Bookmarks of the Week: 2/5

I thought I'd try something new this Friday and share some of the stories and interesting tid-bits I've gathered from the web in the last few days. Who knows, maybe it'll become a regular feature...

online communities:

Community managers must be scratching their heads. Endgadget turned off website comments on Tuesday in an effort to stop the bickering and "threatening" conversations that have been taking place lately. Isn't this exactly why companies are scared to open up their communication channels to the public? Where is the wisdom of the crowds when your pages play host to hateful comments? Is negative talk in the comments even a reflection of Endgadget or other companies that experience this?

Speaking of online comments and forum posts, you may have seen the hub-bub comparing Australia to China. What's that all about? Well, Australia had a law that went into effect on January 6th stating that during election periods, no one could publish anonymous commentary regarding candidates or political parties. The law excluded online newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals written by real journalists. It was a direct attack against bloggers and commenters. Ouch. There was such a backlash that the Premier has promised to retroactively reverse the law.

technology:

Brian Herzog over at Swiss Army Librarian wrote about the RedLaser app for the iPhone. This handy app scans barcodes and lets users compare prices with Google product search. What's even cooler about this is that you can build your own little database to scan any websites that you want to for pricing and availability. Herzog, who works in a library, focused on the book trade. With RedLaser, you can browse bookstores and then search for the lowest price, or, using the build your own database feature, even see if it is available at your library. Super cool!

looking to the future:

It's always good to keep your eye on the next big thing. Dave McClure spat out a crazy, curse-laden blog post on February 1st that covered a couple of interesting things. First, he outlines a history of the internet and its development around acquisition and Google dominance. McClure thinks that this model is going to be outdated soon. Instead, we will be paying for content! Nooooo, I don't want to pay. Okay, I will pay for some content, but not a lot, especially if the alternative is not having quality news. What does this mean for internet marketers and PPC? I'm not even going to get into the philosophical implications of requiring payment for information...

McClure also explores the problems with passwords (paying for content will require ID walls) and says that frequent use sites will do better at the new subscription model. Another simple answer to this problem is the rise in Facebook Connect, Google Gmail, and other logins that work across the nets. I love it when smart people share their thoughts on the internet's future, but it hurts me wee brain.

In my own future I see chicken wings, beer, and the Colts winning the big game.

A Brief Look at Social News Sites

Do you visit social news sites? My favorite two are Reddit and Fark. Both sites allow users to share news articles via links. Participants of the sites can then comment on the links, sharing their thoughts, jokes, and ideas on message boards. Social news sites can be great places to get visitors to your site, or to sell your products, but you have to understand the community you target before submitting items.

Reddit is free for users, with all content accessible. It is organized into sub-categories called subreddits. Subreddits are created by users. I most often comment on r-books, the subreddit dedicated to books and moderated by the creator of the category. There are categories for everything from programming to pictures and beyond.

Reddit harnesses the wisdom of the crowds with a simple voting mechanism. Redditors can vote up stories, as well as individual comments on the boards. The more people up-vote my comments, the more "comment karma" I earn, so Reddit karma is a big deal within the community. Getting your submission promoted to the front page depends on any number of factors, including diversity of voters, number and speed of votes, the story's category, and even what time the story was submitted.

Unlike Reddit, moderators decide what makes it to the front page on Fark. Their "green-lit" news stories can be viewed and commented on by all users. If you want to see and comment on stories not on the main page, Fark sells $5 subscriptions that label subscribers as "TotalFarkers." TotalFarkers get access to more message boards and their comments are labeled with the TotalFarker badge. The badge conveys a sense that the user is a "real" member of the community.

Fark's clever headlines are the main attraction, with users creating alternate headers for popular news bits. For instance: "Teen crashes into bowling alley. While car does not strike anyone, front of building is split open. Owners say timing of the accident helped spare those inside from any injury." Headlines vary, but generally the more clever, the better chance they have of getting green-lit.

Other social news sites include Digg, Mixx, Sphinn, Tip'd, and Kirtsy, just to name a few. Each has a distinct mix of people, and their own rules of engagement. Your content will do better on some sites than others, so you have to do your homework before submitting. Also, it's important to consider whether or not it's worth the time to market on social news sites. Becoming a power user takes time. In addition, a huge amount of traffic does not equate to higher sales, so consider carefully whether your efforts will be worth it.

Brand Marketing, Product Marketing

Marketing a product is different than marketing a brand. The difference is focus. With product marketing, companies sell specific items. Brand marketing is about increasing overall recognition in a company's field.

Consider Apple's early TV spots for the iPod.



This ad campaign worked on several levels. The song is catchy and the dancing is cool. The simplicity of the faceless, black dancers against the bright colors helped to distinguish the white iPod. When I saw this commercial I wanted an iPod. The ad campaign was so successful in tapping into my heretofore unknown needs and desires that in addition to selling a product, it positively effected my notion of the brand. Is there anything that Apple can't do?

Why don't book publishers create similar marketing campaigns? I can think of a few possible reasons:

• Publishers have a varied audience that is difficult to reach through standard channels.
• Publishers' products are also varied. It's probably not an effective use of marketing dollars to create catchy tv ads for one book. 
• Publishers are only one party that stands to gain from the sale of a book. Marketing duties are split between publishers, authors, and booksellers, making it easy for marketing to fall through the cracks.

Publishers market individual products, they just don't seem to spend a ton of money on it. Product marketing campaigns might include local newspaper write-ups, release party events, national print ads, TV and radio spots, but a publisher's brand doesn't play to heavily into product marketing. For instance, I have no idea who published the Twilight series, but I recall the black cover, one of them with a red apple on the front. Penguin Books is my only exception. When I scan used book stores for good reads, I always perform a cursory scan for Penguin's orange spines. The orange spines denote contemporary classics, my favorite genre.

Another reason that publishers might not focus on brand marketing has to do with the product. A book often represents an author's brand, with publishers acting as the medium. Creating a strong brand for the publisher might interfere with the message of the physical book, but that could change soon.

Brand marketing is going to be increasingly relevant for publishers looking to succeed in an electronic publishing world. The first step to brand marketing is going to be getting specific about identity. One simple way to accomplish this would be to become a niche publisher. Large publishing houses already have something like this in place with their individual imprints; they just need to to find an online equivalent of Penguin's orange spines.

Social Networking is not a Marketing Tool?

If you've been keeping up with digital publishing experiments, you may have heard of Rick Moody. Moody writes about music on the Rumpus and has authored a novel, "The Ice Storm" as well as a collection of short stories titled, "Demonology." Late last year his short story, "Some Contemporary Characters," was published via Twitter. Serial tweets appeared every 10 to 20 minutes for about three days. The project was sponsored by literary magazine, Electric Literature.

I heard about the experiment last year, but I was knee-deep in finals and never read it. I still haven't. I'm more interested in an article I read today on Publishing Perspectives.com written by editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, Andy Hunter. Titled, "Lessons from the Rick Moody Experiment," Hunter outlines how they went about pushing Moody's story. Employing 20 co-publishers, from literary magazines to authors and booksellers, Moody's tweets were scheduled and sent through Hootsuite, a professional Twitter client. The tweets were broadcast from each of the 20 co-publishers as original content. This was an important piece of the publishing process as it avoided the issue of retweeting, wherein each retweet would be branded with the original publisher's information. By publishing the content as original from all 20 co-publishers, Electric Literature was able to harness the networks of each for maximum exposure and the story reached over 38,000 people.

As Hunter shares, the experiment was not without problems. People who subscribe to more than one of the 20 co-publishers received multiple tweets and were not shy about reporting issues with delivery. Booksellers with diverse audiences angered their clients by clogging Twitter feeds with unrequested information. Hunter expressed "...regret that less attention was paid to the content of Rick’s story than its mode of delivery—although that may have been inevitable." It is unfortunate that people didn't talk more about Moody's story, but wasn't this as much of a publicity stunt as an experiment? As Hunter reports: "Over the course of those three days, our web traffic spiked 300%, subscriptions jumped 500%, hundreds joined our email list, and we gained 10,000 new followers on Twitter." Even if marketing Electric Literature was not the main idea, the experiment did a great job of extending brand awareness.

What really stands out in this article, and the reason that I've subjected you to this recap is this simple statement towards the end of Hunter's report: "Social networking is not a marketing tool..." I'm sorry, what? I'm not sure I read that correctly. Social networking IS a marketing tool, or I've been living on another planet. I love and appreciate that Hunter believes in literature and art for art's sake, without need for salesmanship or money, but please. Call the Rick Moody short story an experiment in digital publishing, call it a marketing coup, call it social networking. It doesn't matter because when social media marketing is correctly executed, it is all of these things.

Changing Landscapes: What Are Those Publishers Up To?

Last week I took a look at publisher's websites and considered audience here. What I discovered was that most publishers gear their websites towards consumers, despite the fact that most consumers do not go to these sites to buy books. Why are publishers trying to appeal to a market that largely ignores them?

There are a few possible reasons for this. My first thought was that they were crazy, but then I remembered that they probably have smarter people than I in their employ. If publishing houses aren't crazy, then what the heck are they doing?

Maybe publishers market to end users because they are running scared and don't know what else to do with the new and emerging tools made available by internet technology. I certainly felt overwhelmed by all of the website features, and it makes me think that they are just trying it all out. No company wants to be left behind, so better to use every marketing channel available and see what works.

Or not. It's more likely that publishing houses are planning for the future. These sites may not get a ton of end-user traffic now, but as multi-media channels and e-books develop, that can change. One of these new electronic wonder toys will likely be the catalyst that begins to drive consumers directly to publishers. Users won't be buying physical books as often, and soon enough, publishers won't need to work with booksellers. Positioning themselves as store fronts is a logical step towards the future. Publishers will continue to cultivate their brand names and ride on current loyalty and trust to increase web presence. Once a dominant e-book platform evolves, publishers will really begin to push online marketing boundaries and reshape their identities towards more specific content. Eventually, when consumers want a science fiction novel, they will browse the publishing house that has created an online niche and name for itself within that genre.

I find this vision of the future of publishing particularly interesting when compared with my initial reactions to these websites. What would make me think that publishers were crazy or scared? Have I fallen prey to the media frenzy that suggests the sky is falling, when really publishers are quietly positioning themselves as the information regulators of the future? If I were a big publishing house, I'd quietly let outsiders think that we didn't know what we were doing and that the industry was on the verge of ruin too, because let's face it, anyone with exceptional online marketing skills and a few great titles could be the next big thing.

The Age of Multimedia: Exploring Multilayered Narratives

The Miracle in July begins with a song, Big Tasty by Tetris=Therapy. This mellow opening song infuses Michelle Anderson's digital love story with a movie-like quality. As I read along, accompanying music in the background, I see sweeping views of Copenhagen. My view, like a camera angle at the beginning of a movie, drops through foreign neighborhoods to focus in on the author, sitting on the living room floor of her rented Denmark home, near empty schnapps bottle in hand, and shoe box full of mementos at her feet. I'm already hooked.

The Miracle in July is an online experiment that takes advantage of various multimedia tools to enhance the story, although Anderson is creating this narrative to stand on its own, so that it can be published as a traditional book. The book is comprised of a prologue, three acts, and an epilogue, and is still being posted. To date, the experiment is complete through the second act. Multimedia tools, links, and pop-ups include:

• Songs
• Google maps
• Wikipedia notes
• Images
• Additional writing
• Instant message recreations 

Multimedia information flows seamlessly within the narrative, and if users don't want to click on links, they aren't missing any crucial plot details. All links are worked into the sentence structure. Consider: "Becca came to [sit down by the fire] next to me..." In this passage, "sit down by the fire" is a link to a song by The Veils. Clicking the link starts the embedded song, and also brings up a very small box that has links to The Veils on Amazon, a Scribd box with song lyrics, The Veils official web page, and also a link to their MySpace page. That's an impressive amount of information tucked neatly into this story.

I tried to read through the story as intended, clicking on each link, but failed. Song links in particular were a problem. I found that before one song was finished, I had already read to another song link. They were good songs, which presented another problem. Was I to stop and listen to each song, or continue reading with music in the background? How did the song fit into the plot? I really like the idea of listening to the same songs as the character, but I need more than a single run through to understand and like songs, and here the plot was compelling enough that I didn't want to stop reading.

Multimedia experiments are also being tested by some of the big publishing houses. Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins have partnered with Vook. A Vook is a multi-sensory reading experience that offers users the chance to read a book and experience video relating to it as well, thus a video-book. This is not a separate piece of equipment, which is a great thing. Vooks are available as web-based or mobile applications. I haven't watched any Vooks, but the idea sounds intriguing.

Monica Hesse shares her Vook experience in an article for the LA Times and mentions that the Vook Embassy, by Richard Doetsch, shows a character out of sync with her imagination. I felt the same way when I saw the first Harry Potter movie, and Tolkien's Aragorn will now forever be the face of Viggo Mortensen; not necessarily a bad thing, eh? This complaint seems silly considering that Hollywood has mined our literary history dry for years now. Are we still talking about ruining children's imaginations, because I thought we quit caring about that sometime around the advent of the Super Nintendo? Oh, Johnny reads comic books? He's a regular bookworm!

I'm more concerned with something else that Hesse relates. She mentions that in order to "see what happens" at certain points, users are encouraged to click and watch a video. It isn't clear to me whether there is also an accompanying transcript, but this seems like a major downfall of the experience, and where I think that Anderson's The Miracle in July wins. Until everyone has high-speed, reliable internet connections, publishers and producers need to be wary of overusing these multimedia tools. We've just gained MMS on the iPhone after all. If the plot is good, I don't want to be bouncing all over the internet to get pieces of the story. I just want to READ THE BOOK.

Considering Audience

When asked to take a look at the websites of publishing houses and then think about their intended audiences for our first assignment, I thought that would be pretty easy. I was wrong. I'm more confused now than I was before, and I'm trying to figure out what a publishing house website should be. As a reader, I've never visited a publishing house to get more information on a favorite book. Sure, I've got my favorite authors, but I've never investigated their publishers. When I'm looking for a new book, I prefer to search bookstores, or Amazon. The only time I've been to a publisher's website was when I wanted information about their submission guidelines.

Most of the publishing houses I looked at have home pages stuffed with information. Take a look at Random House. Their intended audience is spelled out in their sub-head: "Bringing you the best in fiction, nonfiction & children's books." Most of the front page real estate is filled with an advertising slide show labeled, "Books for a New Year, New You." Random House is marketing to the people that look at January as a chance to change. I'm betting that in February this advertising spot becomes all about romance and love. Is Random House trying to market directly to consumers, and if so, why? Do book buyers come to Random House to shop for new titles?

While the landing page is a sort of free-for-all reminiscent of e-commerce site Amazon, back pages focus on specific audiences. Navigating to the sub-domains requires a bit of digging. I found the children's focus page not by clicking on the "juvenile fiction" category, which led to their juvenile fiction backlist, but by scrolling down and entering through the "kids@random" sidebar feature. Once there, users can go to pages specifically built for their favorite books. Random House calls these "mini-sites." Each has a distinct theme and feel reflective of the book or series they represent. While I think that this is a nice offering, I'm wondering how many kids navigate through the front page and end up here. Maybe these kids pages are really for the buying parents? Random House also has a page directed at teachers, and another for librarians. The web resources for Random House children's books are probably a nice selling point for teachers and librarians. If I were an educator, I would find the planning calendar particularly helpful for creating monthly reading themes. I would like to see an easier way to get to these pages.

The Random House front page is a turn off, but seems to be the industry standard. HarperCollins also has a busy home page, but their top imprints are easier to find. Each imprint's web page is nicely tailored to the audience. Their Avon imprint is clearly focused on women. I also like the HarperCollins children's page better than Random House. It feels better thought out. There are more moving things, navigation is easier, and the bottom half of the page is not taken up with site links and legal junk. HarperCollins also has games and contests that look like fun, but I'm still left wondering how many children look at these pages.

Unlike Random House and HarperCollins, Penguin doesn't have a very well-developed area for children. Instead, they rely on mini-sites, most of which have a separate domain name. For the book Audrey, Wait! the mini-site features the usual information-an intro, an excerpt, and an author bio-but also a list of relevant songs that you can buy from Itunes and a fun tabloid generator. The nice thing about hosting these away from Penguin is that they are easy to find in Google. Aren't users more likely to do a quick search for the title, than to go to the publisher's website and hunt around for additional information?

Maybe my confusion about these sites stems from confusion on the part of the industry. Maybe that's why HarperCollins is using ForeSee software to poll users. All of the questions basically ask, "Who are you and why are you here?" I understand that having web pages that reflect imprint identity and offer community interaction is important, as is maintaining an online backlist. Perhaps building communities around imprints or authors should be the main focus of publishing house websites. Catering to too many audiences and having too many goals makes these sites confusing. A community focus would provide readers with additional resources regarding their favorite imprints, authors, and books, but I don't think that readers are going to publishing houses to buy books. Am I totally wrong?