Innovation

For product innovation, magazines, particularly business to business titles are now branching out to create brand extensions. For example many now have industry awards, networking events, and seminars. This has also led to position innovation in that magazine publishers now consider themselves as ‘brands’ rather than a magazine plus extra bits.

Spotify is an example of quite explicit process innovation in that it completely changed the way music was delivered, by drawing on file-sharing developments but adding limitations to keep the music producers happy.

A good example of almost ‘backtracked’ position innovation is the kindle cover in the style of book sleeve. It managed to steer the kindle away from being a high tech gadget to being something you can still curl up with, having it resting in your palm. And essential context move particularly for older consumers.

As Bessant & Tidd point out, the internet and technology are a great catalyst for paradigm innovation and one assumes most organisations today would like to think they are ‘changing the way we do things’, even if some are really still rather stuck. Perhaps the most essential change in mental models today’s technology is its social and interconnected nature. People are desperate to share and connect which has led for example to innovations in ebooks to allow sharing of passages and even temporary lending of books between ebooks.

Overall it seems that digital provides massive potential for position and paradigm innovation. We know now that product innovation will happen insanely fast and effectively – our technology and skill levels make this relatively easy. What is more difficult is knowing what to do with more abstract concepts of what all these potential developments mean in terms of how they could change our culture and day to day lives.

Advertising as revenue stream in E-Books

There seem to be contradicting convictions on the possibility of advertisements being included in e-books in order to reduce their cover price (a move which could ease the reader protestations mentioned in The Maudster's post). While Sam Hollander claims that “None of the sources in digital publishing would agree that in-book advertising is on the horizon” (Hollander 2011), John Wheeler’s research in publishing trends shows a prediction that ads WILL start to appear in eBooks (Wheeler 2011). Could it be that in the six months between the first comment and the second we have seen a change in sentiment towards advertising?

Generally I would argue that the latter makes sense since, socially, we are already so conditioned to be interrupted by adverts, on tv, on the radio, in magazines and in newspapers.

It seems to still be in debate among publishing companies with varying conclusions such as Harper-Collins' plan to include ads in e-textbooks but not fiction e-books, where it deems it would be too distracting (Kobie, 2011)... though one wonders if it would really be so distracting in natural chapter breaks.

But I also think that if publishers have shifted their feelings on advertising it may be due to the resounding success of Spotify as a model for the music industry. We know that publishers have looked to the music industry for indications of what to do and what not to do with their own digitalisation, and perhaps the Spotify model is one of the 'what to do's'. Namely that users are generally happy to be interrupted by adverts if it means they are getting something else (music) for free / cheap. Plus there is the added revenue model in the incentive to pay to go 'premium' so as not to get interrupted by adverts.

As a magazine journalism student (who is nevertheless still very interested in eBook models) I'd be really interested to get thoughts on advertisements from the publishing students.

Hollander, S. (2011) “Listen to the Music: Lessons for Publishers from Record Labels’ Digital Debut Decade,” Publishing Research Quarterly, 27:26–35

Kobie, N. (2011) "Publisher considering ads in ebooks", PCPro.co.uk at: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/371191/publisher-considering-ads-in-ebooks [Accessed 22/01/2012]

Wheeler, J. P. (2011) “Publishing Trends 2011 to 2012, and the Changing Landscape (part 2 of 3)”, Spi-global.com at: http://www.spi-global.com/content-solutions-blog/content-solutions/publishing-trends-2011-to-2012-and-the-changing-landscape-part-2-of-3 [Accessed 22/1/2012]