Prognostication correct! Free NOOKs

Robin Wauters reports today in Tech Crunch, "Barnes & Noble is now heavily discounting (and even giving away free) NOOK devices with digital subscriptions to a magazine or newspaper, the first time a bookseller has ever done this type of promotion if I’m not mistaken."

You're not mistaken, Robin. And neither was I when, (way back) in November 2009, I ventured that e-readers (as we then called them) would take off only when their business model changed. Eventually, said I, we'd get the reader for "free" when we paid for subscriptions. Just like a cable box.

Back then e-reader sales were sputtering in defiance of so many high hopes. One popular analysis held that the devices needed more features. Others thought slick interfaces and better form factors were the answer. "As soon as Apple properly address e-readers there will be no hesitation," wrote one foolhardy industry watcher on LinkedIn.

Months later came the iPad Spring that revolutionized the category and proved everybody right but me. But I hardly noticed, so thrilling were the times. The ungainly "e-reader" departed the lexicon and in flew the "tablet." Form factors, features and operating systems proliferated wildly. Intense competition kept prices flat while awesomeness climbed steeply. Indeed, some of the hungrier brands began selling devices at a loss in pursuit of market share. All the while, the only fixed variable in tablet sales was content.

Until now. Credit the intersecting challenge of monetizing digital publication, particularly of periodical journalism. All that stuff that used to be free on the Internet and that people weren't happy to pay for once the publishers erected paywalls. The marriage of paid subscriptions and free tablets (details here via Wired) works to close gaps in the perceived value of each.

In 2009, reported Forrester Research, roughly three million e-readers of all types were sold. Granted, there were only a few types. In 2011, reports Computer World, Apple sold 40 million iPads. No doubt sales will continue to rise. But increasingly the buyers will be publishers themselves. They will subsidize the cost of putting devices in people's hands as the enticement to get them to pay for digital content. 

One for the good guys

In the October 29 New York Times, Dave Eggars gives us a loving review of "Look at the Birdie," a collection of previously unpublished short stories by the late, great Kurt Vonnegut. A joyous read for those, like me, who also looked to Vonnegut as "our sage and chain-smoking truth-teller." The review will particularly reward that subset of readers that prizes the canny and ascendant writing of the American Mid-Century.

Undervalued Art

As creatives, we often ride the line between the want for pure exposure and the need for a paycheck. As in advertising, how can we monetize buzz? A recent New York Times article addresses this issue which has risen out of recent actions by search engine top dog Google. The company reached out to numerous artists, asking them to contribute their works to a new set of browser skins for Chrome. They were met with a resounding "No!" from the arts community because Google has refused to pay for the work.

Many of these individuals, who have a solid track record in their artistic arena, feel as though exposure alone will not uncover their value. But with print publications fading and stock art rising up out of the paper-filled depths, can they really afford to hold out for a paycheck? And even more importantly, can Google afford to hold out on artists who provide a product like any other asset they would look to acquire? (My guess: Undoubtedly. In the first quarter of this year alone, Google reported profits of $1.42 billion, an increase of 8 percent over the same period last year.)

It's a risky business. Discussion continues whether contributing to social media is an effective way to develop leads and downstream revenue through buzz and open exposure.

NYT: A Web Site’s For-Profit Approach to World News

Another interesting take on the evolving Internet business model for journalism, this time from Elizabeth Jensen of The New York Times. Global Post, an online-only outlet for original international reporting, mixes an ad-based free version with a paid version that allows subscribers to suggest article ideas.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Recent articles, free at GlobalPost.com, included reports on Thailand’s Islamic insurgency and Indian yogis worried about the financial crisis. That ad-supported reporting is only one part of the GlobalPost business plan. If it is to succeed, it will depend in part on how many people sign up for a separate paid section of the site, which was to have been available in test mode beginning last week but is now expected to go online in the coming days. Called Passport, it offers access to GlobalPost correspondents, including exclusive reports on business topics of less interest to general audiences, conference calls and meetings with reporters, and breaking news e-mail messages from those journalists. Passport subscribers, who pay as much as $199 a year, can suggest article ideas. “If you are a member, you have a voice at the editorial meeting,” although the site will decide which stories to pursue, said Charles Sennott, a GlobalPost founder and its executive editor.

NYT: A Social Solution, Without Going the Nonprofit Route

An interesting article in today's Times. Amalgam is entering this space in the Northside of Minneapolis. For the past few months we've been planning a marketing initiative for the neighborhood on behalf of a community task force. This work has interested local nonprofits, for-profit corporate citizens and civic leaders we've met along the way. The question is, how does our business and the Northside capitalize? Are these goals at odds?

Among collaborators in the work we're doing there, the discussion continues. How much do you give away in order to do good (paying) work in a challenged neighborhood in the middle of an economic downturn? Is the solution pro bono efforts to set up opportunities, or does it lie in insisting on enterprise, a missing element in a lot of the well-intentioned efforts to open up the neighborhood to investment?

Reinventing Modular Housing as Green

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/reinventing-modular-housing-as-green/?hp

Good article in the New York Times today about modular housing. This week at the "Rethinking Housing" presentation in Minneapolis, we saw a sort of high-level, academic approach to this. But on street level, in the real world of commerce, infill with modular/manufactured would be a powerful innovation for new, attractive, sustainable, affordable housing stock in the Northside. It could also be deployed quickly and with great production efficiency using local resources. I'm talking industry/jobs, visible impact on troubled blocks, and overall neighborhood branding.