As I’ve said before many times, Apple and Amazon are not friends to subscription publishers. They either don’t understand the subscription publishing model, or, understanding it, they want to undermine it. The problem is that subscription publishing relies on a relationship between the publisher and the subscriber. It’s not a one and done thing like …
(No, I’m not shouting. REAL is an acrostic. Read on.) I was speaking with a publishing colleague recently about the need for a digital strategy. I came up with a generic list — something any publisher could do — but it didn’t scan, so I worked on it until I could put it into a …
For the simple reason that there is no publishing industry. This article — Is Print Really Killing Publishers? — makes the point very well. There is no such thing as “the” publishing industry, only publishing industries. “Digital transformation” is a chameleon term in the publishing industries. It can be about web sites, digital editions, apps, …
Continue reading ‘There is no digital transformation in the publishing industry’ »
Beware the flashy trends, especially when they are mostly promoted by developers who want you to spend money with them. A few years ago everything was “develop an app.” If you weren’t developing an app you weren’t one of the cool kids. You wouldn’t be allowed to sit at the right lunch table. You were …
In optimizing your website, sometimes you want to test something simple, like a red button vs. a blue button, or one kind of product image against another. You should be testing those sorts of things — often. Other times you want to test a complete redesign. Those are also worthwhile, but it’s harder to know …
Continue reading ‘Tweak the failing page on your A-B tests and test again’ »
Please don’t misinterpret this post. I am not saying the idea I’m going to describe is a good thing, but I do think it’s a possible way to make a lot of money by doing something slightly questionable. Or perhaps despicable. You decide. I despise personality tests. Myers Briggs, the little online “are you conservative …
How many more of the breathless predictions about the tablet are going to fail? It’s been obvious for a long time now that the tablet isn’t going to save the magazine. In fact, it’s been a money pit that publishers have been all too willing to waste their time on — for very little return. …
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Here’s a hopeful article: 6 Things Digital Natives Should Know About Print It’s hopeful because I’m seeing more and more articles like this — by people who are realizing that all the “digital revolution” kids were just trying to sell us something, and that print is neither dead nor dying. 2013 was the year print …
When it comes to magazine publishing, print revenues have been flat or declining. Mostly declining. There are some exceptions, but overall the industry is losing ground. The Big Hope was that people would migrate from print to tablet, and that tablet publishing would become a new source of revenue. Or at least something to slow …
Continue reading ‘The migration from paid print to ad-supported digital’ »
I recently did an A-B test on a web page where one panel showed the product and the premium and the other panel showed a picture of our esteemed chief. The chief won. Then I duplicated the test for a different product on a very similar page. This product goes to a different market, and …
Continue reading ‘Be careful applying one A-B test to another product or market’ »