Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog

Adobe Media Player: Nice Features, No Content

Cliff Edwards recently wrote this insightful BusinessWeek article about the Adobe Media Player.  I'm a sucker for the latest online video service so I thought I'd give it a try.

The verdict?  Sure, it's yet another nice, slick utility that shows a lot of promise, but where's the content?  The product's home page features a video of Jon Stewart from The Daily Show (one of my favorites), but the service currently offers zero Comedy Central videos (these are listed as "coming soon").  There's a fair amount of content that you're likely to find on a variety of other services, but nothing special to lure you in to the Adobe platform.

On the plus side, if you're a fan of The Twilight Zone, as I am, you'll find a great archive of the Rod Serling classics.  Commercials are included, but hey, we didn't even have remote controls or color TV's (let alone DVRs) when these things originally aired!

What Does the Technology Add?

As a publisher focusing on the professional IT sector, I ask myself this question a lot: What does the technology add?  Is this new tool or release measurably different from the others?  Will it enable users to create products faster, less expensively, with more useful features...or all of the above?

I found myself asking the same question when I recently read about this project, The 21 Steps, by Charles Cumming, which is part of Penguin's We Tell Stories initiative.  In The 21 Steps, Cumming uses Google's satellite imagery to help tell the story.  Different?  Yes.  Functional use of the technology to enhance the reading experience?  I'm not so sure.

To be fair, I only got through the first three chapters before I lost interest.  Perhaps it's because I'm not into fiction, but I found the text and imagery integration lacking as well.  I didn't see the benefit to having the animated movements on the satellite images.  I also got pretty tired of clicking again and again, just to read the next sentence or two.  In short, if technology is added to the formula for something like this, I feel it should improve the overall experience; in this case, it seemed to weigh it down.

I'm also not the sort of person who thinks in terms of satellite views.  I'm more of a street level guy and I suspect I'm not alone.  After all, we see and experience things from a street-view view, not an overhead one, so it forces you to constantly adjust your perspective as you're reading through the screens.

Before anyone jumps down my throat on this, please realize that I absolutely love the fact that Penguin is experimenting with technology on this project.  If I published into the fiction area I'd be jealous that I didn't think of this approach.  The lessons that can be learned from the pioneers like Penguin will help benefit everyone in the long run.

For example, as I ran through those chapters of The 21 Steps, I started to think about other applications for a narrative-map mashup.  Think about travel guides for a moment.  A walking tour of a city with travel guide content spliced into satellite map displays would be cool.  Switching to street-level view instead of satellite probably makes it better.  Offering the capability to flip between both is better yet.

I'd also like to see more content goodies sprinkled throughout, and perhaps this is where community content could come into play.  Maybe the tour features great pictures from previous visitors or recommendations they have for future visitors.  Let them be ranked by the community itself so that only the top show up as push-pins on the screen.

The device has to be considered here as well.  If I'm doing the tourist thing it's unlikely that I'm carrying around something larger than a cell phone or Blackberry.  You can't design this for a computer when it's being used on a display that's much smaller.  This is where the Kindle might evolve into something highly useful.  Imagine a next-generation Kindle with a color display.  The Kindle's Whispernet technology would enable cellphone-like connectivity with a larger, but still portable display.

So again, I applaud Penguin's efforts here and although I'm not convinced this is anything more than technology for technology's sake, there's much to be learned from the experiment itself.

Bookwrap Central

Here's a cool little service I stumbled upon this evening (thanks to the Big Bad Book Blog).  Bookwrap Central features video clips of authors talking about their book, what's unique about it, what inspired them, etc.

I like the idea but I have a hard time envisioning success as a standalone service.  If I'm looking to buy a book online I go right to the vendor (e.g., Amazon, B&N, etc.)  No matter how compelling the video content might be I'd almost never think to visit Bookwrap first.  And while you can buy directly off the Bookwrap site, they'll probably never have the breadth and depth of Amazon, for example.

Wouldn't this be a cool new feature for the online bookseller sites though?  I'd almost always click on a video or two as I'm making a purchase decision on an Amazon page, for example.  If you're annoyed by that sort of thing you would simply avoid clicking on the play button, but I'd get a lot of use out of it.

Widgets represent another excellent opportunity for this service.  I use the LibraryThing widget on my blog but the covers are fairly static objects on the screen.  I'd love to see LibraryThing integrate a video feature like this so that you could click on one of those covers and a small video screen would pop up with the author telling the story behind the book.

The Basement: New Local Design & Animation Studio

Two of the partners at MediaSauce recently left to start their own operation called The Basement. Jacob Leffler and Brian Phillips have decided to put their 20 years of industry experience to work in their own interactive design and animation studio (press release here).

What they're doing makes tons of sense as this sort of design/animation work often needs to be outsourced.  Most organizations don't have this sort of expertise in-house and with the rate of technology change involved, it's wise to utilize an outside specialist like this to obtain the best results.

Jacob and Brian each have their own blogs; I just subscribed to both their feeds and am looking forward to hearing more about their new venture in the coming months.

What if Every Book Had a Video?

This recent post by Steve Weber got me thinking...  If you watch the video Steve links to you'll probably have the same initial reaction I did: Sure, it makes sense to create a video for a collectible work like this, but why bother doing something similar for a run-of-the-mill book?

I don't know about you, but I don't generally read every word of every description of every book I buy on Amazon.  All the information on any given Amazon page these days can be a bit overwhelming.  Where do you look first?  The customer ratings/reviews?  The description?  The table of contents? 

Sometimes I'm more of a visual person anyway, so I'd welcome the chance to see a brief clip from the author or publisher on why this book is special.  Give me your 30-second elevator pitch on why I should buy it.  Or, tell me a bit about what inspired you to write it.  A short video message like that could go a long way to make a sale, even if it's just one more link on an already busy product page!

BookVideos.tv

I hope Simon & Schuster is patient with their BookVideos.tv initiative. It will probably take awhile to build up enough of a video repository to draw the large audiences they undoubtedly have in mind.  I think it's a great idea because it's yet another way for authors to communicate with readers and it lets them tell more of the story behind the book.

They recently released a widget, which lets you embed these author video feeds right into your blog or website.  Unfortunately for me (and every other Typepad customer using this particular blog template), it doesn't fit in the outer panes of my blog.  Did I tell you how much I love Typepad?...

Here's the widget embedded in a post, which is better than nothing, I suppose.

WeShow Looks Cool -- Where's WeBlog?

Bob Pittman, founder of MTV, has a new venture called WeShow which is described in this article.  I've poked around a bit on the site and it looks impressive.  I'd say my online viewing habits are limited to 2-3 videos per week; I generally only watch videos that a friend/relative has suggested and I'm not inclined to search for videos.  Why?  YouTube and Google Video just seem like piles of random stuff to me.  I know they have channels and other ways of sorting things out, but I've never been a video site power user.

Could a site like WeShow change my habits?  Quite possibly.  Then again, there's that difference between the lean-back approach to watching TV and the lean-forward one for online videos.  I'm more likely to surf the TV than I am a video site.  Maybe that's a function of my age, but I don't see my kids spending hours searching for videos on YouTube either.

The thing I like about WeShow is that it's organized by humans.  This excerpt from the article pretty much sums it up:

WeShow because we know: You haven't got the time or the inclination to wade through poor quality and unorganized videos; you want what you want when you want it -- no badly organized and far-flung video chaos; there's no algorithm for funny, sexy, or interesting; and the English speaking world is not the only place where content is created or enjoyed.

So if this site turns out to be a great place to catch all the best highlights from last night's games, why do I need SportsCenter anymore?  Then again, WeShow's sports channels aren't exactly bursting with content just yet and I'm sure the various leagues will be protective of their clips.

Nevertheless, I like what WeShow is doing for the world of video and I wish someone would wake up and do the same for the blogosphere.  Where's the comparable blog directory, filled with channels covering all interests and managed by people, not algorithms?!  (Btw, Technorati is NOT the answer to this question!)
 

MLB vs. Slingbox

I love Major League Baseball and I get a lot of use out of my DVR.  I haven't bought into the Slingbox solution, but I can see where it makes sense, especially for anyone who's on the road a lot.

I use the mlb.com site several times a week and I really appreciate their free Gameday service that lets me keep an eye on any game currently in progress.  I think MLB is all wrong though when it comes to this complaint about the Sling device.  How is watching last night's game via your Slingbox significantly different from recording the same game on VHS tape, putting it in your suitcase and then watching it on a VCR in your hotel room?  I don't hear anyone complaining about the VCR method of time- and place-shifting, so why the big deal about Sling?

This Wall Street Journal article would have you believe MLB has come to their senses.  Bob Bowman, president and chief executive of MLB Advanced Media is quoted as saying, "the way to win this is with good content and good technology, not with lawyers."  He went on to say that, "the music industry proved that to everybody."  Absolutely, so go focus on making your mlb.tv service an even more irresistible product and leave Sling alone to do what they do best!

Sprint's Ambassador Program Rocks

After almost 2 months of free Ambassador service from Sprint I have to admit that I'm hooked.  I'm dreading that day in September when Sprint ends my 6-month trial.

What's so great about it?:

The phone -- I love the form factor of the M610 they sent me.  It's small enough to slip into any size pocket and not too small so that it's easily lost.  It's also loaded with features.

The music -- I've been an XM subscriber for about a year now and figured I wouldn't get much use out of the Sirius service in this phone.  Wrong.  Not only do I use it almost as much as my XM device, it's much more reliable and portable than the XM player.  Yes, the channel selection is limited and yes, there are still the occasional skips as the signal synchs, but it's still a great part of the overall service.

The GPS -- I've never had a cellphone with GPS built into it before but boy is it handy!  The updates as you're driving probably aren't as precise as a dedicated GPS device, but it's definitely "good enough" (and then some) to help you find your way.

The camera -- Yeah, it's only a 2-megapixel camera, but it's not so much the quality of the photos as the rapid uploading and e-mail capabilities of the network that get my attention.  I've used the camera on a couple of trips now and e-mailing the pictures is not only easy but extremely fast.

Finally, there's the overall service.  I've tested this in Indiana, New York, New Jersey and Florida.  The results: great signal strength and very clear audio.

It really makes me wish I wasn't already signed up for another year or two for my family's cellphone plan at Cingular...  (Btw, Cingular has been an excellent carrier for my family over the last 3 years, and much, much better than the experience I had with Verizon!)

Oh Rats!: KFC's Consumer Video Plan

At first I thought it was a joke...surely this story in USAToday about KFC using customer videos in an upcoming advertising campaign must be a very late April Fool's Day joke.

I'm a big proponent of customer content and advertising ideas like this, but doesn't it seem way to soon after the whole "rats in KFC/Taco Bell" issue that was all over the news (and remains alive and well on YouTube!)?

The whole rat fiasco was the first thing I thought of when I read this story.  Maybe KFC's advertising agency ought to reconsider the timing on this...