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A scene from this year’s STM meeting at Frankfurt Book Fair: an audience member, presumably a publisher, asked Larry Sanger, a founder of Wikipedia and now founder of Citizendium, what the business model of collaborative environments could be.
Something in my brain began to smoke, a short-circuit. Maybe it was the jet-lag.
I consistently hear people at publishing meetings ask what the business model is, as if it’s arch and wise to ask how to commercialize an innovation rather than offering a positive statement affirming that we can create options. I hope these people are in the minority, since this is a mindset that doesn’t strike me as fitting our trade. We’re publishers. We’re supposed to be the ones who know how to make a business out of the convergence of audience and content. We’re supposed to be the experts. Instead of us asking academics or philosophers, they should be asking us!
There are publishers actively working to find the business models that will commercialize the convergence of new audiences and new forms of content, creating enduring new offerings that sustain themselves and create wealth. But even those seem hobbled by a reluctance to embrace the subscription model, to scale advertising, or to assert licensing rights. If we don’t invent the business of the future, we will have it dictated to us.
This contrast was especially salient coming as it did on the eve of the largest book fair in the world.
Now, let’s do some publishing!
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I’m not sure why you’d “title” a founder of Wikipedia, unarguably one of the biggest poster boys for “Web 2.0″ (which is a synonym for new, revolutionary, IT savvy), as an ‘academic or philosopher’ instead of as an “IT savvy businessman”. Unlike most publishers, he actually introduced a new way of gathering and distributing information to the public. Why wouldn’t you want to hear what he has to say on making money with newer business models (using the web)?
I mean, aside from Nature, I haven’t seen many journals/publishers being experimental/ revolutionary with new ideas to attract readers/ subscribers on the web. Most of them are just digitalizing their publications and hoping to additionally attract subscribers through that method.
That is pretty straightforward “Web 1.0″ stuff. Just because your job it to publish, doesn’t make you an expert on digital communication.
Posted by Wobbler | Oct 16, 2008, 7:47 amLarry Sanger is a philosopher, possessing both a BA and a PhD in the subject. He is also an academic with a special interest in epistemology, the theory of knowledge. He is not a business person, nor have any of his ventures generated significant revenues except through donations, from what I can tell. As for journals that experiment, there are many, including Nature, NEJM (my home turf), and BMJ, just for starters. But I agree that there has been a paucity of new business models emerging around digital content. That was my hue and cry of the post. It looks like we basically agree.
Posted by Kent Anderson | Oct 16, 2008, 2:02 pm‘Larry Sanger is a philosopher, possessing both a BA and a PhD in the subject. He is also an academic with a special interest in epistemology, the theory of knowledge.’
Your “colleague” (assuming that person was a publisher) asked him that question not because he is a philosopher nor an academic, but as someone who understood what attracted the many people towards information using IT (i.e. IT savvy) and could make it financial sustainable: e.g. a founder of wikipedia.
‘He is not a business person, nor have any of his ventures generated significant revenues except through donations, from what I can tell.’
That actually does make him a business person: http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html, although not in the conventional way I suppose. But that makes it all the more relevant to this topic, as you say.
Posted by Wobbler | Oct 19, 2008, 1:22 pm