Has Publishing Revealed the Achilles’ Heel of Webist Political Philosophies?
Does the power of prestige and prestige-granting organization confound the politics of the Web?
Traditional Measures of Quality: Irrelevant, Miscast, Outdated, and Inhibiting?
How we measure quality may be a form of vestigial elitism, stemming from the print age. And it may be holding us back.
Lessons for Publishers: Listen, Learn, and Experiment
In less than a minute, essential advice for survival today and success tomorrow.
STM Association Spring Conference: Are Publishers Listening?
The first day of the Spring STM Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was filled with ideas, different perspectives, and an interactive crowd.
Publishers Risk Losing to Authors: Why the E-Book Waiting Game Will Backfire
The e-book age is here — infrastructure, readers, storefronts. Publishers should heed the warning signs and stop delaying the inevitable.
Is OUP’s “Anti-Google” Just a Half-Million Words of Filter Failure?
The OUP has launched Oxford Bibliographies Online, hoping to filter major fields down to a high-quality, peer-reviewed reference kick-start. But does a wordy filter actually filter in the networked world?
PLoS’ Squandered Opportunity — Their Problems with the Path of Least Resistance
The Public Library of Science was once a radical force, but is now dependent on author-pays bulk-publishing for its livelihood, which introduces all sorts of problems for every journal publisher. What went wrong?
Short Stories and Comics: Niche Markets with Core Lessons for STM Publishers
The failure of the traditional music industry has become the standard cautionary tale for content industries adapting to a digital era. But for scholarly publishers, many factors make the music industry a poor comparison. We have more in common with smaller niche markets. Watching their electronic experimentation and new business models may be more informative as we seek new strategies for presenting and selling content.
Optimism and Pessimism in Journalism: Attitude Reflects Vulnerability, Packaging Seals It
A new Pew Research report shows that news media — print and broadcast — vary in their attitudes. But a deeper attitude about how the news should be presented may be their ultimate vulnerability.
Mobile Devices and Privacy — Why It’s So Easy to Swap Personal Information to Satisfy an Itch
Mobile computing is the norm, but it also creates easy trading ground for our privacy. Is this just the new normal?
Traffic Isn’t Revenue: Twitter and Ning Reach Different Crossroads
Twitter and Ning are both tremendously popular online tools-but popularity does not immediately translate into revenue. While the two companies are in decidedly different positions, each is trying to find a way to monetize all that traffic.
Twitter’s New Advertising Depends on Search, “Resonance,” and Performance
Twitter creates an ad model, modest in scope and cautious in implementation. It’s a good first step, and certainly not their last.
Clouds, Gestures, and Incumbents — Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad
Major trends are at work in information exchange technologies and interface design, but publishers remain hampered by incumbent traits.
The Ethics of Versions: Why Buying One Experience Doesn’t Permit You All Experiences
The Ethicist argues that pirating an e-book is ethical because once you buy a book in any form, you have the right to that book in every form.
Clay Shirky’s Collapse of Complexity — Does It Also Require a Collapse of Quality?
Clay Shirky reflects on the end of complexity. He’s right, but can simplified systems produce quality? Can other approaches also survive?