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Alberto Vitale was running Bantam Books, the world leader in paperbacks, when the Newhouse family recruited him to become the COO of Random House (@atrandom). In that role, and later as the CEO of one of the world’s top publishing firms, Vitale oversaw huge changes in the publishing industry. In this interview with Stephen J. Kobrin, publisher and executive director of Wharton Digital Press and Knowledge@Wharton (@knowledgwharton), Vitale discusses the rise of digital publishing, the future of bookstores, and the globalization of copyright, among other issues. Among his statements:

Digital technology may allow a lot of individual authors to self-publish. That's the power of digital technology, of the Internet. But still, the role of the publisher will continue [to be] as strong as before. You still have to figure out which book you want to publish. And, how do you want to publish it? There are obvious synergies between paper and digital [media]....

Absolutely [bookstores will survive]. However, they're going to undergo major changes. Three [or] five years from now, up to 70% of the space in [big box bookstores, such as Barnes & Noble] may be dedicated to other products. It makes sense. You have the universe that is digitalized now. You don't need these huge stores anymore....

Everybody's online now. The access to information is tremendously enhanced. But remember, the publishing model will change. And the product will change. The prices of hard cover books are now still $27.95, $26.95, which I find ridiculous. They cannot possibly make ends meet with those prices. They are going to grow to $36.95, $46.95. But the reader will have a much better product to purchase. Better paper, better type, better binding. And so, you will have a book to cherish....

Read the transcript in full, listen to the audio, and watch the video.

Do you agree with his views? Post your comments below.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (@chronicle) by Harvard professor and librarian Robert Darnton says, “The nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness.” He singles out 5 statements to dispute:

1. “The book is dead.”

2. “We have entered the information age.”

3. “All information is now available online.”

4. “Libraries are obsolete.”

5. “The future is digital.”

Regarding the last one, he says it may be not so much mythological as misleading.

In 10, 20, or 50 years, the information environment will be overwhelmingly digital, but the prevalence of electronic communication does not mean that printed material will cease to be important. Research in the relatively new discipline of book history has demonstrated that new modes of communication do not displace old ones, at least not in the short run. Manuscript publishing actually expanded after Gutenberg and continued to thrive for the next three centuries. Radio did not destroy the newspaper; television did not kill radio; and the Internet did not make TV extinct. In each case, the information environment became richer and more complex. That is what we are experiencing in this crucial phase of transition to a dominantly digital ecology

He says these misconceptions “stand in the way of understanding shifts in the information environment.”

They make the changes appear too dramatic. They present things ahistorically and in sharp contrasts — before and after, either/or, black and white. A more nuanced view would reject the common notion that old books and ebooks occupy opposite and antagonistic extremes on a technological spectrum. Old books and ebooks should be thought of as allies, not enemies.

Read this article in full.

Let Somersault help you see pbooks and ebooks as allies.

Publishing’s competitors are not only other books vying for consumers’ time and attention. Average Americans have increased their TV watching by 2 minutes, to 34 hours, 39 minutes per week, according to State of the Media, Trends in TV Viewing—2011 TV Upfronts (pdf) from The Nielsen Company.

Heaviest TV watchers are adults 65+ (47 hours, 33 minutes per week), followed by 50-64 (43 hours, per week). Trailing all other age groups, teens age 12-17 watch the least amount of TV (23 hours, 41 minutes per week).

Emerging trends:

·       Timeshifting continues to be a significant factor in how consumers watch TV. 38% of all TV households in the USA have a DVR.

·         Mobile Video viewing has increased 41% from last year. The heaviest users of mobile video are teens ages 12-17 who watch 7 hours 13 minutes of mobile video a month.

·         Viewing video online also continues to increase. In January 2011, 144 million Americans viewed video online.

·        The audience overlap between visitors to network and broadcast media sites and social networking & blog sites is significant. In January 2011, 49% of social networking & blog site visitors also visited TV network and broadcast media sites

Read this article.

NPR News featured a report on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. Reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty says the King James Bible is the poetry that inspired Handel's oratorio Messiah, as well as modern musicians:

The Byrds sang from Ecclesiastes in Turn Turn Turn: proclaiming that there is “A time to be born, a time to die, A time to plant, a time to reap, A time to kill, a time to heal.” Simon and Garfunkel echoed the Gospels when they sang, “Like a bridge over troubled waters, I will lay me down.” And when Kansas voiced its existential angst — “All we are is dust in the wind” — it was inspired by the Psalms.

Listen to and read this report in full.

A national expo is being held in Washington, DC, where a congressional resolution honoring the KJV Bible will be read. Here’s an excerpt:

Whereas the King James Bible’s relevance and contributions continue to formatively influence the United States: Now, therefore, be it resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress--

(1) recognizes the 400th anniversary of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible being published;

(2) recognizes its lasting influence on countless families, individuals, and institutions in the United States; and

(3) expresses its gratitude for the influence it has bestowed upon the United States.

You may want to see photos of Thomas Nelson’s (@ThomasNelson & @NelsonBibles) historic Bible exhibit shown at the NRB convention this year. The exhibit was part of KJV400.

Also see Somersault’s Infographic of 2011, the year to celebrate the significant and life-changing milestones achieved in the areas of publishing, technology, and innovation.

The above presentation by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project (@Pew_Internet) explores 9 commonly held assumptions about how teens and young adults use technology:

1.    Everyone uses the Internet.

2.    Every teen has a cell phone.

3.    All teens text unimaginably large numbers of messages a day.

4.    Teens no longer call anyone on the phone.

5.    Parents and K-12 schools struggle with management of teens’ phones.

6.    Teens have been supplanted by older adults on social networks.

7.    Teens love Twitter.

8.    Young adults don’t care about privacy, particularly online.

9.    Teens are active creators of content online.

See this presentation in full.

Today’s the Big Day for the UK’s Prince William & Catherine Middleton (@ClarenceHouse).

How does royalty market itself? By following the same marketing principles as any other successful entity (including having its own YouTube channel). Attention to branding is key, as is the proper logo. For Prince William, his “logo” is his coat of arms

And Catherine now has one as well

Companies are taking advantage of the festivities to market themselves. For example, T-Mobile's viral video has more than 13 million views:

Read Ad Age's "How T-Mobile Won the Royal Wedding With Video Stunt."

An article in The New York Times (@NYTimes) describes the solution for authors who want to sign their book on someone’s ereader.  Autography LLC is a media technology firm in St Petersburg, Florida with a patent-pending method for inserting an autograph or other salutation into an ebook. This personalization can take place at the time of purchase or any time afterwards.

Here’s how an Autography eBook “signing” will work: a reader poses with the author for a photograph, which can be taken with an iPad camera or an external camera. The image immediately appears on the author’s iPad (if it’s shot with an external camera, it’s sent to the iPad via Bluetooth). Then the author uses a stylus to scrawl a digital message below the photo. When finished, the author taps a button on the iPad that sends the fan an email with a link to the image, which can then be downloaded into the ebook....

[W]ithin the year consumers should expect to see a variety of advances in digital signing, including ebooks that are sold with blank pages for that purpose. Some devices already have their own solutions, like Sony’s Reader, which enables authors to use a stylus to sign a page on its screen.

Read the article in full.

Four in 10 US consumers interact with retailers through social networking sites, according to a new survey from Deloitte (@DeloitteBA). Data from the 2011 Spring Consumer Pulse Survey (pdf) also indicate out of this consumer subset, 63% interact to find out about promotions and 56% browse products on retailer social networking pages. In addition, 38% of shoppers who interact with retailers through social networking sites review recommendations. And 43% of smartphone owners surveyed say they've used devices in stores to assist in their shopping.

Read the article in full.

These statistics reinforce the strategy of using QR codes on product packaging or in-store merchandising to communicate with consumers. But how you do it makes all the difference. In his MobileInsider column, Steve Smith critiques brands’ mobile marketing from a real-world perspective in the article Down the QR Code Rabbit Hole.

[I pull out my phone] in the aisles of Barnes and Noble [to click a QR code:] a Microsoft Tag was on back of an historical thriller Stardust that looked intriguing. Again, it kicked me over to a very attractive trailer — that wanted to go on for 7 minutes. Seven minutes! “Stop that,” my fiancée said. “Would you bring a TV to watch in the middle of a bookstore?” Worse, am I really going to sit in a bookstore and watch a 7-minute video in order to find out what the book is about?

Read this article in full.

You’ll also want to read The New York Times article, “Retailers Retool Sites to Ease Mobile Shopping.”

Let Somersault help you create an effective mobile strategy for your brand.

This article in Advertising Age (@adage) by Jack Neff (@jackneff) begins, “If you thought of Generation Y as the digital generation, wait till you get a load of their kids.” This insightful research can help publishers prepare for the consumer who will be buying books 10 years from now, whatever those books will look like.

Pre-teen and even pre-school children are key drivers for adoption of the iPad and other tablet computers, and a substantial number of kids, including two in five 11 and 12 year olds, now regularly use social networks even though they're technically not allowed, according to the study LMX Family: A Window into the Media Life of the American Family (LMX stands for Longitudinal Media Experience) conducted in early February by Ipsos OTX (@ipsosnewspolls).

Ipsos also says pre-schoolers are adopting digital habits or being exposed to new devices even faster than tweens, a sign of the speed with which digital technology is reshaping media and marketing habits for the youngest children. Of households with preschoolers, 38% had handheld gaming devices vs. only 24% among those with children aged 6-12. Preschool households also held an edge in laptops (82% to 76%), gaming consoles (76% to 63%) and Internet-capable cellphones (69% to 65%).

The youngest children have the most exposure to digital technology because they’re more likely to have Gen Y parents shaping their expectations, says Donna Sabino, senior VP-kids and family insights for Ipsos OTX.

“People laugh when they see 3 and 4 year olds who are used to smartphones or tablet touch-screen devices going up to a laptop and touching the screen to make it move,” says Sabino. “When I see that, I think the technology is already obsolete for her. Her expectation is that all her interface with media is going to be intuitive, something she can touch. It's a history of the future right now — what are we teaching them to expect from us going forward?”

·         18% of parents will let their tween boys aged 9-12 play video games rated adult only, and 36% will let them play games rated mature, provided a parent is playing too.

·         20% of parents will let children 6-12 go with them to R-rated movies.

·         23% of children 6-12 regularly visit social networking sites and 41% of kids 11-12 do so, though membership in the sites is supposed to be limited to 13 and up.

·         By age 11, half of kids have cellphones. Half of the time it’s the parents’ idea.

·         Kids in the household are huge drivers of iPad penetration. 10% of households with children under 13 now have iPads, vs. only 3% in households without children 6-12.

·         35% of households with children 6-12 plan to purchase some brand of tablet computer in the next year.

·         Over half of parents say their children should be able to go online on their own by age 6.

Read this in full.

Also read our blogpost, "25% of Toddlers Have Used a Smartphone."

Dan Coates, president of Ypulse (@ypulse) says, “There's a fundamental shift in how media is being consumed, and Gen Y is at the epicenter of it all.”

·         In the prior week, nearly 1 in 4 members of Gen Y watched video content that was streamed to a computer, 1 in 7 downloaded video content to a computer, and 1 in 20 watched video content that was streamed to their mobile phones.

·         On average, Gen Y spends nearly 3 hours a week watching streamed TV programs, and an hour and a half a week watching downloaded TV programs.

·         Gen Y streams and downloads video from a variety of locations: they are nearly as likely to do so at home as they are at a friend's house.

·         Gen Y most commonly streams full-length, professionally produced videos, such as movies and TV shows, with music videos not far behind. College students watch a wider diversity of content than teens, with most checking out news clips, commercials, sports, and political videos in addition to long-form movies and TV shows.

He says, “The trend towards cloud-based, on-demand digital media shifts the locus of control from the producer to the consumer. Having grown up immersed in digital media, Gen Y will lead this shift.”

Read this in full.

What are the implications of these findings for publishers?