In times of crisis, speed is everything; nothing is faster than crowd-sourced 2.0 problem-solving.

Yet BP seems committed to problem-solving the 1.0 way. Read my Insight and if you or anyone you know has access to BP, push it to them and put them in touch with InnoCentive, industry thought-leader and crowd-sourcer of innovation and technical solutions. InnoCentive has relevant history in the petroleum industry and their solutions for BP have fallen on deaf ears. Our planet at the very least should get a 2.0 solution to a 5.0 crisis.  Read on and take action.

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There’s lots of hubbub about advertising on the iPad; recently, the Wall Street Journal indicated advertisers are lining up for the launch this week.  It’s great to see the experimentation, and surely this multi-media platform is made for interactive advertising – and advertising as information experience – like nothing before. What continues to amaze us is that companies focus on the “trend” without being realistic about following the money. Right now, the iPad installed base is so low that advertisers are paying hyper-premiums for an audience that doesn’t yet exist. Counter to this is the argument that it’s important to get in early, and early adopters of the iPad are probably the demographic most charming to advertisers. Maybe, but we remain skeptical that plowing too much money into advertising on the iPad at this early juncture makes sense. A better solution is likely to reside in investing in apps.

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Years ago I wrote about newspapers pooling resources so that each paper didn’t have to repeat coverage of such topics as travel, recipes, or movie reviews. Editorial could focus on regional differences or implications. We also suggested media organizations partner based on specialties in editorial coverage. It was great to see an example of this play out when the San Francisco Chronicle recently announced a partnership with Bloomberg News to beef up the Chron’s business coverage. And about time! The paper in general has become about as thin as tissue paper and the only section with any heft was sports. Yup, full coverage, thickest section ever – consistently covering any details of national/local sports you could want. I love sports, but I don’t turn to my paper for coverage. And local, well I’m one of the rare few who isn’t into local coverage because it’s always about crime, or, in the Bay Area, a region that isn’t relevant. (Local coverage in the Bay Area is like microclimates: go 10 miles away and it’s no longer local, and there are about 10 areas 10 miles away in each direction that The Chron tries to cover.) That wasn’t leaving much for readers like me.

While I read and love the WSJ and FT, I’ve always liked local business coverage and didn’t particularly want to invest in the local business journal because I still fancy a regional daily. But it was getting harder to like the Chron with its weak business coverage. With the new Bloomberg partnership, the latest Sunday morning business section was bigger than sports (woo hoo!) and on an ongoing basis the two organizations will bring the best of what they do and increase relevance for readers like me. It’s not so much about pleasing me as an “n of 1,” but the bottom line is that this is on-trend and we applaud the move. Here’s hoping more properties try something similar so they can improve the experiences they offer at better cost of goods sold. Nothing shabby about that.

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In an internal e-mail dialogue between several of us earlier in the week, Outsell’s Ned May shared the following: “I am seeing all the ingredients fall into place for libraries to inadvertently start impacting publishing in fairly significant ways. As a Boston resident with a library card, I can now access over 100 databases including D&B and Gale all immediately from my home. Further, I can now check out and download 1,000’s of e-books, audio books, and even movies again without leaving my four walls. I address this a bit in my report on Device Wars, but as untethered devices increasingly allow us to connect from anywhere to anywhere, there’s potential for libraries – budget permitting – to play a disruptive role. The friction that once protected this free access to information is eroding entirely away. In the future, why would I click on Amazon.com when I can get the same at no cost by clicking on BPL.org? As I experiment with e-books, this is actually the only source I’ve used.”

Outsell’s Joanne Lustig replied: “I always found the “returning” part (i.e. taking back the borrowed item) of the library experience a barrier. That’s why I love Netflix, because I can be as lazy and long with an item as I want. And, when I’m ready to send it back, it’s a snap. So your vision of getting books through the ether is really powerful to me: ultra-library loan!”

In 1999 I was presenting industry trends to an executive team of a large aggregator for the education market and remarked that the internet was “the public library of the future.” Now it is, in more ways than one. Compelling e-mail musings and Outsell thinking out loud that’s too good not to share. Enjoy!

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Outsell’s Information Industry Outlook 2010 called on publishers and information providers to make this the Age of Experience for end users. Technological shifts, shrinking budgets, and competition from unexpected places have meant that user experience has become a major driver of growth.

Late last year Outsell introduced the new Outsell Scout Analytics service. Our strategy in taking this decision was driven by the belief that analytics can help information providers to develop crucial insights into delivering a better experience for their users.

Louise Garnett, Vice President, Outsell Scout Analytics has just launched a new blog all about subscription analytics called Monetizing Subscriptions. Louise has spent the last 12 years advising Outsell clients on new ways of packaging and pricing products and optimizing subscription revenues.  Prior to advising she created subscription content and bought subscriptions for 18 years. With such a wealth of experience, Louise has some great insights to share that will help inspire and inform this emerging area. 

The focus of the blog is developing a dialogue around how information providers can better understand their subscription businesses and how to leverage that advanced knowledge to increase revenue.  In Louise’s post, What’s A Good Renewal Rate in B2B Paid Subscriptions? she featured the 2008 renewal rates of  10 leading  companies and opened up the discussion – what makes a good renewal rate?

In the blog Louise will also cover engagement best practices, pricing approaches, and conversion and upsell opportunities. I invite you to add Louise to your blog roll, enjoy and engage in the debate. Thanks, Louise - I can’t wait to join in the conversation.

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In my previous post I wrote about everyone being a publisher and noted that bricks and clicks are the retailers’ version of print vs. digital for our industry. I realized we don’t have it so bad compared to the Ann Taylors of the world. Seems there remains major consternation in the retail world about how to manage e-commerce (clicks) vs. what’s in stores (bricks) because these companies have major investments in real estate and/or retail presence and don’t want to cannibalize their investments, which have historically been the cash cows. So, how much they put in commerce, how they link store fronts to home pages, and in general how they manage the mix for profitability is a big, big deal. 

One major furniture brand is moving to kiosks to eliminate the need for huge investments in storefront, where they can’t have every piece of furniture and fabric combination in place anyway. It struck me as ironic that while our industry’s leaders are wringing their hands over print-to-digital, an industry ten times larger is gnashing its teeth over bricks vs. clicks. Makes it seem easier; somehow cannibalizing a magazine pales in comparison to 2,000 stores around the globe. I’d hate to be in retail real estate right now. Publishing and information isn’t so bad.

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It struck me recently that while every traditional publisher is trying to lose the P word, calling themselves information providers, media companies, or anything with the D word (digital), everyone else has become, and loves calling themselves, a publisher. Irony of ironies.

AudienceScience, Google’s sales force, you name it: they all talk about “publishers,” and they mean anyone with a website. And they use the word with pride and digital hip-ness, just as folks who deliver books, magazines, newspapers or journals scurry from the word like mice in a kitchen. 

The reality is that everyone today is a publisher, and enterprises that have invested billions in their own websites are too. In 2001, I gave a presentation where I said that the global 2000 would become the dot-coms of the future. I still have the slide that referenced companies like Johnson & Johnson with BabyCenter, Microsoft with its developer sites, and a litany of famous brands that had websites to market themselves or provide content, commerce, community, or all of the above. Suddenly it’s 2010 and we’re here in a big way. Enterprises have become “the accidental publisher.”

I hear from leaders who work closely with digital marketers in said enterprises, that these marketers are struggling with content creation (custom publishing parallels here?), what to take offline vs. what their sites do online (print-to-digital in our world, bricks vs. clicks in theirs). They’re trying to engage audiences (audience development, anyone?) and measure performance. Outsell’s Chuck Richard has been saying provide marketing services and the opportunities abound; the parallel is amazing and it’s imperative the industry not run from its roots but rather embrace them and serve whole new worlds in whole new ways. Brandish the P word with pride!

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A recent Insight we published for clients provides an analysis of study results released by the Nielsen Company last week. More fodder on consumers’ propensity to pay (or not) for paid media. Nielsen’s data echoes Forrester’s recent study and our own study of over 2,500 news consumers. The news isn’t good for anyone betting on consumers paying for content online. No surprise here: consumer willingness to spend online mirrors where they are willing to pay offline – movies, games, music, TV (cable). News and magazines come out in the middle, and stuff consumers are used to getting for free (social media, blogs) they show no propensity to pay for anytime soon. And why should they? They’ve been trained to receive content free or highly subsidized by advertising for decades, and the total amounts they spend aren’t great. What they spend is also tied to household budgets – what they have to spend – and that isn’t changing any time soon. So to assume there are scads of new dollars ready to be applied to paid content is simply naïve.

We aren’t surprised by the study results. We’re surprised that the media finds them surprising. We’ve been following the money flows of the information industry for 10+ years, and the bottom line is that the money that flows into consumer or business media is driven by their bottom lines. So rather than looking at business models as the next new thing, it’s time for publishers to pay more attention to serious product design, user engagement, and features that delight and differentiate – and build up a potentially lucrative loyal reader base in the process. Moving where the money comes from, while giving a true indication of what the product is worth (that’s one thing paid models are great for) isn’t the answer. It’s time for the industry to stop thinking it is.

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Longtime colleague and industry veteran Colin Crawford’s viewpoints are favorites of mine. In this post he captures so well the realities of how mobile and personal devices will continue to force the issue of accountability and metrics for publishers and advertising scorekeepers. One thing is for certain: the iPad and related devices are going to be the ultimate mash-up of passive and active user behaviors – with outcomes not yet clear. Colin’s views are provocative and a must-read.

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By now many of you will have seen the announcement that Gilbane Group has become part of Outsell, Inc.

A recent theme emerging in this blog has been the importance of the user experience. This coming decade the information providers most likely to succeed are those who can provide their users with wonderful experiences, the innovators who can ensure that their content is accessed and experienced in new and unique ways.

The Gilbane Group is the acknowledged authority on content technologies. Their coverage and analysis of the trends in web content management, enterprise search and enterprise social media is unrivaled.

So, I’m delighted that together the two teams will be in an even stronger position to support information providers and enterprises as they continue to accelerate the pace of change. The Gilbane Group will continue as a division of Outsell, under the leadership of President, Frank Gilbane.

I believe that this is a terrific development, both for our two firms and for the wider industry. Afterall, we too must continue to provide great experiences. I invite you to share your views.

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