one little cog

I’m not sure if everyone has seen this, but it is definitely worth taking a look at a man in Newmarket and his work with his 20,000 light display which is synchronized to music on Rutledge Drive.

A video of him and the famous music video is available from The Toronto Star here

A New Revamped Website for the Toronto Star

Another major development that I noticed, is that the Toronto Star website was just revamped a couple of days ago.  I have to say I am very impressed with the look of the website.  It is clean, it is relatively simple and the user interface is actually quite intuitive.  A comparison can be made to the Globe and Mail website which implemented their redesigned website months ago.  In my opinion, the information that I used to be able to find with ease on the Globe’s website is now much more cumbersome to get to and the website is much too crowded.

Just because the website design is bad does not necessarily mean that visitors will stop visiting. A major aspect of marketing is brand and the Globe and Mail is a substantial brand in terms of nation-wide news.  Many people including myself visit the Globe and Mail website or read the actual paper every morning of everyday.  Nevertheless, that redesign still sticks in my mind as a bad choice.

Google Book Search Part Deux vs. Amazon

It’s rather interesting when I hear or read about new developments with Google and Amazon.  Some people are fanatical critics of Google, while others literally worship the ground that Amazon walk upon.  Others operate in the opposite manner.  I don’t necessarily support either, but I do understand from the economic point of view, more competition makes a better environment for consumers, publishers, book sellers, suppliers, and other spin off economic effects that affect other areas in the industry.  While most have groaned and moaned about the fact that Indigo-Chapters have been a bane to many Canadian publishers, many publishers do not realize that Amazon has grown to a point where they act a lot like Indigo-Chapters, not necessarily to the same degree, but gradually getting there.  I actually dislike the manner in which both retailers (in-store) and online charge for placement.  The rigged so called “bestsellers” are simply the big publishers paying for the title.  It is rather funny that by carrying out this policy, major book sellers are actually hurting themselves in the long run.  Bestsellers should always be dictated by the demand side of the economic market, NEVER the supply side.  Why?  Well as a book seller, it is really only beneficial to you in the long-run to have all of your partners succeed.  Notice why book publishers have a tough time?  They have to pay ridiculous amounts for placement or even a “bestseller” title.  This money is great for the retailer, but for publishers that cannot afford such costs, what now?

This is why I believe in the freedom of information and the deconstruction of an industry framework that is not efficient nor is it helpful to both all the stakeholders involved.  In the short-term, yes … retailers and book sellers earn more money off of the publishers.  But, in the long-term … when these book publishers fail to sustain themselves in the market, everyone loses.  Suddenly, there is less competition, innovation and one less party to help keep book sellers and suppliers afloat.  That may be a little simplistic, but if we strip down all the overbearing details, that’s what we would likely get.  Back to freedom of information.  The freedom of information does not merely mean simply everyone gets to read whatever they want.  It is more so the flow of information and the unrestrictive manner that information can be shared by individuals or groups that will help the book industry and its many stakeholders.  What does that mean?  Well, let me put it to you this way.  What if we were able to simply search within all the books in the world, and a list were to come up based on relevance?  No money behind the search results, only what is relevant for what you are seeking.  No money behind a company that is trying to tell you what should be relevant to you.  Suddenly, this changes how we think of competition.  The playing field is levelled because everything revolves around demand.  The problem with the idea of placement and advertising is the idea that you can create and shape the demand.  Demand cannot be created as it already exists, we can encourage interest, but demand itself is amorphous and will always remain so.  What a free and pure competitive market permits is for everyone to jump in and determine the amount of demand there already is and produce a supply for that demand.  What freedom of information provides is an infrastructure that allows for such an environment to exist.  Google Book Search has the right idea in mind.  Will it stay that way?  No one knows.  So all in all, placement and advertising really does nothing but entice interest.  Does interest = demand?  No.  Can interest = leads to demand?  Yes.  Does demand = purchase?  Not necessarily.

More on this topic later … with Part Three coming soon…

technorati tags:toronto, books, publishing, canada, economics, google, search, technology, information, marketing, sales, design, news

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So this is my first week of being a permanent employee of the Dundurn Group.  They are a great bunch of people and I thoroughly enjoy working with everyone there.  It feels a little odd still, but I presume I will get used to being considered an officially part of Dundurn after being a temporary contract worker / intern since May 2006. 

I guess i’m still a transition phase.

I read just the other day on Information Week magazine about Google’s Book Search.  It is rather amusing how everyone is so concerned about the impact that Google’s Book Search will have on copyright. 

Since I am getting more and more involved with web/e-marketing and managing data, I am going to try and comment on marketing, designs and the general world that revolves around us, at least once a week.  Maybe more if I am not tied up with work and Final Fantasy III on the DS Lite!  Sad? Yes.

Anyways back to the Google Book Search feature.  There is a lot of concern about what Google would do with the data and the risk involved with carrying all the data from each book of each publisher inside their server.  Not to mention, what about the risk of someone stealing that data?  Honestly, I think authors and publishers alike should let go of their fears.  Why?

Investment is about taking risk.  The risk involved is next to nil.  The fact that yes, someone could hack the entire Google network and steal encrypted data that they would need to decrypt, let alone determine which book they really want.  For the amount of time and energy that the person put in trying to hack the server or even if he or she were to steal hundreds of thousands of books.  Is it really going to make a difference on sales?   Heck, if someone were to really want a book, they could walk into any store, buy it and photocopy it and return it.  They could also hack into a publisher’s computer system and download the PDF and distribute across the Internet.  They could hack an author’s computer and grab the word document manuscript and distribute it across the Internet.  Would these hurt sales?

I highly doubt it, and even if it were to hurt, it is really really minimal from my standpoint.  Why?

Regardless of the number of illegal copies of e-books floating around on the Internet, it has barely put a dent in the sales of educational and trade publishers.  People still want to feel the book in their hands.  What has actually been putting a dent in the sales are the insane number of books out there.  If we think about it in very simplistic economic terms, there are so many books out there on every subject that we could really almost think of the industry as almost being in a state of a free market / pure competition.  Of course that’s not really true because of government grants, loans and so forth… and the fact that there are very few major book publishers nowadays is another factor.  Now keeping that in mind, let us return to our Google Book Search idea …

There are a lot of politics revolving around the Internet, with the net neutrality movement and such, but really when it comes down to it, one of the most important things about the Internet is the ability for almost everyone to reach out to someone else who has something in common.  The Google Book Search enhances this ability for people to find the books that may be relevant to what they are searching for, rather than depending on people walking into a local bookstore, Chapters or even searching on Amazon for something they want, only to be overwhelmed yet again by the massive number of options.

There will always be controversy surrounding copyright.  But hey here’s the “kicker” so to speak.  Publishers and authors all want to market their books in the best way possible.  They would prefer if they didn’t have to pay to market their books.  Google offers a free or cost-effective manner to do so, however stakeholders are worried about copyright.  Why?  Because of the “chance” that someone else may take the opportunity to make money off of their material that is copyright.  Well the ironic thing would be to ask … would they feel better if Google charged publishers to provide the material to them?  Google is essentially changing the way we think about information and it is important because the freedom to exchange information and the freedom for information to flow from one point to another is essentially how many authors, self-published or not, will be able to market their books to the right people … and for the people to find the right books.

Part II to come along wandering in … soon …

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