RSS feedsNot since the invention of the printing press has the publishing industry been in such upheaval. Traditional revenue sources and audiences are slipping away, conventional business models are being turned on their head, and the way information is consumed is radically different from even a decade ago.
If established publishers want to stay in the game then they have to shake off preconceived ideas about information provision. If they don’t, they risk being usurped by the young contenders, who, incidentally, are entering the field rapidly and adeptly.
All too aware of these shifts in media consumption, most publishers have tried, with varying degrees of success, to adapt their models and sources of revenue. Unlike the new entrants to the marketplace, the biggest publishers have the advantage of well-known and well-trusted brands. But unless they refresh their titles and provide the content that users want, those brands will quickly lose their appeal.
David Cushman, a digital development director at Emap, says: “There are two key disruptions that the internet has brought to publishing. The control of the process in creating content is no longer our monopoly. And the notion of having a centralised website that you can expect people to use is outmoded, as people can now share information.”
Despite the seemingly colossal learning curve for traditional print publishers to become relevant in the digital age, Cushman is confident.
“There are plenty of opportunities,” he says. “We have a lot of consumer insight if we are prepared to listen. We also have reach in getting things into the public eye and consciousness. And we still have access to finance and resources quickly if we want.”
Specialist information providers such as Elsevier, LexisNexis and O’Reilly are slightly ahead of the game because of the targeted nature of their content. They have shown that opportunities abound for those who are prepared to acknowledge that the world has changed.
For example, educational publisher O’Reilly looked at how college professors were using its titles and built a model online that in effect allowed them to design their own books for the courses they were teaching, making it cheaper for students and more relevant for professors. It later extended the model to include third-party content.
Model buster
“That shatters all models of previous educational publishing,” says
Andy Feit, senior vice president of marketing at
MarkLogic,
an XML content server for integrating, loading, querying, manipulating and
transforming content for publishers.
Feit also points to scientific and medical publisher Elsevier, who “gets it” in the digital world. Elsevier developed a product to allow doctors to search for a diagnosis based on their tests, removing room for error and speeding up the process.
Although none of these products has vastly increased its developer’s income, they have undoubtedly stabilised revenue, says Feit. Perhaps more significantly, these publishers have used their knowledge to provide a better service to their customers and thus fostered community loyalty.
As everyone in the industry knows today, it’s all about communities. The internet has closed the gap between people and media providers. Web users don’t show allegiance to a site unless it consistently provides the information they want. Only then will they keep returning.
David Worlock, chief research fellow at Outsell, a research and advisory business for publishers, says there are three key areas for publishers to ensure they stay alive and relevant.
First is workflow. Essentially, this means ensuring all your content fits the network and is searchable, matching users’ needs.
Once you have established that, you need a community, the second piece to the puzzle.
The final element is vertical search. It’s at this point that you provide your own and third-party content.
“Once you have a combination of those three, then you have something powerful” says Worlock. “But communities can’t be artificially fashioned to suit your product. I don’t believe that you can successfully create communities. Communities create themselves.”
Community spirit
Cushman agrees. “I’m a believer in self-forming groups,” he says.
Feit is not so sure. He says that you can “set the environment” to create a community by the quality of content that you put up online, but agrees that it “can be hard to force them”.
There are existing communities linked to traditional publishers and it is here where publishers can tap into them online and add value. Nature Publishing, for example, repeatedly crops up in any discussion about communities because of its ability to take a traditional format and adapt it with significant success online. Nature’s audience may be niche, but it is well targeted, resulting in an advertiser’s dream.
“Nature Publishing Group has hundreds of sites targeting individual communities,” says Feit. “There might only be 2,000 people in the world who read a particular site but it has helped drive revenue and it gets advertisers on board who pay a higher premium.”
LexisNexis is another good example of supplying what is needed to a community.
Josh Bottomley, managing director of LexisNexis Butterworths, says he doesn’t see any threats, only opportunities.
“What we are now entering is a new phase of adding benefits to our customers,” Bottomley says. LexisNexis has just launched the company law forum, an online debating arena.
“We have shown consistent growth and record results because of our must-have content,” he says. “We sell to a group who are very busy, so time is money.”
LexisNexis has embraced the globalisation phenomenon by developing a product called EU Tracker, which allows lawyers who now deal with tax and legal issues across EU member states to compare and contrast, as well as keep up to date with all EU directives, at the push of a button.
Aware of the need to provide third-party data, LexisNexis has just signed a partnership contract with the Law Society so it can offer users a more rounded information package.
“Partnering for distribution will increase,” says Bottomley. “We provide our content for free and then offer additional content for a charge.”
Despite the confidence of established publishers, there are very real threats out there, as Yell Group discovered when its share price slumped two months ago. It was no coincidence either. A newcomer entered the market to rival Yell’s online offering in the form of local business directory Brownbook, which launched on 6 February.
Brownbook is the perfect example of a new digital contender that poses a dangerous threat to an established information provider. Its business model is based on the new principles of online publishing that traditional media have had to adapt to. It’s an interactive, peer-produced directory allowing anyone, anywhere, to add, edit or review a business. To list your own business, the most you’ll have to pay annually is £10, but the average cost is just £5 a year.
Ben Brown, one of Brownbook’s founders, says: “Our belief is that peer production trumps centralised production every time; just look at Wikipedia. Our platform is open so anyone can change details.”
Worlock says of Brownbook: “It’s good to see that they [the founders] are returning with fresh ideas. That’s an indication of the sort of shift we’re going through.”
Brown says the advantage of Brownbook’s business model is that, unlike Yell or BT, it doesn’t need a huge sales force to harvest content, “cleanse data” or sell ads space.
“It turns the whole industry on its head,” he adds. “We are taking the best from the market and putting it into a simple search platform, and to make it more relevant we have added 2.2 million businesses.”
“Like the functions on online auction site eBay, Brownbook has created a community that is self-regulating,” explains Brown. There are functions to flag entries that “aren’t helpful to anyone” but Brown says that as long as reviews are objective, then listed businesses ultimately benefit.
“If a customer writes a disgruntled review, then you can do something about it,” says Brown. “They then become your biggest advocate rather than your enemy.”
Brownbook isn’t restricted to the UK market either, having just acquired the data to launch in the US, Canada and Australia. Although the site is currently self-funded, Brown suggests it has just received a huge boost in financing.
Entry restrictions
But entering the market isn’t without its barriers, which can give established
publishers the upper hand. “There are large investments to be made, so it makes
it harder for new players to enter the market,” says Worlock.
The big question facing digital publishing is whether it can generate more revenue, especially through advertising, with some businesses enjoying more success than others. Overall, it seems that those publishers that foster niche communities and provide additional products on top of free and third-party content are the biggest winners.
“No-one is comfortable with sponsorship of editorial content,” says Cushman. “There will be a new model to share in the ad spend. We are scratching the surface of this.”
Editors Note
Both David Worlock and David Cushman will be speaking at the forthcoming
ePublishing Innovation Forum. As a media partner to the conference, IWR
will be blogging from a number of sessions over the two-day period. The event
will be held in London on 7 and 8 May. For further details, visit
www.epublishing-forum.com
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