Content Matters

December 03, 2012

In Defense of the Daily (RIP)

The Daily logo Many took delight in today’s announcement that News Corp (NWS) would be shuttering the Daily, the first paid tablet-only news product. I take no pleasure in seeing that product fail.

I’m biased in that I had the opportunity to work with the Daily team while at Crowd Fusion. Yet beyond getting to know many talented people, I got the chance to see them doing some really great things.

As many publishers have discovered, it’s incredibly difficult to differentiate a general news publication. Just the other day, USA Today CEO Larry Kramer was widely quoted as saying he would not charge for USA Today on the web, as its not unique enough content:

"There is so much national news out there,” Kramer said. “I think we would lose more than we would gain.”

The Daily struggled to differentiate its content. When it was first launched, the editorial content was a bit weak. But they definitely strengthened their editorial during their two year run. More importantly, the Daily, more than virtually any other publication, has experimented with ways to best leverage the tablet environment.

Portrait or Landscape? While cost-cutting forced the Daily to shift to “portrait only” last summer, the Daily initially had two complete versions of every page – one optimized for portrait (vertical) mode, the other for landscape (horizontal). It’s not just that the page could be viewed either way, but that they actually did a full layout of each edition in both portrait and landscape mode so that every page could be optimized for either. This enabled features and functionality that would only work in landscape mode, for example.

Visual news While Pinterest and Instagram have made the image the key element of the mobile web, the Daily was early to realize that tablets were a visual experience and that text-heavy pages would not fly. Today, many others have followed suit – Reuters Wider Image, the Guardian’s PictGrid and others – but the Daily was early to that decision. And it makes reading the Daily on an iPad much more enjoyable than reading a typical newspaper app.

Video content Again, the Daily may not be unique in this, but they were quick to realize that HD video was a key aspect of tablet news consumption.

Navigation The Daily simplified their navigation this summer, but the app offered multiple forms of navigation at its start. A news carousel, similar to the iTunes cover flow, greeted new readers, while a traditional table-of-contents was available as well.

360 Degree Photos The Daily’s 360-degree photos were another way in which this daily newspaper became more of a visual magazine. Whether swiping your way through the St. Patrick’s Day Parade or the surface of Mars, these panoramic images were compelling.

The Daily Cover Did the Daily have its faults? No question. The editorial content got better, but was never unique enough to make it a must-read for me. The navigation features were cool but remained clunky at times. And despite adding social sharing and other features, they were never able to fully integrate the app with the web. And while they exposed all of their functionality to advertisers, it seemed few were able to come up with creative campaigns that took full advantage of the device.

In the end, all of these features were not enough to attract the 500,000 paid subscribers that News Corp set as its break-even goal. It’s really hard to get consumers to pay for news, regardless of the container. But many of these features are now prominent in other news apps, by News Corp and its competitors. The Wall Street Journal has begun adding 360 panoramic images to its iPad app, and countless publishers are investing in more video content.

And while it’s easy to poke fun at the failure of this well-funded startup effort, I would instead commend News Corp for doing what’s really hard for large companies to do – innovate. At a time when most publisher's tablet and mobile apps are Zinio-like replicas of print, the Daily attempted to create a product that new and exciting.I hope this failure won't make other publisher afraid to even try.

Barry Graubart on December 03, 2012 in Content Business, Mobile, Mobile Content Strategy, Tablets, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: iPad, news, News Corp, tablets, The Daily

November 19, 2012

Social Media Strategies for Black Friday

As we move into Thanksgiving week, brands, retailers and ecommerce sites are focused on Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the 32 shopping days leading up to Christmas. All, of course, have active social media components to their marketing efforts. And some will do it well, while many others will not. Let’s take a look at what makes for an effective social media Black Friday strategy.

Multi-platform

The first thing, of course, is to not focus your efforts on a single platform. Customers use various tools, so don’t fall in love with your favorite platform, while neglecting others. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest should all be part of your Black Friday Social Strategy. For those with brick-and-mortar stores, Foursquare is important. Why not offer special discounts for check-ins? And as mobile takes hold, the web is becoming more and more visual. Retailers should take advantage of visual platforms like Pinterest and Instagram.

Existing or Specialty Accounts?

One key decision is whether to use your existing brand accounts to communicate Black Friday deals or to create new ones. In other words, should you push deal offers through your existing social media accounts or create custom Black Friday accounts? I recommend the latter. If I’ve been following a brand and am accustomed to seeing 3-5 messages per day from them, I don’t want to see that change to 40 deal offers per day for the holidays. Use your existing accounts to promote awareness of these Black Friday deal accounts, but don’t suddenly change how your existing brand accounts function. Your customers chose to follow you for a reason; don’t alienate them by changing behavior for five weeks.

Personalize

Should your social media streams be “one size fits all” or should you have multiple streams for different buyers? That depends a lot on the size and diversity of your offerings. For some brands, that’s easy. For a retailer like dELiA’s, catering to a single demographic, one stream will suffice. Amazon uses a single Twitter address, @amazondeals, for all its Gold Box deals, though I think they would benefit by adding category-specific deal streams as well for electronics, media, home and other key categories. A good rule of thumb might be if at least 25-30% of your deals could be relevant to a given customer, keep it as one stream. If less than that, you should consider splitting it into multiple streams.

Rewards

There must be a benefit to your customers for following you. Benefits might include early access to a deal, notification of what deals are coming up, or special discounts available only to social media followers. And keep timing and inventory in mind. Just as physical stores alienate customers by not having enough inventory on doorbuster items, etailers can lose customers by promoting items that are sold out by the time you click.

Awareness

So, you’ve created one or more Black Friday streams – how do you promote them? First, use your existing social media accounts. Sprinkle messages into existing streams with messages like “for early updates on Black Friday deals, follow us at …”.

Make sure that the social media buttons appear prominently on your BF Deals page. Amazon (AMZN) uses a text link “Stay connected via e-mail, Facebook and more” with a pulldown menu on its Gold Box page, but it took me a minute or two to find it. They’d be better served by adding the graphical buttons there.

Amazon deal link3

Amazon’s links may not be prominent, but at least they have them. Walmart (WMT), which uses its standard Twitter and Facebook accounts to promote its deals, does not have any link to those accounts on its Pre-Black Friday page. Best Buy (BBY) and Target (TGT) offer the ability to sign up for Black Friday deal email alerts, but no links to their social media accounts.

Best Buy Deals3

Retailers have been talking about integrated, multichannel marketing efforts for several years. Yet, few of them seem to be taking even the simplest steps to make that happen. Your social media marketing should not be isolated; it must be integrated with your other online and offline marketing efforts.

Engage and Monitor

Most retailers still treat social media as a broadcast medium, but the real value comes from engagement and monitoring.

There are many ways to engage with your customers on social media platforms. Why not allow them to vote on which item will be the next deal? Or use Instagram to post pics of the hot deals they land? And, of couse, you should listen for frustrated customers. Your messages will be shared in positive and negative ways. Watch for criticisms of items that are sold out by the time customers click or other negative comments. Work to make those customers happy if you can.

Track hashtags like #blackfriday to see where your content is being shared – as well as that of your brands and competitors.

Mobile

Amazon mobile deals Mobile commerce is growing rapidly. Your customers will be researching Black Friday deals on their tablets and phones. And they will price-check their purchases in the stores. Many will complete purchases on their mobile devices. Yet the user experience on most ecommerce sites is less than ideal on mobile. While you can’t solve that overnight, there are steps retailers can put into place today to improve the customer experience. Make sure that all your social media links go to mobile friendly pages. Don’t overload your deal pages with unnecessary fluff. Amazon does this better than almost anyone. While their website landing pages are a crowded mess, their Lightning Deal pages are clean and simple.

Some retailers choose to create or modify their apps for their Black Friday sales. Macy’s, Walmart and others have launched apps. Apps are great for those customers who will be shopping at your brick & mortar store, but I’m not as bullish on Black Friday apps as some. I think shoppers will only use apps from the one or two places they plan to do most of their shopping. For me, that’s Amazon, and that’s the only BF app I use. I believe it’s more important to get your content into the streams that customers will be using – and those are Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and of course, email.

The 32 days starting this Friday are the make-or-break period for most retailers. Social media is a key part of an integrated marketing program, yet most retailers still struggle with the "integration" aspect. The rewards are great for those who can truly do so.

Barry Graubart on November 19, 2012 in Content Marketing, eCommerce, Mobile, Mobile Content Strategy, Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Black Friday, ecommerce, retail, social media

November 16, 2012

Launching Content Matters llc

Content Matters Avatar I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Content Matters llc, a consultancy aimed at helping publishers and brands develop and implement effective strategies for delivering content over mobile, tablet and web platforms.

Content Matters will be focused on helping companies develop and implement their strategy in three areas:

Tablet and mobile. Many publishers and media companies are struggling with the move to mobile platforms. Tablet adoption has outpaced even the most optimistic projections, leaving publishers scrambling. Yet developing an appropriate strategy for tablet and mobile is not simple. Publishers need to develop a clear strategy for their audience, which will drive decisions on platforms, app vs. mobile web and other key factors.
Content Marketing. The line between publishers and brands is fuzzier than ever. For brands, content is the new form of advertising. At the same time, publishers, particularly information publishers are sitting on top of vast unused assets. Meanwhile, most social media efforts fall flat. A holistic content marketing strategy taps into existing content assets, creates new assets as needed, then uses a mix of traditional online and social media to engage an audience.
New Product Development. An effective product funnel is the lifeblood of long-term business growth. Yet, for most media and publishing organizations, new products get short shrift, with product teams sucked into a never-ending cycle of product revisions. Even in cases where there is a focus on new products, those efforts are often disconnected from real-world use cases and go-to-market strategies.

Content Matters acts as an extension of your existing team to help you embrace technology and drive new product and marketing ideas.

For more information, visit Content Matters llc or .

Barry Graubart on November 16, 2012 in Content Business, General Business, Mobile, Mobile Content Strategy, Social Media, Tablets, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: content marketing, Content Matters, mobile, tablet

November 04, 2012

Boycott Retailers Donating Percentage of Proceeds to Sandy Relief

Ferragamo As I write this dozens (perhaps hundreds) of marketers are kicking around thoughts of new marketing campaigns in which they donate a percentage of their proceeds to relief efforts for those hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy. I have one word for them:

STOP!

I'm sure they are doing this with the best of intentions. And I bet most of them are good people. But this practice, which seems selfless is anything but. In reality, what these companies are doing is saying "Hurricane Sandy - what a horrible event; how can we benefit from it?" While some are obvious - like American Apparel's (APP) blatant Hurricane Sandy Sale email, others may seem to be doing good on the surface.

Here's Ferragamo's pitch:

In aid to those affected by Hurricane Sandy, a percentage of proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief Efforts, Friday, November 2 - Sun, November 4.

In this instance, they don't even state what percentage they're giving. Is it 10%, 1% or .0001%? No way to tell.

But even if they were giving an explicit percentage - as companies like Courtshop, Barney's New York, Gilt City and Natori are doing, it's still horribly offensive in my opinion. They are out there using the victims of Hurricane Sandy as props in an effort to market their products. And that's simply craven and wrong.

Look - if you're a retailer or other brand and you wish to make a donation to help the victims of Sandy, there's a really easy way to do it. Write a damn check. And if you truly want to tie that to revenue, feel free. You can project what your revenues will be this week or this month - so write a check for some percentage of that. But don't wrap your marketing efforts in Hurricane Sandy.

Toysfortots And this goes beyond just Hurricane Sandy. As we approach the holidays, Toys R Us and other retailers love to put up boxes to collect Toys for Tots gifts. But what they're really doing is inflating their own sales, by convincing their customers to buy additional gifts at full price. Before their well-deserved bankruptcy, Borders was the master of this, aggressively asking every customer at checkout "do you want to buy a book for a needy child?". "Oh, no" I was tempted to respond; "I like the needy to remain ignorant". Instead I, like many others, was guilted into buying additional books at full price (Borders never chose books off the sale rack for these offers), propping up their weak revenues.

If retailers want to support organizations like Toys for Tots, it's really easy to do. Let your customers buy those gifts at cost, rather than at retail price. That way, we know you're doing this because you mean it, not to inflate your own revenues.

So, join me in commending those companies which are out there writing checks - like Disney (DIS), News Corp (NWS), Target (TGT), Kohls (KSS), Hanes (HBI), Home Depot (HD), Wal-Mart (WMT), Viacom (VIAB), Ross Stores, Wells Fargo (WFC), BofA (BAC), Lowe's (LOW), Chrysler, Ford (F) and others. These companies have given without asking anything in return - and we should support them.

And please also join me in boycotting those companies who are trying to boost their top line by wrapping themselves in the cloth of the victims of Hurricane Sandy. They are shameless and do not deserve our patronage.

Do you know other companies who are generously supporting those impacted by Sandy? Or companies looking to use Sandy as a marketing ploy? Please note them in the comments below.

Barry Graubart on November 04, 2012 in Current Affairs, eCommerce, philanthropy | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Barney's New York, Courtshop, Ferragamo, Gilt City, Hurricane Sandy, Natori

October 26, 2012

Pandora Panic Premature

Pandora Yesterday, Pandora (NYSE: P) shares tanked on the news that Apple would be releasing iRadio, its long-awaited streaming music service in January of 2013.

While this is, of course, possible reason for concern, the reaction seems a bit overblown to me.

While Apple (AAPL) today is the 800 pound gorilla in digital music, it’s not clear to me that they will dominate streaming music for several reasons:

First, it’s not that easy. I’ve tested almost every music service out there and most are just not that good. I love Spotify, for the ability to play specific albums when I want, but when I want to pick a genre, not an artist, Pandora blows them away. I feel the same way about Apple Genius. It’s a convenient way to create an on-the-fly playlist when I’m at the gym, but the quality of their selections rarely matches Pandora.

Second, Apple’s track record at new things is spotty at best. Have we connected yet on Ping? Oh, that’s right, no one uses it. What about MobileMe? And how are you liking those new iOS maps? And while iTunes clearly revolutionized the digital music market, making it easy for novices to download legally, the interface feels dated today. Apple makes fantastic hardware. I am writing this on my MacBook Air and my iPhone and iPad are sitting on the desk alongside it. I love Apple hardware. But they haven’t yet proven that they can consistently deliver great apps or services.

Third is that this could certainly be a case where a rising tide lifts all boats. My daughter and I are big Pandora users, but my wife is not. Those who read this blog are likely pretty familiar with Pandora. But the mainstream user is not a Pandora user. If Apple puts its marketing muscle behind streaming music, that will do a lot to make it mainstream. And many of those new users will find their way to Pandora.

Last, and possibly most important is the existence of iTunes. iTunes today is an $8 Billion cash cow for Apple. Pandora set out to make the best possibly online radio offering and had no concerns of cannibalizing an existing product. Apple will have to carefully navigate the waters of cannibalization. Anyone who’s ever worked for a publisher knows how fears of cannibalizing the golden goose can drive companies to make dumb product decisions. Apple would prefer that streaming not exist, but it now has to enter the market to compete with Pandora, Spotify and others. In the perfect would, this new business unit would be given free run to create the best product on the market. But in reality, it will be constrained by not wanting to kill off an $8 billion cash cow.

Will Pandora withstand the entry of Apple? I think it will and could possibly thrive. With Apple behind it, streaming music will become a much larger business than it otherwise might. And if it continues to be the best product on the market, Pandora should receive a fair share of that business and grow much larger than it is today. And the downside risk is probably not very great. If Pandora struggles against Apple, there will be no shortage of suitors (Amazon, Facebook, Google) who would love to acquire them.

Barry Graubart on October 26, 2012 in Music, Social Media, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Apple, iradio, Pandora, Streaming music

October 03, 2012

Who Should Buy the FT?

Rumours are swirling this morning that Pearson (PSO) could consider putting its prize asset, the Financial Times, on the selling block after appointing John Fallon its new CEO, replacing Marjorie Scardino, who is stepping down after sixteen years in the role.

The FT is a unique asset in many ways. It’s one of the few paid online news success stories, due largely to the fact that it’s mostly paid for by companies, not individuals. It’s completely dominant in the UK; you can be sure your content has been read by every UK banker by the time they get to their desk in the morning. It has global reach and employs some top quality journalists.

So, who should buy the FT?

The obvious buyers might include Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters (TRI) and News Corp (NWSA). While News Corp is splitting off its news publishing assets into a new company, the combination of the FT and Wall Street Journal would be hard for Rupert Murdoch to ignore. A major European publisher like Axel Springer (SPR) would likely be interested as well. It's also possible someone like Reed Elsevier could jump in. Yet I don't see many other publishers getting involved. The FT would be a lot to swallow for a company like the NY Times in this market.

But an eventual buyer could come from outside the obvious names. One city analyst quoted in the Guardian story suggests the FT could get bids of as much as £1bn as a trophy buy:

“Who wouldn't want to own the FT. Russian oligarchs, a wealthy Middle Eastern owner would get more status than owning a football team.”

Whom do you think might be the best suitor for the FT? Add your thoughts in the comments.

Barry Graubart on October 03, 2012 in Content Business, M&A | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Financial Times, FT, M&A, Pearson

October 02, 2012

Tablet Wars: iPad Giving Ground to Android

Kindle Fire Fred Wilson has an interesting post on the A VC blog this morning, referencing a Forbes article that suggests that Apple's market share of the tablet market has dropped from 81% a year ago to 52% today, with Android grabbing the other 48%.

The Forbes article notes that most of the Android gains are due to the Kindle Fire:

Amazon’s Kindle Fire accounts for far and away the largest slice of those: half of the Android tablets in use are Kindle Fires, and they represent 21% of the overall tablet market.

Those numbers sound a bit suspect to me, and apparently to many readers of Fred's blog. And they are hard to verify, as Amazon does not release sales figures for the Kindle Fire. According to research firm Strategy Analytics, iPad global market share actually increased during Q2, 2012 from 62% to 68.3%, shipping 17 million iPads during the quarter.

Tablet market share

Yet, there's no escaping the fact that Android traffic is increasing, particularly on a global basis. Apple's iOS accounts for roughly 50% of mobile web traffic in the US, according to StatCounter, as compared to 41% for Android. The two were dead-even at 40% a year ago, but virtually all the Blackberry and Symbian market share have been absorbed by Apple.

Mobile OS US
On a global basis, the picture looks substantially different. Symbian's losses have been split among several operating systems, with Nokia's Series 40 gaining 15%. But it remains largely a 2-horse race between iOS and Android. Yet in the global market, Android, which had been tied with iOS for market share in May, has now taken a sizable lead with nearly 30% of the market. Of course, these figures are for all global traffic, both smartphone and tablet.

Mobile OS Global
I think it's likely that Android will begin to take more market share from iOS among tablet users in the coming 12-24 months. Ironically, the launch of a 7" iPad Mini, rumored for later this month, could actually help the Android market as well. An iPad Mini could "legitimize" that size, form factor and price point ($199-299) for tablets, making them accessible to a wider audience. And while many will certainly choose the Apple product, that new awareness should also drive sales of the Kindle Fire, the Google Nexus and other Android-based tablets.

But the key, of course, is understanding the markets you serve and what products they are using. In the B2B world, there's really only one player today. Comparing notes with others, tablet market share among knowledge professionals seems to be 90% Apple today. That, too, may change, but I'd encourage B2B publishers to focus their efforts on making great iPad apps, and not worry about Android until you start to see demand from your customer base.

Barry Graubart on October 02, 2012 in Mobile, Tablets, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Android, Apple, Google, iPad, Kindle Fire

September 26, 2012

Nook HD Aside, Two Key Questions Will Determine Barnes & Noble’s Future

NookHD In an anticipated response to Amazon’s latest Kindle Fire releases, Barnes & Noble (BKS) announced two new models in their Nook line – the 7” Nook HD and the 9” Nook HD+.

The new devices, which will be available in October, are built on top of the Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, but with a B&N wrapper. Price-wise, the new Nooks are competitive with their Kindle Fire peers, as well as the Google Nexus. The 8 GB Nook HD costs $199; the 16 GB model $229. The HD+ starts at $269 for a 16 GB model with a 32 GB model available for $299.

Initial product reviews from Engadget, CNET, The Verge and others all point to a product with strong technical specs and great design aesthetics. The 7” HD is clearly aimed at readers, while the larger HD+ with its 1920x1200 screen resolution aims to match the Kindle Fire HD as an entertainment device.

Yet product specs are largely irrelevant to whether Barnes & Noble may have a successful future. The long-term viability of Barnes & Noble will not be determined by product features, but really by addressing two key questions:

How, if at all, can the brick & mortar stores be an asset, rather than a financial drain?
What markets can B&N own?

The first generation Kindle was first released in late 2007 at a price of $399. While sales exceeded initial expectations, the first generation Kindle remained a niche product. Amazon released the 2^nd generation Kindle in 2009 at a $299 price.

In October, 2009, Barnes & Noble responded with the Nook at $269; Amazon responded by immediately cutting the price of the Kindle 2 to $259.

When the Nook was first released, Barnes & Noble’s brick-and-mortar stores were an asset. Kindles were still somewhat of a curiosity and the typical consumer had probably never held one in their hand. Meanwhile, the iPad had yet to come to market, and these early tablets were simply viewed as e-Readers.

BN-Nook Boutique Having a 1,000 square foot display at the front of each B&N store was a key way of getting consumers to see and touch these devices for the first time. At a price point above $200, these devices were not yet impulse buys, so giving a buyer the ability to try it out in a store gave Barnes & Noble an initial edge.

Since that time, tablets have emerged and readers have become ubiquitous. Almost every student in my daughter’s 8^th grade class has at least one of the iPad, Kindle or Nook. According to PwC, by Q1 of 2012, 30% of adults in the US had at least one portable reading device. Price points have dropped below $100, making it an impulse purchase. It’s so easy and inexpensive to buy a Kindle from Amazon that you don’t need to touch it first. Today, roughly 6 in 10 eBooks are sold through Amazon, with Barnes & Noble accounting for 25% and Apple 10%. The new Google Nexus and rumored 7” iPad Mini will create further disruption in the market. And those products will be available at Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy, where Nooks will not.

BN-Closed2 Fast-forward five years and any benefits of big box brick-and-mortar stores will vanish. eBooks already have double-digit market share in the US, with PwC forecasting that to reach 50% by 2016. The average Barnes & Noble store is 26,000 square feet. As more and more content is consumed via devices, the revenue per square foot of these stores will continue to slide and Barnes & Noble will be forced to shutter many more stores.

What were once an asset will simply become an anchor on the company’s bottom line.

Which leads me to the second question: Which, if any, markets could Barnes & Noble own?

Under the above scenario, Barnes & Noble can expect to see their e-reader market share drop from the current 25%. At the same time, in-store sales, which currently account for 60% of the company’s revenue, will, no doubt, shrink to a fraction of that as more content is purchased in digital form. The reduced foot traffic to stores will have an even bigger impact on profit margin, driven in part by the sale of cards, trinkets and other impulse buys near checkout.

So, the outlook for Barnes & Noble successfully competing with Amazon, Apple and Google as a general purpose e-bookseller seems pretty dim.

Yet I do see an opportunity for Barnes & Noble to succeed, by focusing on select niche markets where it can dominate.

The two most obvious markets in my opinion are children’s books and the education market.

BN-Kids Children’s books remain one of the more profitable segments in the book industry. According to the Association of American Publishers (AAP), children & young adult book sale growth exceeded 61% last year. Barnes & Noble has long been a leader in the sale of picture books and early reader titles. And while e-readers have transformed the overall book market, I believe there is a lot more that could be done to bring the children’s book market to digital. The solution there is more than just a cool device, but rather a close partnership with publishers to develop multimedia content optimized for the digital platform. Neither Amazon nor Google have shown the ability to work well with niche markets. For them, it’s all about scale. Yet Barnes & Noble has longstanding relationships with publishers whom it could partner with to transform the digital reader market for children.

The education market is also ripe for transformation and few companies are as well-positioned as Barnes & Noble to do so. This past spring, B&N partnered with Microsoft to create a jointly-owned Nook subsidiary aimed largely at the education market via the Nook Study etextbook platform. I think Barnes & Noble should double-down on the education space. When B&N put itself up for sale, I suggested Blackboard, Inc. as a potential suitor. I still think that deal would make a lot of sense, but even if that never comes to fruition, Barnes & Noble needs to root itself deeply into the textbook market. That market is up for grabs and it seems that Apple or Barnes & Noble will become the likely winner. Barnes & Noble should move quickly to secure the needed partnerships and focus its efforts on winning there.

There’s no clear path to profitability for Barnes & Noble through brick-and-mortar stores or as a general bookseller. it simply does not have the size, scale or online traffic to compete with Amazon in the long run. The quicker it focuses on the niche markets it could win and jettisons costly businesses where it cannot, the more likely they can write a successful next chapter in their history.

Barry Graubart on September 26, 2012 in Content Business, eCommerce, General Business | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, Nook

September 24, 2012

Can Quartz News Elbow Its Way Into Crowded Business News Market?

Quartz The Atlantic entered the crowded business news market today with online-only magazine Quartz News.

Built on blogging platform Wordpress with compelling graphics optimized for the mobile user Quartz definitely has a different look and feel than most of its business brethren. While it works smoothly on the iPad, navigation and scrolling actually feel a bit clunky on the desktop. And that’s OK with the Editor-in-Chief, as the Atlantic clearly has the tablet and mobile reader in mind.

While the field is crowded, I do think there is still room for another player in this space, if well executed. Others who have tried, both in print and online, have clearly stumbled (Portfolio, Big Money). Yet the Atlantic has shown in the equally crowded political space, that they can carve out a strong niche, through the assembly of a strong team of writers like James Fallows, Alexis Madrigal and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

At the same time, most financial news providers have stumbled in initial efforts to support tablet and mobile devices. Bloomberg and Reuters are both delivering great commentary today, but their blogs frequently don’t reach a mainstream audience. Aggregators like Pulse News or Flipboard remain niche products for the technology savvy. There’s definitely room in the market for a new entrant, particularly one unhindered by a print title or legacy platform.

The mix of long form articles, big glossy images and short linkfests is one that works well on mobile and the web. The challenge will be in the delivery of compelling enough information that users will seek it out and/or share it via social platforms. For Day One, I score the content about a 6 on a 1-10 scale. The Facebook Zero article is somewhat interesting, but I don’t quite see how it commands the top position nor justifies its length. The Brazilian cocaine chart seems random and doesn’t seem to meet the lofty target of core topics and knotty questions of seismic importance to business professionals which Quartz sets as its focus.

Conversely, Manufacturers are thinking of ditching no-longer-cheap Chinese labor is an article which seems to meet that standard and is also quite timely, in the context both of political debate and last night’s riots at the FoxConn factory. I’m surprised this story wasn’t pinned to the top for today’s launch.

Quartz1

Quartz News will be free for readers, funded through sponsorships. The initial sponsors include Cadillac, Chevron, Boeing and Credit Suisse. Perhaps their ad sales reps sorted their targets alphabetically. The sponsorship model is common for tablet apps where the old metrics like page views are no longer meaningful, and has been used effectively by the New York Times, The Daily and others. Unlike either of those two, Quartz News is being built on a low budget.

By using Wordpress and HTML5, rather than building a native app, The Atlantic is keeping costs under control while they test the market viability.

It’s too early to tell whether Quartz News will be successful. While the field is crowded, there’s no one title that seems to be reaching mainstream business users on mobile platforms. With the right content, Quartz News could find itself a compelling niche.

Barry Graubart on September 24, 2012 in Content Business | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Quartz News, The Atlantic

August 13, 2012

Google Buys Frommer's - the Final Nail in the Travel Publishing Coffin?

Frommers Google is buying the Frommer's travel guide brand from John Wiley & Sons.

The acquisition makes a lot of sense and puts further pressure on the ailing travel publishing market. With the proliferation of smartphones, the market for printed travel guides will continue to erode. Meanwhile, reviews on sites like TripAdvisor have become more important than books for many travelers.

Google's interest in Frommer's is said to be focused on bolstering its local reviews, in conjunction with last year's acquisition of Zagat. But that seems only the beginning. More user reviews should be a boon for Google + Local and has obvious ties into Google's flight listings data which it got via last year's acquisition of ITA Software.

According to the WSJ, "Google hasn't yet decided whether the Frommer's guidebooks will continue to be published in print or whether they will eventually migrate entirely to online". What will be more interesting to me is how Google brings this content to the mobile platform, where it ultimately belongs.

Barry Graubart on August 13, 2012 in Content Business, Mobile | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)