"bisg" entries
Publishing News: Consequences and questions from the Twitter kerfuffle
Twitter suspends an account, Time Inc.'s new chief has a consumer plan, and ereader technology needs a "kick in the pants"
Here are a few stories that caught my attention in the publishing space this week.
20-20 hindsight
On Sunday, Twitter suspended British journalist Guy Adams’ account after he tweeted NBC executive Gary Zenkel’s email address. Much kerfuffle ensued, Adams wrote a letter to Twitter, Twitter’s general counsel Alex MacGillivray apologized for the way the situation was handled, and Adams’ account was reinstated.
Reviews in the aftermath were interesting. The account suspension ultimately had the opposite of the intended effect, pointing a spotlight at Adams’ tweet and garnering it far more attention than it likely would have had otherwise. Meghan Garber at The Atlantic put together a Topsy chart of the response to Adams’ tweet, which showed the response began as pretty much nothing and then exploded upon his account suspension.
Kashmir Hill at Forbes also reviewed the situation and the surrounding drama, and concluded that the biggest loser was the complainant, NBC: “Beyond having their exec’s email spread far and wide over the Internet, it’s reflected poorly on their stance on free speech and garnered much more negative press for them than they could have imagined when they first complained.”
Mathew Ingram at GigaOm took a look at the bigger picture and identified a serious issue raised by Twitter’s actions:
“… as it expands its media ambitions and does more curation and manual filtering of the kind it has been doing for NBC, Twitter is gradually transforming itself from a distributor of real-time information into a publisher of editorial content, and that could have serious legal ramifications.”
Ingram points out that Twitter isn’t interested in being a publisher or being seen as one, but notes the company is walking a fine line: “If the company is filtering and selecting messages, however, and possibly letting certain parties know when a legally questionable one shows up, that is much more like what publishers do …” Ingram’s post is this week’s recommended read — you can find it here.
The ebook evolution
The fifth in a series looking at the major themes of this year's TOC conference.
Several overriding themes permeated this year's Tools of Change for Publishing conference. The final piece in a series looking at five of the major themes, here we take a look at the ebook evolution, from data on how readers acquire and consume ebooks to platform and format trends and predictions.
A study confirms what we've all sensed: Readers are embracing ereading
BISG's Angela Bole on results from the "Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading" study.
In this interview, Angela Bole of the Book Industry Study Group reviews results from the "Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading" study. She says the data looks good for publishers, assuming they can develop the right business models.
Publishing News: The standards of aggregation
Jim Romenesko quits after his attribution standards are questioned, Rakuten buys Kobo, and readers will wait for ebooks.
Jim Romenesko's departure raises questions about aggregation standards. Also, Japanese e-retailer Rakuten buys Kobo, and a new BISG study shows readers are embracing digital formats.
BISG Study: Publishing Experimentation Catching On
Results from a Book Industry Study Group (BISG) study on publishing experimentation were shared last week at a BISG event. Of particular note: 69 percent of surveyed trade publishers and 77 percent of nontrade publishers said their experiments resulted in new products. With a majority of respondents already engaged in experimentation, the focus for many now turns to harnessing innovation…