Joe Wikert's DisruptorFest

How curation automation is going to disrupt content consumption

The best content curators have extensive topic knowledge and a knack for reader interests and preferences. That sounds like something only a living, breathing human can do, right? While that’s largely the case today, I believe technology will drive the biggest advancements in content curation tomorrow.

Narrative Science is a terrific example. I met Kris Hammond of Narrative Science a few years ago when he spoke at a Tools of Change conference I helped produce. If you’re not familiar with them, Narrative Science is one of those companies that develop tools to automate story writing.

You may have read a computer-generated article or two this week and never even realized it. Think you can tell the difference between human- and auto-generated content? Stick around and take the quiz at the end of this article… 

Data is at the heart of the stories generated by Narrative Science but what exactly is “data”? In the current model, data typically consists of numbers, tables and other highly structured information. For example, the narrative summary of last night’s baseball game could be auto-generated using nothing more than the game’s box score, the data from the event.

As platforms like Narrative Science’s evolve, so will the definition of data. 

Last week I wrote an article about why all-you-can-read subscriptions need curation. We’re drowning in a sea of content and we need better tools to help us uncover and consume the must-read content. There’s a big difference between what you and I consider must-read though and that’s where the curation element comes into play.

A number of industry pundits criticized my thinking and pointed out the high cost of this sort of curation. I agree. Curation today almost always requires human intervention. But what happens when that’s no longer the case?

What happens when an application is able to rewrite and summarize the sea of daily content that’s most important to you? What happens when this tool, which knows your interests, your job responsibilities, etc., is able to deliver a fully-automated Cliffs Notes version of everything you need to read that day?

I think that will be a game-changer and will become an extremely important, real world application for artificial intelligence. Will it put writers out of business? No, not necessarily. After all, most of the original content still has to be written by someone. But it will help amplify the content that needs to be read, enabling it to rise above all the noise that surrounds it. 

Still think this is nothing more than sci-fi and wishful thinking? Take this short quiz and see if you can figure out whether each of these excerpts were human-generated or computer-generated.

Why all-you-can-read subscriptions need curation

The initial promise is compelling, especially for voracious readers. For $10-$15/month consumers get access to more content than they could possibly read in a month. That ultimately creates a bigger problem than the subscription platforms probably realize.

For more than a year now I’ve been a subscriber to both Oyster, for books, and Next Issue, for magazines. Both have slightly altered my reading habits but neither are serving their content in an optimal manner.

For Next Issue, it’s as though the U.S. Post Office backs up a truck and dumps 100+ magazines every month. Sure, there are many I enjoy and a few that I used to value enough to buy individually in the print days. Compare that large, unreadable stack to one thin magazine, The Week. If I had to choose between the 100+ Next Issue magazines and The Week, the latter wins every time.

What makes The Week so unique? Their editors are curating and quoting content from many other magazines, covering both sides of all the major issues. IOW, when I read The Week I feel as if I just read the Cliff’s Notes of all the top newspapers and magazines…and I can accomplish this in less than an hour.

The Week is efficient and Next Issue is bloated. When I finish reading an issue of The Week I feel like I got a thorough global debriefing in record time. When I close the Next Issue app I feel like I wasted much of the abundant content in magazines I never opened let alone read.

The Week has obviously invested in an editorial team to create this unique and valuable experience. The all-you-can-read services like Next Issue are simply throwing more content at you in its original container, hoping you’ll see the value. It’s like comparing a fine restaurant to The Golden Corral. I’ll overindulge on junk food from time to time but I certainly don’t want to do it every day at every meal.

I should point out that I still like my Next Issue subscription and find it valuable. But it could be so much better. Next Issue could offer a curated option like The Week and charge a premium for that model. In fact, I could see cheaper and pricier subscription models built off the Next Issue foundation. You like sports? Pay $5/month and get access to the curated, The Week-like version, of all the top sports stories every month. You want a curated version of everything? You’ll need to pay more than the $15/month Next Issue charges for their current premium option.

There will always be room for simple, all-you-can-read models like Oyster and Next Issue. But these platforms can attract even more subscribers and offer a variety of models by also embracing a curation model like The Week.

Here’s a dilemma every book publisher should hope to face

A recent email from Evernote piqued my curiosity. I’ve used the note-taking tool for years but never found a reason to upgrade from the Basic (free) version to the Premium (paid) version. Their email announced a “Plus” version with a laundry list of features.

Evernote Plus costs half the price of Premium and offers benefits that are somewhere between Basic and Premium. After reviewing the features I decided Basic still suits my needs, so I remain an Evernote freeloader.

I’m sure I’m not alone and I’m equally certain Evernote will continue tinkering with their business models. At some point they’ll likely hit on a combination that finally gets me to open my wallet.

You could argue that the biggest challenge for a company like Evernote is finding ways to convert more freeloaders into paying customers. It’s a tricky business situation and something that’s totally foreign to book publishers.

Why aren’t book publishers exploring more viable ways to acquire customers with free content and then converting them into paying customers?

The biggest free tool book publishers use today is a poorly conceived one: the ebook sample. When it comes to nudging prospective customers to click the buy button, most ebook samples are only marginally better than the book’s product page description. Samples are also distributed in a manner that doesn’t exactly encourage sharing with friends and family. 

Simply alerting me to a new book doesn’t do the trick either. I’m a big sports fan, mostly baseball and hockey. Long ago I subscribed to an email newsletter telling me about new books as they’re published in the sports category. I’ve never made a single purchase because of that email newsletter.

What I’d love to see, and something that’s more likely to drive conversion, is a service that gives me access to super-sized samples and other behind-the-scenes information about interesting new (and old!) sports ebooks. The service should surprise and delight me. Make me want to come back to this site/app by tossing in unexpected and unannounced deals, including ones that might only be available to me.

I’m simply looking for a better path to go from free content to paid content. Give me access to more content than I can get from a limited sample. Bring the authors into the mix and give them a voice at the table. Make them readily available for Google Hangouts and other ways of engaging with the audience.

Content distributed via this service should be completely free of walled gardens. The material must be available for download into whatever reading app the customer chooses. There should be buy buttons at the end of the super-sized sample and they should be offered for all retailers, including the publisher’s own website.

Don’t forget the data opportunity here. An opt-in could enable user data to flow back to the publishers (e.g., page views, popular titles, sample downloads, purchases, etc.). 

A well-designed service like this would have to be developed independent of the retailers; otherwise it simply becomes another extension of their walled gardens. It would also greatly expand the reach and success of plenty of ebooks.

In order for this to succeed, publishers (and authors) must be willing to make more of their precious content available for free. They’ll eventually face the same dilemma Evernote faces every day, but I’d argue that’s a problem every book publisher should embrace.