Windows to the future

Adobe and Yahoo have just announced the ability to embed advertising into PDF files.

All Publishers have to do is to upload the PDF files to an Adobe/Yahoo portal where it is "ad-enabled" allowing dynamically generated contextual ads to be displayed whenever the PDF is viewed. The service is currently in beta and it's free! It is limited now to text, pay-per-click ads, but I am sure it will be expanded to include graphics and rich media.

This is a huge breakthrough for publishers. The advertising opportunities are clear and important. We are all searching for viable alternatives to the subscription model.

It could be so much more than that. I think of this more as a window to the future. Whenever a PDF is opened in the future any content can be piped in at that moment. Content that is relevant to that moment in time and space when the document is being read. It could be an advert, but it could also be a note to say that the article has been updated or it could contain an erratum. It could alert the reader to recent publications that are relevant. The possibilities are endless.

The other huge benefit is the possibility to track usage. Today we measure PDF downloads and correlate this to the act of reading an article. In future we can track every time a file is opened, at least in theory. It will be truly fascinating to see what the lifetime of a downloaded article is.

Of course, there will be those that see the DRM demon all over this. The truth is that the technology to embed DRM into a PDF and have it "call home" has been around for a while. It has remained largely unused by scientific publshers. I suspect the reason is the delicate balance between revenue and visibility. It would seem to make sense to protect copyright with DRM, yet the huge barrier to use that this causes is detrimental to visibility. And all Publishers know that zero visibility leads to zero revenues. The other reason is that Librarians are dedicated and effective protectors of misuse; they respect licenses and respond quickly to abuse. There is no need for DRM when there is a trusted relationship between Publisher and Librarian.

So what would you use your window to the future for?

5th Elsevier Scandinavian Librarian Forum

My company arranges occasional workshops and forums across the world. These Library Connect events "bring together Elsevier colleagues and customers to discuss issues of concern for information professionals."

I was invited to speak at an event today on Web 2.0 and what it means for Publishers. I was hoping that the audience of Library Directors would also be inspired to think about and discuss what it means for Libraries.

It seemed to go well at least from my perspective. It was good to step back and review Web 2.0 and think about what it means for a Publisher and what it could mean for a Library. In both cases I believe the key is that Web 2.0 helps us all connect with our users and customers. Hopefully some of the participants will give me feedback by commenting on this post.

Here are some of the resources I called upon for the presentation
Library 2.0: An Academic Perspective
What I Learned Today
Library Toolbar
RSS4Lib
WiserWiki
2Collab
Stephen's Lighthouse
Michael Wesch's Videos

If you are interested, you can find the powerpoint slides here

Finally, big thanks to colleagues Rafael Sidi and Chris Shillum, I borrowed heavily from their presentations on similar topics.

Must have gadget

USB digital microscope enlarges up to 200 times with 1.3 megapixels. Supports pictures and videos.

The best bit is that it also does time lapse movies so you can record a video with only one or two images per minute. Place a sprouting bean under the microscope and film it as it grows. School projects will never be the same.

As the website says "Ever wondered what lint looks like or the mold growing on your week-old bagels? Now you can find out."

Fantastic

Link Blog November 5th

Here are some posts that caught my eye in the last couple of days:

• Grip Your Readers With These 7 Knock-out Opening Sentences .....explains how a great opening sentence can draw readers into your blog posts....
• Publishing Digital Fair Use
• What Price Would You Pay for "Old" Content?
• All Control is....
  
• IL2007 Internet Librarian 2007: Info Pros, Library Communities & Web Tools
  
• Dilbert says: "Free is more complicated than you think"
• Scopus content powering QS World University Ranking

Google copying Microsoft copying Google

I have been trying out Live Search and it's associated services. During the installation of Virtual Earth (Microsoft's copy of Google Earth), I was asked whether I wanted to make Live Search my default search. I chose yes and up popped this screen.

We're all used to Microsoft pulling this trick, it's the first time I've seen Google copying them. Note the use of the word "disable" for the "wrong" option.


Then I thought I'd have fun and went searching for our house. Here's the fantastic image from Microsoft Virtual Earth - our house is the one at the end of the row with the white conservatory out back. The detail is spectacular I think; the angle of view really gives depth and perspective.


And here's Google Earth's image which is way inferior (I promise there's no tricks here - just cropped screen shots)


Both images are relatively recent, we only built the conservatory 4 years ago

Link Blog November 2nd

Here are some posts that caught my eye in the last couple of days:

• Write apps once, run them everywhere but Facebook Google and MySpace just dropped a major bomb on Facebook: they are joining forces to build a new social networking application platform that overnight will be considered the standard..........
• Seth Godin: Meatball Sundae Webcast -- common sense meets the future
• Why VoIP is the next target for spammers Industry experts believe that attacks over services such as Skype are moving from proof of concept to becoming a real threat...
• Virtual China looks for real benefits Anyone who still thinks that virtual worlds such as MindArk's Entropia Universe or Second Life are the plaything of geeks should look at what is happening in China....
• SlideShare at Internet Librarian 2007Looks like SlideShare is the tool of choice for the IL presenters this year. You can find many presentations from IL07 already online on SlideShare
• Google OpenSocial will (hopefully) make social apps more relevant

Link Blog October 31, 2007

Here are some posts that caught my eye today:

• Andreesen explains impact of Google’s OpenSocial
• Google to Launch OpenSocial Social Networking Platform In a direct response to the Facebook applications platform, Google will announce the OpenSocial platform on Thursday...
• Google joins the corporate super-league The world's favourite internet search engine has a market value of $219bn, which ranks it among America's top five companies....
• 50 Ways to Green Your Business Half-a-hundred options for cleaning up your business, from the universal (catch that rainwater!) to the specific (lose the plastic bowls!)....
• Surveys Thanks to the internet, surveys are a lot cheaper than they used to be....
• How to Pitch to Bloggers - 21 Tips
• Twitter is low-expectation IRC
• Will Facebook Ever Make Money? An interview with Chamath Palihapitaya, Facebook's VP of product marketing and operations....
• Sustaining the Digital Library: Symposium List of presentations from the Sustaining the Digital Library : Symposium....
• Cory Doctorow: Policing the net will never work

Zagat Guide to Doctors

A colleague alerted me to the recent Zagat/Wellpoint Press Release that announced the imminent launch of a Zagat Guide to Physicians. I'm a big fan of Zagat to Go, their handheld version that gives me access to 75 guides on my BlackBerry for just $29.95 a year.  

The concept is powerful - use consumer surveys to create restaurant reviews - and it has survived the explosion of user-rating sites such as DiningCity or TopTable and so forth.  I think this is in part due to the rigorous survey methodology and the wonderfully pithy editing (now there's a word you don't see very often these days!). Somehow Zagat manage to distill down all the survey results and draw meaningful conclusions using appropriate quotes. Where the responses are contradictory they say so. Whatever their secret sauce is, I find Zagat to be more reliable and accurate than any other guide on the web.

All too often the free web guides have only one or two entries per establishment so you never know if there are to be trusted (maybe they are written by the owners of the place or a competitor across the street?). Either that or you have to wade through many user responses to extract a sort of average in your mind. Zagat do all this work behind the scenes and that's worth $29.95 to me.

In the past Zagat has extended their brand to hotels, to nightlife, and to golf courses and other attractions. The move into rating healthcare professionals is a very bold step; many have tried and failed here before. I have a feeling that it just might work as long as sufficient patients can be persuaded to respond per Doctor. The Zagat methodology can then work it's magic to provide a balanced opinion.

I am sure that no-one at Wellpoint expects patients to make a choice solely on Zagat ratings but wouldn't it be a good thing if physicians started being a little more customer-centric as a result?

Link Blog October 29, 2007

Here are some posts that have caught my eye recently:

• Early adopter: Parrot DF7700
• Stephen Fry: Welcome to dork talk He owns the second ever Macintosh computer sold in Europe, and has never met a smartphone he hasn't bought. To introduce his new column, Stephen Fry explains why he's deeply dippy for all things digital...
• Feedheads: my Favorite Facebook application Mark Zuckerberg won’t tell you his favorite Facebook application but I will...
• Have You Tried Microsoft's Live Book Search Yet? It's still technically in beta stage, but I've been impressed with Microsoft's Live Book search..
• We Are Smarter Than Me, by Barry Libert & Jon Spector The folks at Wharton School Publishing launched the We Are Smarter Than Me website project last year and invited everyone the...
• Facebook Flyer test results
• Sony Tries to Re-Kindle eBook Interest with a New Reader
• Microsoft HealthVault: A Solution Seeking the Right Problem?
• Mashups Meet SaaS: Facebook's Integration with SalesForce.com Makes Networking Simple
• FriendFeed Aggregates Social Network Activity
• Facebook to enable “levels of friendship”
• Mary Meeker at the Web 2.0 Summit Morgan Stanley technology analyst Mary Meeker was among the notable speakers...

Fearlessness: a new corporate value?

Anyone interested in change within corporate environments should read this great interview with Margaret Wheatley.

She paints a grim picture of modern corporate life: intense focus on short-term results at the expense of all else; no time left to think etc. Magaret quotes a Gallup survey on how people are feeling about their workplace: "Last year, more than 70 percent of the American workforce
felt disengaged, up from around 33 percent in 2000. That’s what happens if you squeeze fewer people to do more work, give them shorter deadlines, measure their work using meaningless metrics, and, to top it off, treat them with profound levels of disrespect."

So why is this happening, especially when most leaders and CEO's know only too well how damaging this can be?

Wheatley argues that CEO's are often powerless to act here, they themselves are too caught up in the vicious cycle, too busy delivering the results, too busy executing. Besides it's an impossible task for a single human anyway - to turn back the tide of market expectations.

To be fearless, she says, is to face the reality of your situation and to realize - without deluding yourself - that you can be more powerful than you are. Fearlessness is not the sole domain of the senior leaders, quite the reverse it can be found throughout the organization.

So give up on large-scale transformation, it just isn't going to work in the modern world. Chose instead to stimulate small scale change from within. Help a few people to realize their talent. Encourage some to innovate. Take time to engage with them.