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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Barnes and Noble entered the textbook rental market earlier this month and the competition to traditional publishers can’t come fast enough in the eyes of many consumers.  There’s nothing that gets the ire of a college student more than the feeling of being ripped off and then comes the rage against the machine that only teens seem to muster. In my earlier post, I referenced my own son’s experience. Sure enough this go-around  semester tuition to the local community college held steady at $340 but books  for the semester came in a whopping $643, almost double the $667 annual average cited in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article.

This post is less about a rant on textbook publishers and more about information companies creating wonderful experiences– something critical to success in 2010 and beyond and something I’m committed to profiling since it’s so critical to the theme of this blog. In the face of a daunting economy, prices rising faster than a thermometer in the Mojave will send beleaguered consumers fleeing to find solace in great little companies with great services.

Check out Chegg as an example.  You’ll love this site and company. The interface is easy – steps 1 2 3 easily spelled out. They promise to plant a tree (who could argue?) and they show a running total of how much they are saving people which everyone loves especially when they’re upset with traditional forces. Chegg is creating a great experience and it’s not just about the content or business model. It’s about the ethos and spirit of what they’re up to on top of the basics – save money and make it easy. It’s these kinds of companies who will be successful in our new day, new dawn, new decade. As we said in the Outlook, the future belongs to companies who create a great experience and who support basics – save money, make money, or mitigate risk.  Chegg’s got it down right.

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While the news industry comes crashing down there are daily examples of new money to be made in the information industry, simply by reading (drum roll of irony here) the news! Two recent articles, one in the SF Chronicle, and the other in the Wall Street Journal, point to new business information opportunities for publishers and providers to take stock of. The US government isn’t going to do either of these well. Heck, the current administration is up to its eyeballs in alligators over health reform but ironically won’t create standards for and measure medical errors. Hmmm.  And there is no chance that standard ratings for international airlines are going to get any attention while Uncle Sam is trying to solve its own intelligence failures focused on passengers who fly on said airlines.

So this leaves good old ingenuity up to the likes of Hearst Business, Vendome Group, Ascend or McGraw-Hill Aviation Group to come up with some good reliable trusted information that it can serve-up and sell. The industry needs new money and the news continues to point to it.  Any takers?

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The week and year started off with a bang with Gartner buying Burton and Dow Jones merging two major divisions indicative of two major trends we discussed in our Outlook 2010 – thinking platforms vs. products and more consolidation at the top.  Across and within companies things are being combined everywhere as the combination of technology and the economy accelerate our industry’s moves from product-centric to market-centric. Just yesterday I spoke to one CEO who took over 100 brands and migrated them into 9.

When looking at a user or a market and working backwards to what they need to make decisions, the containers and titles become a barrier. The smartphones, readers and tablets are only going to accelerate this, so look for more change ahead. My mother used to say the only thing that is constant is change. Take good enough, the realities of all our pricing and advertising and information spending research, the notion our recession is not going to be a “V” and “recovery” continues to be jobless and you’re going to see more acquisitions and more integrations.

The result – inside each industry segment and in most companies there are the 2 or 3 gorillas and the chimps – –the big sized firms and all the little ones OR the divisions that make all the money and ‘the other ones.’   The more things change the more they stay the same. Look for more of this same – in 2010.   And we’re off – happy New Year!

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