The examples Kessler cites span the range of content creation, from automatically generated sports news to the use of [...]]]> In an article published last weekend on Mashable, Sarah Kessler asked the question, “Can Robots Run the News?” It’s an important question not just for journalists, but for anyone who creates or curates content on the Web.

The examples Kessler cites span the range of content creation, from automatically generated sports news to the use of algorithms to identify news topics. There’s obvious value to automated content creation, and as Jeff Jarvis has declared, “Data is (are) journalism.” But we should be careful not to confuse computed content with communication.

Computed content is a set of data; communication is the expression of an attitude toward, or perspective on, those data. Without a point of view, content is just an audience speaking to itself.

Using Web analytics from a test period to automatically choose between two headlines, as we’re told the Huffington Post does for its stories, can make sense—if both versions are true to the content. If you balance crowd-sourced feedback with the content creator’s point of view, you’ll have a productive conversation. But if the crowd takes precedence, it may simply replace content’s individual vitality with the bland mean.

Take, for instance, the English title for Stieg Larsson’s novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It may not have been crowd sourced, but it certainly plays to a corporate idea of the crowd. Is it really better than the literally translated original title, Men Who Hate Women? (That’s a rhetorical question. The original title nails the book’s central concern; the English version just wraps it in a pulp-fiction cover.)

Even in content marketing, where knowing what people want is critical to the content provider’s success, a one-sided conversation dominated by the audience won’t fly. For a conversation to work, there must be differences between the participants. The power of new media is the way it enables the audience to challenge the creator. That doesn’t mean, though, that the creator should stop challenging the audience.

This balance seems to be what Yahoo VP of Media Jimmy Pitaro is after in the company’s news blog, The Upshot. In her interview with him last week on All Things D, Kara Swisher noted that while some see computational journalism as a “‘democratizing’ of the news, others are more concerned about relying on algorithms to determine the best coverage and the implications for a society guided by its own searches.”

But as Pitaro noted in his video interview, “data and audience insights” constitute just one component of the content. In addition, Yahoo uses the “old-school” methods of “manually identifying topics” through its team of editors and writers.

Similarly, as Kessler mentioned in Mashable and as Claire Cain Miller explored at greater length in yesterday’s New York Times, the tech-news site Techmeme uses both algorithms and editors to produce its content. Why? Because “humans do things software cannot, like grouping subtly related stories, taking into account sarcasm or skepticism, or posting important stories that just broke.”

If readers didn’t care about such things, algorithms alone might be enough. But they do care. The same audience whose searches drive the algorithms also want the human touch in their content.  Until computers can pass the Turing Test, it isn’t likely that they will replace people in content creation.

Of all the predictions for 2010 I’ve read—or hope to read (Paul Conley, how about  B2B predictions as lullaby lyrics?)—the one that has me most excited is that Apple will come out with a tablet computer. This isn’t just because I’m a serious technophile, but also [...]]]>

Ihnatko: Apple tablet will spark digital publishing revolution

Of all the predictions for 2010 I’ve read—or hope to read (Paul Conley, how about  B2B predictions as lullaby lyrics?)—the one that has me most excited is that Apple will come out with a tablet computer. This isn’t just because I’m a serious technophile, but also because an Apple tablet will have the potential to remake magazine publishing.Until earlier this week, I entertained only idle thoughts about Apple’s rumored tablet in development, mostly when experiencing one frustration or another with my Kindle. But after hearing tech journalist Andy Ihnatko talk about the tablet on the Macbreak Weekly podcast yesterday, I’m persuaded not only that the “iPad” is real, but also that it will be revolutionary.

Ihnatko was responding to news reports that an Oppenheimer analyst expects a March or April launch of the tablet and that it will squarely target the Kindle.

While Ihnatko doubted that Apple’s tablet would “own the e-book marketplace,” he did agree that the device would transform it.  “The amount of excitement that it’s going to generate just for e-publishing in general is already phenomenal.” As he noted in his Chicago Sun-Times article last week on a rival tablet computer, the erstwhile “CrunchPad,” computer makers are all preparing for “what happens after Apple releases the Tablet.” He compared their state of mind to that in a year before a world war: “No, it hasn’t been announced, it hasn’t been scheduled, but everybody’s anticipating that the world will be fundamentally different this time next year. They are making arrangements to make sure they are in the best position to survive and thrive in that new landscape.”

Likewise, publishers are making plans “for how they’re going to deal with the fact that there are going to be these really cool, inexpensive color touchscreen tablets to publish things onto.” Next year, he continued, will be “one of the most exciting years in technology, period. I think we’ll look back . . . and say that’s one of those years where everything changed after that.”

Ihnatko bases his expectations for Apple’s tablet on both its likely technology and the probable distribution model Apple will follow.

Most predictions for the tablet foresee, as he puts it in his Sun-Times article, “a color tablet with a large screen, a great video chipset, and a multitouch interface.” These, of course, are precisely the capabilities assumed by Hearst’s Skiff project, the Sports Illustrated concept demo, and the digital magazine consortium. It will be, he said, “a phenomenally cool device, but it’s also going to create the environment in which every single magazine, newspaper, and book publisher is going to be that much more compelled to say ‘we’re going to have a comprehensive digital publishing plan.’ . . . It will create the environment in which everyone starts thinking about publishing everything digitally now.”

Sports Illustrated Tablet Demo from Jared Cocken on Vimeo.

But just as important as technology is the distribution opportunity Apple would offer. It would presumably use iTunes or a similar platform, and charge considerably less than Kindle for nonexclusive distribution of paid content. The potential for a revolution in magazine distribution like the one Apple sparked in music is clear. And in contrast to the proprietary and limiting format that music companies initially forced on iTunes, the speculation is that Apple—and more importantly, publishers—will welcome the ePub standard. (Here’s how Ihnatko describes the format in his Sun Times article: “It is an ambitiously flexible ebook format that can act as a standard ‘wrapper’ for just about any type of content you’ve got going. It’s just as good for unlocked public-domain books as it is for current best-sellers controlled by DRM, and ePub can conceivably even support aggressive multimedia, such as interactive audio and video.”)

How would this distribution model work for the predominantly controlled-circulation (i.e., free) magazines from trade publishers? Probably just fine. Since the ePub is an open standard, digital publications could be distributed by a variety of methods for all kinds of devices, not just Apple’s. And if Apple follows the iTunes model of distributing free content like podcasts, it should happily host digital trade pubs. In addition, according to Electronista, Apple would not “preclude advertising, which to date hasn’t been allowed for the Kindle even with magazines and newspapers.”

Before we get too excited about this scenario, it’s important to remember that the Apple tablet rumor is still just that—a rumor. The iPad may never see the light of day. But the signs that it will are increasingly credible, and sufficient to make me believe that 2010 will be a very interesting year indeed.

UPDATE: A couple of items I missed before hitting the publish button: 1. Rex Hammock’s persuasive rant that the iPad (not the “tablet,” blockhead!) should not be reduced to a mere tool for “reading content presented via a magazine-metaphor interface.” Fair point. But I still want to read on it! 2. A New York Times article pointed out by Hammock about magazine publishers preparing to publish on those cringe-inducing tablets. Both worth reading.

For me, the answers to these questions came [...]]]> For B2B publishers, how big a deal is the recently announced digital magazine consortium?  Does the participation of industry titans Condé Nast, Time Inc., Hearst, Meredith, and News Corp., mean our magazines will all soon be read on cool e-reader tablets? Or is it just more hot air?

For me, the answers to these questions came from an unexpected source. Regular readers of B2B Memes will know that I have mixed feelings about digital magazines.  Likewise, my feelings are mixed about the one blog on the subject that I follow, from digital magazine producer Nxtbook Media. Like many corporate blogs, it’s a mix of lightweight stories about company activities, tales of customer success, and criticisms of anyone that doesn’t like their product. Last week, though, I remembered why I follow it: Sometimes it offers some excellent insights.

It’s unfortunate that the PR bulldog instinct came over the author, Marcus Grimm, in headlining last week’s post “Lies, Half-Truths and Other Innuendos About Digital Magazines.”  The inflammatory choice of words made me suspect it would be a hack job, but in fact it was a well-reasoned and sensible discussion of the consortium’s effort. (I suppose it’s too late now, but why not use a key phrase from the post as the title: “Top Five Things You Need to Know About the Forthcoming Digital Magazine Consortium”?)

If you’re interested in the topic, you should read the entire post. But here I will cite three key points Grimm makes in casting doubt on the relevance of the consortium.

First, as Grimm notes, “there’s no reason to believe this will be a solution for trade publishers.” The consortium is all about charging for content, not growing an audience. Hence, he says, “if you’re interested in the latter, there’s nothing here to indicate a better future for you, or even a different future.”

Second, he argues against the strategy of producing a dedicated device for digital magazines: “We DON’T agree that you should make readers choose a format. Instead, let them choose the content and have the format adapt to the device [they’re] on.”

Third, he points out the silliness of the magazine industry trying to build a tablet: “The fact that the consortium is working on an eReader device is further proof to me that they don’t fully get what industry they’re in. Hint: it’s not hardware.”

Now, I suppose there may be some behind-the-scenes politics or unspoken resentments at work here I don’t know about, and as a Nxtbook employee, Grimm is certainly not an objective observer. But he’s persuaded me that the consortium is not likely to hit a home run.

Personally, I hope someone is successful at forging a viable, widely-accepted approach to porting digital versions of B2B magazines to portable readers. For me, no matter how cool the technology, digital magazines on a computer just don’t cut it. But put them on my Kindle, add some color and better performance to the device, and I could be sold on digital magazines at last.

As I learned this morning from Mashable, Esquire magazine’s December issue will feature something called augmented reality (AR). The way it works, as I understand it, is that you can hold the cover [...]]]> Last year it was an e-ink electronic display on the cover; this year, it’s 3D special effects—if you have a webcam handy, anyway.

As I learned this morning from Mashable, Esquire magazine’s December issue will feature something called augmented reality (AR). The way it works, as I understand it, is that you can hold the cover and a few other pages in front of a camera connected to your computer and see a nifty 3D, animated version of it on your computer screen.  As an Associated Press story notes, “it may be the future of print or just a dying medium’s last desperate grab at attention as the Internet swallows more of peoples’ time.”

Augmented reality as a concept has been around for more than a decade, as outlined in Wikipedia. The technology is just starting to be realized, in fairly clunky ways. As observed in ReadWriteWeb recently, venture capitalist money is not exactly pouring into AR startups yet. Someday something really earthshaking may come of it, but that seems several years away still.

Even if AR thrives, can it really do much to help print? You have to admire the Esquire staff for trying just about anything to keep their print franchise going, particularly if it can get them lots of publicity. But realistically, it’s hard to see their use of AR as much more than a gimmick.

As I’ve noted in a comment on the Mashable article, Esquire’s use of AR reminds me of the great CueCat debacle of 2000.   The brilliant idea was to distribute bar code readers to magazine subscribers, who would use them to scan bar codes in ads to take them to related Web sites. The problem, of course, was that no one wanted to go to all that trouble to visit an advertiser’s site when you could just type in the URL by hand. Needless to say, the Cue Cat was a Titanic flop.

Holding up a magazine cover to a webcam is, I grant you, easier than scanning a bar code, and the results are presumably more entertaining than an advertiser’s Web page.  Here’s an example of how it might work, using baseball cards rather than a magazine:

I guess that’s cool. But still, how likely is it to become a routine for readers?  I don’t know about you, but I don’t read books or magazines while sitting in front of my computer.  That’s the enduring beauty of print—I can read it almost anywhere, without the aid of technology.

Will I buy a copy of the December issue of Esquire? Absolutely. Will augmented reality save print? Not so clear.

As you may guess from the way I just described Wave, I’m not quite clear about exactly what Wave is.  (Both a “conversation and a [...]]]> Now that the first user invitations to Google Wave have been released, it’s not surprising that blogosphere and twitterverse alike are buzzing once again with comments about Google’s nascent communication system.

As you may guess from the way I just described Wave, I’m not quite clear about exactly what Wave is.  (Both a “conversation and a document”? Uh, okay. . . .)

My befuddlement may be a good sign. It’s been my uniform initial reaction to revolutionary technology, from spreadsheets in the early 1980s and the Web in the early 1990s to Twitter a couple of years ago.

Now, it worries me a bit that B2B savant Paul Conley, who once came close to expressing actual enthusiasm about Wave, has apparently given up on it. So at least I conclude from his latest blog post and its fin-de-siècle, nothing-new-under-the-sun lament that the Web 2.0 revolution is over.  Okay, maybe Twitter is just a big bore. But doesn’t Wave deserve a brief, hopeful mention?

The clearest picture I’ve gotten of Wave’s revolutionary potential, at least for publishing, has come courtesy of Chicago Sun Times columnist Andy Ihnatko. I find myself going back repeatedly to his first column on Wave, in which he speculatively describes how it could remake the editorial publishing process.  It does not take much of an imaginative leap from his scenarios to see how Wave could either displace or be integrated into many current content management systems.

Will Wave live up to Ihnatko’s hopes for it? Even he is hedging his bets. Several years will no doubt pass before we know how Wave turns out. But it’s worth watching, and may yet revive Paul Conley from his Web 2.0 ennui.