Infosys Publishing Practice Blog

Content Strategies for Mobile Publishing

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:40:39 +0000

Over 1.3 billion users are expected to access social media from mobile devices by 2016. This is almost double the number of mobile social media users in 2011, according to a report from Juniper Research.

Digital content fulfillment: User experience will determine the winner

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:20:15 +0000

Digital content has disrupted multiple traditional paradigms of the Publishing world. Monetization of content is the one where the disruption has been most profound. Third party retailers who control large digital market places (think Amazon) or control access devices (think Apple) are emerging as leaders in the evolving digital market place. In order to retain customer mindshare, Publishers need to provide best-in-class experience right through the purchase-to-consume process.

From specialty magazines to specialty community platforms

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 04:34:32 +0000

Faced with a powerful disruptive force that is redefining content consumption patterns, specialty B2C magazines have to move away from a content-centric to community-centric approach to compete.

The chart above is the story. Companies that either did not exist or where not considered competition even 10 years ago now control over 60% of the total online advertising revenue...and Facebook is just getting started on its monetization strategy. Analytics firm emarketer.com, estimates that online ad spending worldwide will rise to around 22% of the total ad spend, up from an estimated 16% today. This increase is coming at the cost of newspapers, magazines and directories...all of which are already seeing sharp declines in ad revenues.

Most magazine publishers have established a strong digital presence, and in fact, would boast of an increased combined readership across their print and online brands. However, this increased readership has not translated into revenues...with online revenue unable to make up the gap from falling print ad and subscription revenues.

I believe the problem is the way publishers look at the digital media. For most digital is an extension of their print strategy. The online experience they provide their readers is generally not too different from their print titles. Publishers do incorporate certain community tools like blogs, forums, chats etc., but these are all peripheral to the content.

However, the advent and popularity of social media has proved that personalization and community interaction are central to keeping users engaged and active in the online world. Therefore it is imperative to rethink existing content strategies and for magazines to reconstruct themselves as community platforms.

While the concept of community could defer from publication to area of interest. A community platform would broadly emphasize the following:

Personalisation: Move over editor's point of view. Hello readers' point of view. Personalisation begins from the home page with each reader getting a news feed most relevant to them. This can begin from a simple geographic location, with new users being served content related to or most relevant to their geographies. As their level of interaction with the site increases so too does the level of personalisation. Yahoo is an early pioneer (http://www.fastcompany.com/1770673/how-yahoo-got-to-a-billion-clicks), but I believe this is just the start.
Social Interactions: Or as fellow blogger Santosh GR calls it "giving social conversations a first class status." Basically the news feed incorporates social conversations from the community along with the core magazine content.
Curation: Now this could be a sticking point for some publishers. But online any content that your user wants/needs/can find relevant is useful content. It does not matter if that has not been created by your editorial team. The idea is to meet the end-to-end needs of your user so they don't tab off to another location to find what you are not providing.
Long tail: A community platform provides value for businesses along the long tail For example: It is viable for a local car dealer to reach potential buyers in their area on a car community platform. Doing this in a magazine would not be viable. Using other online media would not provide the kind of targeting possible on a special interest community platform.

A community platform also creates greater revenue opportunities for publishers. That, however, is best left for my next post.

Re-inventing editorial operations - Part 3: From print-first to web-first to media-neutral

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:01:55 +0000

Consumer: I don't know where you get your content, but I get mine on the web.

Editor: I don't know where you want your content, but I produce mine first for , and not for the web.

Ironical, as it may seem in the post web 2.0 era, content collection, editorial, publishing and distribution systems are not geared for media neutral content delivery, let alone web delivery. However, we are now long past web 2.0, and in the tablet era. Not being media neutral is not an option (pardon the double negatives). Continuing to believe in print-first and web-next is also not an option. Let's see some key factors which affect a web-first philosophy.

Re-inventing editorial operations - Part 2 : Lean is not mean

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:29:17 +0000

We talked about business process as a key dimension of optimization for Publishers in the previous blog. An interesting approach to process optimization is adoption of lean methodology to prune non value-adding processes and steps.

Re-inventing editorial operations - Part 1: The big asks

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:57:16 +0000

Content is the heart and soul of Publishing. Access channels have fragmented, newer monetization models have emerged and customers have moved to digital formats. Despite this tumultuous change, customers are willing to pay premium for content that is enriched, structured, normalized, and referenced. The key differentiation between content freely available on the web and Publisher enriched content is authenticity, reliability and fitness for use.