Content Gets Respect

Whether the topic was social networking, user-generated videos, blogging or podcasting, publishers among the record-breaking 10,276 marketers attending November’s ad:tech conference heard renewed respect for content from the panelists reporting on the latest developments in online marketing. Pam Horan, President of the Online Pubishers Association, kicked off her panel on “Publishing in the Digital Age” with a chart showing that consumers now spend almost half their time online with content, up 35% from four years ago (see graph). Horan credited much of the increase to the surge in popularity of social networking, which OPA includes in its content category. Of course, users prefer their content free—and that isn’t always a bad thing for publishers. Vivian Schiller, SVP and GM of NYTimes.com, reported that search referrals increased 133% after the Times abandoned TimesSelect, its paid subscription model in September. When Times management found that most of its monthly 13 million visitors were coming from search engines—and not getting access to what they sought—they calculated that advertising could deliver more than the $10 million they’ve been getting annually from their 227,000 paying subscribers. What users want was the theme for almost every panel. “Marketing strategy is no longer about getting people to come to your site. It’s about configuring your content so that people can get it wherever they want,” was how Nada Stirratt, EVP, Digital Advertising at MTV Networks Digital, described the new paradigm. MTV now makes it easy for people to embed its content on Facebook pages, for instance. . . .

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PT thanks guest blogger and New York-based marketing consultant, Rich Kelley.

Someone's Using the Sony Reader

While eagerly awaiting Kindle, netGalley, and all the other cool launches in 2008, some publishers are working with what we have in the here-and-now: the Sony Reader. Simon & Schuster started giving it (officially, The Reader Digital Book) to sales reps, so that they could download manuscripts at will, and carry the Reader on their travels. It saves time and money (the cost of copying and mailing the paper version), not to mention the hassle of lugging all those pages around, notes Adam Rothberg, VP, Corporate Communications at S&S. Reps plug their Reader into their computer and log onto a dedicated site to choose what they'd like to download. Other MS Word documents can also be offloaded directly from the computer.

The experiment has been so successful that editorial departments are also trying it out. Free Press was the first, with proposals and manuscripts being read on the Reader. Though bookmarking is possible, editing and note taking are not. And, the Reader has no backlight, making middle-of-the-night reading (which in the early days of ebook devices was always a selling point) a nonstarter. "It's definitely a mindset adjustment," says EVP and Publisher Martha Levin, but well worth making for the efficiences it offers.

The proof, as they say, is in the imprint pudding, with Touchstone/Fireside and Pocket Books editorial now on board. It's too early to say how widespread this adoption will be, but the anticipated savings of close to six figures is a good incentive.

BuzzFeed: More about the Reader's homelier sister