Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

Some of you, over the last week, may have noticed me proclaiming the coming of the future… The Futurist Panel, that is. Yesterday we convened the first of what will be a monthly gathering of forward-thinking publishing experts. In a wide-ranging 30-minute conversation, this insightful group began some interesting inquiries into how publishing has changed and will continue to morph, and how its future identity might shape up. 

At our Publishing Business Conference & Expo in September, one very popular session was called "The Futurist Panel." Convened and organized by the visionary Brett Sandusky, it included a number of forward-thinking and innovative publishing folks, encouraged publishers to think more like software designers and less like, well, publishers, and debated the future of publishing as a craft and the core strengths publishers need to develop to compete in the publishing landscape of tomorrow.

We asked some of our favorite thinkers in the publishing world: "What trends will shape the industry in 2014?" Here's what they had to say.

News Corp. is planning to split into two companies. One company will operate as a newspaper and book publisher and will retain the name News Corp. The other will be an entertainment company, called 21st Century Fox.

Here's how the split will work:

- Newspapers, book publishing and information services such as Dow Jones Newswires will be part of the publishing company. The 20th Century Fox movie studio, the Fox broadcast TV network and the Fox News Channel will be part of the media and entertainment company.

Macmillan, the last of the major publishers still fighting the U.S. Justice Department over antitrust charges, says it has renegotiated its e-book deals with retailers to allow some discounting.

In an open letter posted on his book-publishing company's website Wednesday afternoon, MacmillanChief Executive John Sargent said the firm is still committed to fighting the antitrust case brought by the Justice Department involving allegations that Macmillan and four other publishers plus Apple Inc. (AAPL) conspired to raise e-book prices.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers Inc. has formed an agreement with a majority of its creditors to eliminate $3.1 billion of debt, marking the publisher's latest effort to tackle a heavy debt load in the face of weak textbook demand.

The company plans to reorganize through a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, an effort it hopes to complete by the end of next month.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Houghton had hired restructuring advisers for help reworking its finances, citing people familiar with the matter.

Where does a publisher go for the latest in process, for a view of the future and to map a path for getting there? This year’s three day 6th annual TOC conference provided an immersive opportunity to do so. It was at once a celebration of the traditions of storytelling and an exploration of new developments and business frameworks for their presentation and distribution. The theme was "Change/Forward/Fast and Start Again."

They liked the price, the color screen and the selection of books on Amazon (AMZN). They wish it had a volume control button and a camera and that the battery lasted longer. Those are some of the results of a survey of 254 Kindle Fire owners conducted in January by ChangeWave Research, a service of 451 Research. 54% said they were very satisfied with their new tablet, which is better than the 39% "other tablet devices" got in a November survey, but considerably less than the 74% of Apple (AAPL) iPad owners who said they were very satisfied.

In a note to clients issued Monday, Hudson Square Research's Daniel Ernst reported on the results of a pre-holiday scouting trip he took to retail stores in New York and Connecticut over the weekend -- only a handful of shopping days before Christmas -- where he found "floor traffic up materially, but lines at checkout short."

Demand for tablet computers was strong, he wrote, with Apple's (AAPL) iPad maintaining its lead. Amazon's (AMZN) tablet sales, however, were a mystery.

100,000 Book, Journal Titles Added to CCC’s Annual Academic Copyright License; Complements OUP’s Book and Journal Offerings