O’Reilly TOC: A Wake-Up Call to Publishers

By Bill Kasdorf, Vice President, Apex, and General Editor, The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing

The recent O’Reilly Tools of Change conference (February 11–13 in New York) – whose catchy acronym, TOC, belies its focus on books – was, as advertised, all about change. (Tools, not so much.) Although there wasn’t one standout bowl-them-over demonstration or announcement like the one that captivated attendees at the inaugural TOC last year in San Jose (a book that enabled you to interact with the Web via its "print" pages), there was plenty of buzz. And that buzz frequently threatened to escalate into a rumble or a roar. Arguably more significant than any dazzling demo could be, it was the recurring theme that packed the most punch: The world of publishing is changing in fundamental ways that can be ignored but not avoided – and ignored only at serious peril to some of publishing’s most firmly established paradigms.

It will not be news to SSP members who have been paying the least attention that we are living in a Web 2.0 world characterized by social networking, free content, and readers contributing to the publishing process. What was really driven home at TOC this year was that these changes to publishing aren’t just interesting new dimensions offering perhaps new opportunities to adventurous publishers. Rather, they are fundamentally changing the whole fabric of publishing and information interchange in ways that will ultimately affect all publishers and will undermine some of the models on which our current businesses depend.

"Context Is King"

The provocative title of the opening keynote by Stephen Abram of SirsiDynix set the tone: "Information 3.0: Will Publishers Matter?" Characterizing publishing as rapidly becoming a collaborative enterprise, he commented that "search engines are so 1999" and predicted that within five years, Facebook will be more significant than Google. (And we were just getting around to figuring out how to deal with Google. . . .) He pointed out that social networking is really about conversations, and unless publishers can integrate their content into the "conversation framework" of their customers, they’ll be left out in the cold. Millennials in particular are format agnostics and have very high expectations. Content is no longer king; now context is king. Publishers need to provide their content in smaller chunks (serials are already moving to an article-based economy, and book content needs to be tagged at the chapter and paragraph level), and that content has to be taggable, accessible, and available. "Social trumps everything"; "If you’re still trying to create a destination site, you’re messing up."

Abram was followed by Bill Burger of the Copyright Clearance Center, who offered some real-world examples showing that this is not just "the sky is falling" alarmism. Starting with the perspective that there are now more than 112,000,000 blogs (they’re being created at the rate of more than one per second) and that "it takes five years to read the new scientific material produced every 24 hours," he documented the dramatic decline of Encyclopedia Britannica (from $650 million in 1989 to $50 million in 2007), which was counterbalanced by the equally dramatic growth of Wikipedia (to more than 2,000,000 articles since its launch in 2001). Likewise, traditional travel publishing is threatened by Wikitravel, whose Wikitravel Press publishes customized, constantly updated, print-on-demand guides. Burger pointed out that community-based publishing can still be editorially rigorous (the Encyclopedia of Life and Newser being prominent examples), and Google Knol offers a new publishing model based on an author’s authority. (Hmm, isn’t that where that word came from in the first place?) Here are some of his predictions for publishing in the future:

• All content is digital, and access is ubiquitous and assumed.
• Licensing is pervasive but transparent.
• Content appears to be free to the end user.
• The content experience is personalized.
• Documents will become "living" expressions of the author’s work.
• Participation and collaboration are central to our content experience.

"My Readers Know More Than I Do"

The majority of the other speakers reinforced and elaborated on these themes. There were sessions on some specialized topics, such as the new e-book devices, eTextbooks, LMS (learning management systems), marketing, publishing as a service, accessibility, DRM (digital rights management), and even the Talmud as a 2,000-year-old example of a collaboratively authored book. There were far too many sessions to cover here; see the O’Reilly TOC site for a complete list and many of the presentations. Here are some of the highlights and some quotable quotes:

Doug Rushkoff, an author, stressed that the Internet is fundamentally not an interactive medium but an interpersonal medium. He argued that people contributing content on the Web (e.g., Travelwiki) do better work than "paid hacks" because they’re doing it for "social currency." He observed that just as the printing press taught people to be readers, the Web is teaching people to be writers.

Kathy Sierra from Head First Labs spoke about "creating passionate users." As a publisher, she tries to provide an "I RULE!" experience for her readers, observing that "no one is passionate about something they suck at – they’re passionate when they’re kicking ass." Readers need to connect with others who share their passion, and the publishers who succeed will be those who help this happen.

Dan Gillmor from the Center for Citizen Media made a strong case that "my readers know more than I do," and that by asking them for help in conceiving his books and in commenting on drafts, they have enabled him to write much better books that are much more successful. In the new age of participatory media, the role of the audience expands both before and after publication.

Adam Engst of TidBITS publishing takes a "software release" model for the company's books, which creates a continuous revenue stream (TidBITS may give away the 1.1 version to buyers of the 1.0, but it will sell them the 2.0 version) – and they know exactly who those buyers are. They are also able to gauge the interest level in a given title with a very high level of accuracy.

John Chodacki from Safari Books Online emphasized the success of O’Reilly’s subscription model. Currently, 60% of the revenue from Safari's books is from subscriptions, 20% from online-only versions, 18% are from combinations of print and online, and only 2% of their customers buy only print.

Ken Brooks of Cengage noted that although in previous years he would have focused on XML and technology in his talk, he has come to realize that the biggest challenges (especially in the transformation on the scale of the one the former Thomson Learning is undergoing, which is already saving millions of dollars through technology, outsourcing, and automation) are the cultural changes, moving people from a "title-by-title" craft mentality to a new process-based orientation.

Sara Nelson, editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly, drew one of the biggest laughs when she observed that "I get more attention when I pull out my Kindle than if I showed up naked with a really cute puppy."

Tim O’Reilly waited until fairly late in the conference but presented a typically insightful and compelling talk called "Free Is More Complicated Than You Think." He made the case that for most book publishers, an advertising-based model simply won’t work because the audience for any particular book content is not large enough or high-value enough for most advertisers. Instead, he focused on a number of models that do work (and gave examples of success): sponsored content, subscriptions (currently 20% of O’Reilly’s business, growing 30% a year, and with margins comparable to print), and free content supported by e-commerce. This last approach was really his key advice: to use free content as a way of supporting paid content, driving customers to high-priced products. He observed that "intellectual property" is not O’Reilly’s core asset; instead, its core assets are its clear mission, engaged community, and powerful brand. Well-managed free content (his own blog being a good example) is invaluable to this.

"E-Mail Is So ’90s!"

The closing session was a panel of eight teenagers who were interviewed by Stephen Abram (opening keynoter). It was a lively and illuminating session with some real revelations for those of us of a certain age (this writer included) who think they are reasonably in touch and informed. Virtually all the kids said they use Macs, not PCs. They showed a preference for Facebook over MySpace, but about a third didn’t use either, and one commented, "I used to have a MySpace back in the day." However, Facebook was by far their prime mode of communication with their peers (along with texting and instant messaging). One panelist commented that "e-mail is so ’90s!" and all of them agreed that they only used e-mail in more "professional" contexts or when they had to communicate with "adults" (ouch). The vast majority start with Google and Wikipedia for their homework, but on Abram’s probing, they revealed a surprising savviness about how to tell if a site was likely to be reliable: They avoided URLs with tildes (~), they looked for copyright notices, they noted how recently the content was updated and whether the author had a credible site. One girl said she was prohibited by her school from using Wikipedia, not because it wasn’t reliable but because it’s too good: The information there is such a thorough summary that "it doesn’t take much thinking."

And to those of you who think the younger generation is out to undermine the commercial basis of publishing, there was a refreshing comment from one of the teens, who is an artist. She doesn’t put any of her art on the Internet because she doesn’t want people stealing her work.

Bill Kasdorf is vice president of Apex Content Solutions, a leading supplier of business services, data conversion, editorial, production, and support services to publishers and other organizations worldwide. A past SSP president, Bill has led seminars and spoken widely for publishing industry organizations such as SSP, the Association of American Publishers, the Association of American University Presses, Seybold Seminars, the Council of Science Editors, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, the Library of Congress, and the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers.