Here is the weirdest thing about the modern Web: humans are only one constituency and maybe not the most profitable one. Consider the case of an anonymous publishing executive who spoke with the media trade magazine Digiday about purchasing bulk robot traffic to his former company's website. By robot, I mean software that is designed to simulate a human being browsing the Web. Bots, as they are known, are relatively easy to create, and now you can easily purchase their services to build a nice business, if you are willing to bend the rules of digital publishing.
Despite the popular [mis]conception that digital textbooks haven't taken off, the educational ecosystem-particularly in higher ed-is where some of the most active digital developments are happening. Most college textbooks have associated online resources and are often available as ebooks or online.
Now that I'm no longer in the book publishing industry I've realized something very important: Amazon isn't killing book publishers. Publishers are killing themselves. Book publishers, or more accurately, their products, are becoming less and less relevant every year.
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.
Books have a unique power, especially the beautifully illustrated works my father collected. And that kind of power is staying. How can a tablet recreate the stunning spreads I eyed excitedly as a child? How can an ereader recreate the pile of books my fathered hauled from the attic, which quickly became strewn across my brothers' floor? There is a value in the object itself, in the beauty of its pages.
In July, a US district court judge found "compelling evidence" that Apple Inc. (AAPL) had been guilty of conspiring with no less than five major book publishers to raise the price of e-books, in an effort to take a bite out of the dominance of leading online retailer Amazon.com (AMZN)
For the first time in 13 years, Coca-Cola is no longer considered to be the most valuable brand in the world. The new statistic comes via the Interbrand survey of the world's most valuable brands, which has been measuring brands since 2000.
It's not that Coke has lost value--its just been usurped by not one but two upstart young technology companies. This year Apple is in the lead, and Google has pulled swiftly into second place.
I have been studying e-publishing in developing countries since 2009, when Ramy Habeeb (Egypt), Arthur Attwell (South Africa), and I set up the Digital Minds Network to informally exchange data. As digital publishers in the Global South, we didn't feel that the US and European business models fully met our needs. Then, in 2011, the International Alliance of Independent Publishers and the Prince Claus Fund asked me to do a detailed study of the digital phenomenon in Latin America, Africa, the Arab World, Russia, India and China.
A few weeks ago the publishing world was aflutter with the latest Kobo tablet launch which introduced the reader-centric Kobo Arcs. Much of the talk centered on whether or not the Kobo Arc would challenge the preeminence of Amazon's Kindle Fire. We wondered the same thing, and reached out to Publishing Business Conference speaker and Kobo VP of Vendor Management, Dave Anderson. Anderson will speak on Tuesday September 24th at "Ebooks Beyond Our Borders," where you can see him discuss issues relating to the global ebook market.