somersault

Here’s a new page in the print-on-demand saga and its growing impact on book publishing (see our previous blogpost, “Mardel Acquires Espresso Book Machine"): 3D printing. There may be innovative applications for publishers to consider for print books, especially in light of the current capability to 3D print a functional human jaw and a working gun made out of resin.

Jonathan Zittrain (@zittrain), author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (book) (blog), professor of law at Harvard Law School (@Harvard_Law), and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (@berkmancenter), says

Resin is the toner of the modern 3D printer. No doubt 3D printers will come to be able to commonly use other raw ingredients. There's no reason they couldn't be someday in the mainstream metals and all sorts of forms of porcelain, but in this case we're talking plastic.

Read this in full at Marketplace Tech (@MarketplaceAPM).

Another foray into the future is the possibility that smartphones will be fashioned into glasses, and the opportunities this may bring to publishers.

"This idea of wearing glasses and being able to see data as we walk around is where I think things are heading," says Brian Chen (@bxchen), columnist for The New York Times Bits blog (@nytimesbits) and author of Always On: How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything-Anytime-Anywhere Future—and Locked Us In. And once the interface for glasses is less intrusive, he noted, the potential use cases are wide open. “Say you were giving a speech," he said. "Glasses could serve as a teleprompter."

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you sort out the fast-changing world of publishing.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Futurist news tab.

The Infographic is by Milo (@miloshopping). Enlarge it.

Since August 2008, the Digital Bookmobile (@DigiBookmobile) has traversed America coast-to-coast, allowing readers of all ages in over 400 venues to experience digital audiobook, ebook, music, and video downloads from their public library and immerse themselves in an interactive learning environment.

Housed inside a 74-foot, 18-wheel tractor-trailer, the Digital Bookmobile is hosted by individual libraries in support of their download services and operated by OverDrive, Inc. (@OverDriveInc) [OverDrive Digital Library Blog (@OverDriveLibs)].

The traveling community outreach exhibit is an updated version of traditional bookmobiles but is equipped with Internet-connected PCs, high-definition monitors, a sound system, and a variety of portable media players.

See the national tour calendar of venues.

Also see our blogposts tagged “Library.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you digitally publish and market your brand’s content in ebook, pbook, and audiobook formats.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

As the above image shows, mobile marketing can be a bit confusing.

Advertising Age (@adage) columnist Steve Rubel (@steverubel) points to a report about the apparent shift to apps in the mobile environment.

“Flurry (@FlurryMobile), an analytics firm, reported that US consumers spend on average 94 minutes a day in their apps vs. 72 minutes a day in mobile browsers.” There is a less time being spent with PCs and more time being spent with mobile. And when people are on their mobile devices, they are using apps more than mobile browsers.

Read this in full.

But a difference of opinion is expressed on iMedia Connection (@iMediaTweet) by Eric Anderson (@unsettler), partner and VP of marketing at White Horse (@whitehorsepdx), who offers “10 Tech Trends You Can Ignore in 2012,” of which #7 is “Having a branded app for that.”

Having long been a loudmouthed proponent of prioritizing mobile sites over branded apps, I thought I might be in for another plate of crow when Flurry Analytics released a study showing that in 2011, smartphone users’ time spent on apps exceeded their time spent on the mobile web for the first time ever.

But does this trend indicate an overall preference for apps over the mobile Web? It does not. A whopping 80% of that app time was spent on gaming and the Facebook app, and the rest of the time was, sorry to say, not spent on your app. A separate study by Deloitte found that 80% of branded apps are downloaded fewer than 1000 times, which is not a piece of ROI analysis I'd enjoy presenting to a CMO. Branded mobile apps belong to a narrow but important set of use cases, based on activities your loyal customers engage in again and again.

Read this in full.

Over on Harvard Business Review (@HarvardBiz), David Armano (@armano) writes in his article, “The Future Isn't About Mobile; It's About Mobility”:

In the early days of digital, the core behavior we needed to understand was that people wanted information at their fingertips and the convenience that came with digital transactions. In the social era it was all these things plus social connectivity. Mobility means information, convenience, and social all served up on the go, across a variety of screen sizes and devices.

Mobility is radically different from the stationary “desktop” experience. In some cases, mobility is a “lean back” experience like sitting on a commuter train watching a video. In other cases it can be "lean forward" — like shopping for a gift while you take your lunch break at the park. And in many cases, it’s “lean free” when your body is in motion, or you're standing in line scanning news headlines or photos from friends while you wait for your turn to be called.

Mobility trumps mobile... don't put mobile tactics in front of strategy.

Read this in full.

And senior writer with GigaOM (@gigaom), Mathew Ingram (@mathewi), writes in “HuffPo, The Daily, and the flawed iPad content model”:

The dream that many publishers seemed to have was that the iPad would create a market for their individual apps, and that legions of readers would happily download and pay for them, creating a brand new stream of significant revenue. With a few exceptions, however — such as The New York Times and other publications that have strong brands or are targeted at a very specific market — that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you know when it strategically makes sense to create a mobile app and to help you think with ‘mobility’ about your brand and your content.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard. And use our mobile website as your link resource on the go.

See the SlideShare deck page.

See the report in pdf.

According to a new survey, 56% of Americans have a personal profile on a social network, up 4% from 2011. And the number of people who say they follow brands or companies online has almost doubled in the last 2 years, to 33% of those polled.

These stats are from The Social Habit 2012 study by Edison Research (@edisonresearch) (SlideShare; Blog) and Arbitron (@ArbitronInc).

See The Social Habit website (@thesocialhabit).

WCG (@WCGWorld) highlights the following from the report:

·         Social networkers check their profiles often

·         Understanding the mobile experience is critical

·         Visual content is king

·         Users of social networking sites are following brands now more than ever

·         Facebook does impact buying decisions

·         It is not all about the coupon

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, “Report: Half of Americans Are Now Social Networkers.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically leverage and effectively communicate your brand message using social media.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Google’s Nexus 7 is the latest tablet on the tech scene, along with Apple’s iPad, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and Microsoft’s Surface.

See a comparison chart above and another one by The Verge (@verge).

See all tablets compared at The Verge.

A new study by Gartner (@Gartner_inc) says consumers are choosing to use tablets now for some activities they previously used to use PCs for.

According to the findings, the “main activities moving from PCs to media tablets” included checking email, a shift observable among 81% of contributors, and reading the news, on 69%.

Over 50% prefer reading newspapers, magazines, and books on screens rather than on paper.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you use current technology to publish and market your brand’s content.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

This week’s The New Yorker (@NewYorker) cover bitingly captures how obsessed Americans are with being online all the time, no matter what we’re doing and who we’re with!

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you capitalize on the digital revolution to strategically and effectively publish and market your brand’s content.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

MarketingVox (@marketingvox) reports, “The 74 million estimated tablet users in the USA are not just playing around online. Half are getting weather information, more than a third are getting national news, and just under a third read newspaper and magazine content.”

The Online Publishers Association (@OPA_PamHoran) collaborated with Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc. to evaluate attitudes and behaviors of media and entertainment consumers. The OPA surveyed 2,540 Internet users between the ages of 8 and 64 for a one-week period (March 19 through March 26, 2012) and released the results in its report A Portrait of Today's Tablet User – Wave II.

·         94% of tablet users access content and information weekly (41% consume local news, 37% consume national news)

·         72% of tablet owners have paid for apps

·         67% go online

·         66% check email

·         54% watch video

·         53% access social networks

·         39% of readers have bought a single issue or digital subscription for their tablets

·         35% have bought an ebook

·         15% have bought a digital newspaper subscription

Read this in full at:

·         Tablet Users Want Content & Information Over Fun & Games

·         OPA: What Content Do Tablet Owners Buy?

·         A Portrait of Today’s Tablet User, Part I of III: Introduction & Overall Tablet Audience

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market content for tablet users.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The above Infographic (enlarge it) is by MDG Advertising (@MDGadvertising).

Also see research statistics in the Adweek (@adweek) article: “Mobile users aren’t abandoning print any faster than non-mobile users.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to plan and execute the mobile strategy for your brand.

And bookmark and use daily our SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

GalleyCat (@GalleyCat) reports that net sales revenue from ebooks have now surpassed hardcover books in the first quarter of 2012.

According to the Association of American Publishers’ (@AmericanPublish) March net sales revenue report (collecting data from 1,189 publishers), adult ebook sales were $282.3 million while adult hardcover sales counted $229.6 million during the 1st quarter of 2012. During the same period last year, hardcover accounted for $335 million in sales while ebooks logged $220.4 million.

Here’s more from the report (Q1 2012 chart embedded above): “While ebooks continue to show growth, downloaded audiobooks also keep accelerating vs last year – as some experts have said, tied to ongoing popularity and acquisition of smartphones and mobile devices.”

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogposts, “Ebooks Projected to Comprise 50% of US Trade Book Market By 2016,” “Extensive New Study: The Rise of E-reading,” and others about ebooks.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish your content as pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.