially two general classes of technology the will benefit economically from the Long Tail — aggregators and filterers. And while both aggregators and filterers rely upon the increasing volume and diversity of content to assure their value in the ecosystem, that growth of content will not have a material impact upon the value of any one piece of content floating somewhere in the Tail. The value will all inure to the benefit of the aggregators and filterers.

In previous press releases, Zinio has claimed to deliver 18 million digital magazines per year from more than 800 publications. Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean that 18 million are read - kind of like the difference between e-mails sent and e-mails opened. If we make the assumption that a certain small percentage of the Zinio audience doesn’t open the digital magazine (print or digital, we’ve all got magazines we haven’t read), we see that Nxtbook has similar readership, though with slightly more than 500 publications. So how do we generate more readers for BtoB magazines than Zinio does for consumer titles? The answer is in the long tail.

In long-tail economics, the aggregator isn’t concerned with the performance of any single piece of content. To be blunt, the concept is to fill up a warehouse with gobs of stuff - too much stuff for any one to do great - but enough stuff so that somebody will buy something. Either way, the aggregator wins when the person goes through the check-out line.

Publishers need to understand that this business model - by necessity - means that the aggregator isn’t concerned about individual performance. The aggregator is focused on aggregation, and the multiples that it produces.

At Nxtbook, we’ve always believed that the best person to sell your content is you. You know your audience. When they come online, they don’t go "browsing" for content. They go to your website. They read your newsletters and they subscribe to your feeds. That’s why our business model is about making your content easy to place on your website, easy to link to and easy to create feeds from. We give you those tools so that you can take them to your audience.

Simple take-away: there is money to be made in the long tail of digital magazines. But unless you’re an aggregator, that guy isn’t you.

Tomorrow marks the finale of our Digital Edition University Webinar Series. This program looks at "Next Generation Digital Editions" and features 3 great subjects:

E-Paper. It powers the Kindle and has the potential to ignite the digital magazine industry. Listen to one top analyst explain when flexible, full-color displays will be available and affordable.

Designing for Digital-Only Publications. It’s the latest trend in digital magazines — layout and style for the digital only reader. Learn from a top magazine designer what does and doesn’t work online.

How big is this gonna get? Next month, a new study will be released, detailing the size of the digital magazine category. One analyst in charge of the study will give an executive preview into their extensive research.

Don’t miss it! Registration is free by going here.
 

Here’s a great article posturing why publishers should give away all of their magazine content. Like all of these articles, the writer makes a very compelling argument. But here’s the thing: publishers don’t need to wring their hands over this issue. Nxtbook has a solution in place for just this predicament.

A publisher can take a magazine and make it protected, either for registered users or paid users. Then, they enable our PREVIEW feature. What happens is simple. A paid subscriber reads great content and posts the link with the page w/ the cool content on their blog. A new reader clicks the link and then the PREVIEW button which appears on the log-in screen. After that, they’re delivered to the linked content and can turn as many pages as the publisher specifies. After that, they’re invited to subscribe.

Doing this eliminates the argument above - your content can be used to promote your other content. Just ask your Nxtbook rep for details.
 

Dylan Stableford from FOLIO has posted several quotes overheard during last week’s FOLIO Publishing Summit. I think it’s a great idea to print these, because it quickly helps people to see some of the ideas discussed in a very idea-packed event. In fact, I’d probably cover the event in a similar fashion if I were a FOLIO staffer. That being said, quotes without context is kind of like looking at how somebody’s dressed without knowing where they’re going: you’re only getting half the story.

Take this one:

“No one’s reading the magazine on the Web.”
—Dana Spain-Smith, COO, DLG Media Holdings, on the tired practice of replicating articles online.

While one can’t tell whether Spain-Smith is speaking of content or digital editions, Dylan’s tag appears to insinuate digital editions, so let’s go with that. First off, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Yes, people are reading digital edition. In fact, well over 1,000,000 people read a Nxtbook every month and stay inside them longer than they stay inside most websites. Don’t believe it? Join FOLIO for this week’s webinar and hear what the Gilbane Group learned from analyzing the tracking data from several digital publishing companies.

So, why would Spain-Smith make this claim? We’re not sure, other than that what we all see is entirely dependent on where we stand. DLG Media, it appears, publishes three magazines - all of which would be classified as regional publications. Because regionals have a focus on local news, they often have less use for a non-local audience, which reduces that key benefit of digital publishing. Moreover, while DLG has some advertising on their websites, it doesn’t appear to be a significant source of focus for their time, so it stands to reason that increased revenue opportunities wouldn’t be as exciting to this publisher either. In other words, DLG isn’t putting much focus into generating digital readership, and they’re being rewarded by having that prophecy fulfilled.

So while we agree that Dana’s speaking a certain truth, it’s really DLG’s truth, and not necessarily yours’. The digital magazine isn’t a cure-all or a silver bullet. It’s a strategic product with a strategic purpose for the right content and the right audience. Kind of like any magazine or website, come to think of it.

• AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2008
  Nice, sleek intro. video in this Nxtbook (with more videos throughout)
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They’ve asked me to sit on a panel at next month’s Publishing Conference & Expo. I’ll be bantering about the future of digital editions alongside some of the brightest in the business. Should be a lot of fun. If you’re in NYC or at the conference, be sure to say, "Hi!"

Once, digital magazines were viewed as a transitional technology.
Now, it’s clear that adoption rates for digital magazines keep growing
as more and more publishers, advertisers and readers come to see the
value of the format. And technical capabilities have improved. What was
once used as a cost-saving device has emerged as an intriguing hybrid
model–combining useful elements of print and online. In this Webinar
we explore why there was a shift in how these products are perceived
and how publishers are leveraging digital editions in new and
profitable ways.

Speaker 1:

Ryan Douthit
Publisher
MediaSpigot LLC

Click here to view the archived webinar.

A fair - though somewhat dated - article on digital editions bubbled up on E-Content today. Dated because while the author was relatively positive about the format, the questions asked were the types of questions more clever writers were asking a few years back. Let’s delve:

1. How many people actually read the digi-mags they get is another question. No, it really isn’t. The author goes on to look at e-mail open rates, but today’s digital magazines are accessed via many means, including e-mail, RSS, search engines, social media sites and - most importantly - publishing websites. Only Zinio’s delivery model has caused confusion with this issue, as they quote what their delivery rate is via the Zinio reader, while the rest of us discuss how many issues are actually being read.

2. I can only speculate that uneven performance like this reflects the different levels of support from the publishers in marketing the platform and the audiences’ uncertainty about the format. The first half of this sentence is entirely correct, but no more correct in digital magazines than in e-mail newsletters and RSS feeds. Marketing is critical. The statement about audiences uncertain about the format is so 2004, it’s not even funny today. Four years ago, audiences talked about the format of their media. But now - in a world where people are reading content on cellphones, smartphones and PS3’s, people have become platform agnostics. Give them the content they want - make it easy for them to find it - and they will consume it.

3. It filters information and presents it in a more scannable, digestible form than most websites. This filtering function may be one reason the digital magazine is enjoying a bump, if not a boom, in popularity. At Nxtbook, we’ve seen radical growth annually in readership and revenue for four years running. Every month, more than 1 million people read a Nxtbook and stay inside it longer than they do the average website. How does one define a "bump" or a "boom"?

4. In some cases, the take-up comes from surprising audiences. Nope. Take-up comes when you have great content and people can find it. Period.

5. Another new advantage of the format is that it can help get print material into the search ecosystem. This sentence is wrong from beginning to end. Those of us dedicated to the format have been doing this for years. At the same time, many many companies don’t. The "format" of a digital magazine doesn’t get your content indexed by Google - the technology you’re using decides that.

6. Publishers are starting to see ROI from digital magazines, but this is the kind of platform that will be leveraged in oblique ways that don’t always have a direct revenue stream. Go to the FOLIO website and view the archived webinar on digital edition revenue generation.

7. Ultimately, this platform will thrive when users are finally convinced that digitized print can solve problems of flexibility, portability, and personalization that they didn’t realize they had. Wrong. Those companies developing the right technology, when partnered with publishers that understand what the product is and what it does, will thrive. Users - on the other hand - will use products that behave like they want the Web to behave (search, permalinks, etc). Long-term they’ll except nothing less, but they also ask nothing more. In addition, the platform will also be enhanced by journalists realize it’s not 2004 anymore.

Well, we’ve made it to World Media Run week. Kind of like Superbowl Week, but without the expensive commercials. Here’s an update -

At this point, we’re expecting nearly 50 runners for the flagship race at FOLIO Publishing Summit. If Vegas is taking odds on the action, the favorite would probably be Hank Berkowitz, owner of some blazing times. However, there are a number of talented runners in the field, so we’ll just have to see what happens.

In addition, we’ll have some runners competing in their first race ever, and if that isn’t cool, I don’t know what is.

The tech shirt have been arrived and are being mailed to "virtual racers" today. Virtual racers are still welcome to enter.

After this weekend, all results - virtual & Miami - will be co-mingled and can be viewed online @ http://www.WorldMediaRun.com

Thanks to Red7 Media, Runner’s World, and Wise Group for serving as co-sponsors of the event!