If you are interstd in the topic  Experimenting on the Web: Understanding Web user navigation behavior and retaining users, you watch a video of  Dr. Nikolaos Korfiatis.

RVZ

Pricing and availability of titles are not at all attractive and will not make big in the near future. Nevertheless, with the large customer base of Amazon.co.jp, the landing of Kindle platform in Japan will bring about fundamental change of the market because people get to know that it is not a Galapagos separated from the digital continent. (Hiroki Kamata, Editor)

The Late Coming of the Forerunner

Amazon announced Wednesday the launch of Kindle business in Japan and the shipment dates of four of reading devices now supporting Japanese language. The devices include Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi (JPY*8,400) and 3G (JPY12,800) , 7″ tablets Kindle Fire (JPY12,800) and HD (JPY15,800), to be on sale on November 19th and December 19th respectively. As for the availability of Japanese titles, the company mentions just “tens of thousands of wide varieties of books including newly published best selling titles and comics” and “more than ten thousand free books including Japanese literature classics.”     (*JPY1≒1.25¢)

In Japan the launch date has long been expected, anxious about, and even dreaded as marking the “first in an era of open, digitized publishing.” It has been rumored repeatedly since 2008, reported by major newspapers since early 2010 with changing dates, Q4 2010, Q1 2011, year end, spring of 2012, etc.

And finally the date came on October 24th perhaps not accidentally coincided with Apple’s announcement of 7″ iPad mini and Japanese enabled iBooks 3.0 which had been much rumored too. The timing implied that 1) testing of Wi-Fi/3G connection with the new Kindles completed, 2) Japanese language functionalities with Mobi/KF-8 verified, and 3) availability of a certain numbers of paid Japanese titles assured. They might have learned a lesson from Rakuten/Kobo’s launch a few months ago, disappointing the users with technical troubles as well as poor availability of titles both in quality and quantity. Network connection has never been a problem even with Kindle 3 and all the Japanese specific functionalities are already defined clearly by the W3C and the IDPF (as HTML5/CSS3 and EPUB3 standards respectively) and implemented as WebKit which is available for use by Amazon in need of a consistent translator from EPUB. The only uncertainty might be the availability of certain amount of titles. They have nothing to do but wait for the titles provided by the publishers who still have digital rights issues with the authors and also believe that the digitization is the biggest challenge.

Since publishers hold their existing titles in XMDF and/or Dotbook formats, they thought they have to convert existing titles into EPUB3 for Kobo and for Kindle conversion. The complicated and confusing process takes additional costs and should be streamlined consistent with print book making. The question here is who control the production. That’s another story.

As of October 25th, Kindle books Japanese titles listed in the store numbers 71,403 with 10,146 coming in the past 7 days. Those numbers are close to those of Sony Reader Store and Kobo. The great difference is the user experience in the store. It’s the same with Kindle worldwide, such as multi device support, simultaneous checking of availability in different formats (print, digital, used), much accustomed search engine, integration with Amazon.com, etc.  That will definitely impress the people reminding the absence of the vast titles of any value that should be there.
The availability problem will take much time to resolve. It is not probable that Kindle titles outnumbers the rivals any time soon enough to bring them much profit. So, why now? I guess following reasons:

1. The key thing is the launch of the Kindle ecosystem built on Kindle Fire that provides access to globalize content (eBooks, manga, apps, games, videos) as well as other goods. They can not delay any longer.
2. Unlike it’s rivals, Amazon sells paper books and secondhand books and already is the largest book store of all formats. Naturally they care more their customers’ satisfaction to their suppliers. With the coming of a global service Kobo, their customers demand Kindle.
3. Without Kindle or the like, the reluctant publishers will precede digitization at a snail’s pace. In the “the chicken or the egg” situation, the chicken must come first in Japan. The existence of the world-class content store will prompt the content business of the publishers.
4. Structurally, the book market is different here. Manga is the mass products making most of the profit and commercial and academic books have very long tails. Amazon has better view of the market, than local competitors and must be developing specialized approaches optimized for each segment. That’s why they needed to open the store first.
5. Some of the corporate services such as Whispercast for business and schools require the publishing infrastructure become global soon regardless of the marketability and profitability of each country.
6. The publishers overseas likewise need global platform that enables alternative approach to the difficult market, combining such elements as multi-language publishing, digital first, and print-on-demand, etc.  The may need Amazon as globalization partner.

I believe the timing is decided on both local and global considerations. As John Donne said about “man”, “No BOOK is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.”   (Hiroki Kamata, Editor, 2012-10-26)

You can contact the author directly by mail: hiroki_kamata (atmark) otij.org

We interviewed Mr. Juergen Boos, Director of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Hope you’ll enjoy the interview.

Hiroki Kamata and Roberto V. Zicari. (Editors)

Q1. The traditional paper-based publishing industry is confronting tremendous challenges from the emerging e-book industry. Almost everything about publishing is now digital and thus affects every aspect of publishing, including production, distribution and marketing.
Do traditional book publishing business models have a future?

J.B. Digital products are now primarily perceived as an opportunity within the publishing industry. They will not replace the printed book, but rather complement and co-exist with it. There is no need to dread the innovations marked by this digital era if publishers make their content flexible and, along with their content, also their business. Cross-media applications are one way to revitalize the way we tell stories AND they also imply a big opportunity to revitalize the way we do business.

Q2. Copyright concept regulations are messy everywhere. We need a global consensus among the stakeholders or at least to find a way to make that happen.
What do you think of the problem and do you have any ideas?

J.B. As the range of tablet PCs and e-readers with mass appeal has grown, so too has the spectrum of available rights, which now includes digital rights and interactive rights relating to new forms of products, like enriched e-books with multimedia content. Along with that, the value chain is getting ever more varied and more complex. We can now readily talk of “value spaces”, moving from a two-dimensional concept to an exponential growth of possibilities. The copyright issue is becoming even more complicated by user-generated content and collaborative works.

On the one hand, it is clear that creativity needs freedom. Obtaining rights has to be technically fast and easy. On this front, I am watching approaches like the Copyright Clearance Centre’s “Rights Link” with interest. On the other hand, it is also clear that the author must retain full control over how his or her content is exploited. This implies the author’s right to consistently earn in each and every state of the value chain – or not. It should be the author’s free choice how and where and when he or she wants to benefit from his or her work – whether it’s in the form of money or image or even in the context of networking.

To ensure this, we need international solutions to copyright, since the Internet is making national boundaries irrelevant.

Q3. You run the Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF). From your perspective, what do you consider the most important trends in the book publishing market in the coming years that will affect your business?

J.B. The Book Fair is changing every year and, in doing so, it reflects the changes affecting the industry. The pace of change is also increasing. The way we do business with content is changing radically. That’s why we plan to feature the buying and selling of content even more prominently in 2011. For the first time, we will devote an entire hall to it in the form of the expanded LitAg and the new StoryDrive Business Centre for sales professionals from the film, games and book industries. Together with the Rights Directors Meeting, the world’s largest gathering of rights professionals, we are creating places where questions can be turned into answers – and where new content emerges in the process.

At the same time, the book industry is one of the few creative industries that grappled with digitisation very early on – and very intensively. In the 1990s, there was a focus on “Frankfurt goes electronic” in Frankfurt with a multimedia hall. Since then, publishers have been awaiting the digital breakthrough, which has finally arrived now in the form of Kindle & co. At the same time, I’m observing a great deal of calm and confidence within the industry – and thus also at the Fair. That’s because digital products are now primarily perceived as an opportunity.

Q4. The content market is becoming more dynamic and global; national borders are disappearing and the market is being reorganised by language, culture, and regions. Is there any activity planned at the Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF) to meet these new realities?

J.B. Technology has always been the driving force behind the publishing industry. After all, everything began with the invention of the printing press. That’s why technology has always been an important component of the Frankfurt Book Fair. Halls 4.0 and 4.2, for instance, are traditionally the places where the service providers of the industry gather, from pre-press businesses to software and database providers. Of course, with digitisation the influence of new technologies is increasing. Our response to that is Frankfurt SPARKS, the digital initiative of the Frankfurt Book Fair. We launched this in 2010 because we believe technology means nothing without content. Stories, ideas, information and pictures: these are the raw materials fuelling not only the world of publishing, but also the ICT sector. Hardware suppliers and telecom companies alike depend on these raw materials. And the Book Fair is where they’re traded, for example, at the Frankfurt Hot Spots, our new exhibition format. There are six of these – the centrepieces of six different exhibition halls – where technology meets content in a really tangible way. In 2010, around 60 exhibitors made use of the Hot Spots. After that huge success, we’ll be repeating the concept again in 2011, focusing on new topics.

Q5. The Frankfurt Book Fair 2011 will take place from 12 to 16 October in Frankfurt.The Guest of Honour will be Iceland.
What can we expect from the 2011 edition?

J.B. The international publishing world is sitting on a wealth of material, stories, ideas, information and images. With this year’s Frankfurt SPARKS, we want to demonstrate how you can make the best use of the raw material that is content. It’s safe to assume that new business models will emerge for the first time in October that will clearly define the future of the industry. At this year’s StoryDrive Conference, we will once again bring together international experts from the creative industries, including film, games and publishing, in order to shape this future together.

We feel that international publishing is looking for direction and for knowledge that is straight to the point. The digital revolution is turning value chains into value spaces. This leads to an increase in possibilities – but also an increase in questions. We are meeting this demand by facilitating exchange among experts and peers through our Frankfurt Academy knowledge network. In 2011, we will combine a series of existing formats under the umbrella of the Frankfurt Academy brand, such as the International Rights Directors Meeting, which has been in existence for 25 years, or Tools of Change for Publishing (TOC) Frankfurt. But there will also be new formats offered, like a conference on metadata or the new Publishers Launch format.

And, of course, there will also be the Guest of Honour Iceland. The hunger for good stories runs deep in us as human beings. Hardly any other country provides more proof of this than Iceland. That’s because Icelanders live in their stories, whether it’s in their medieval sagas or in today’s multimedia arts scene. Each of the approximately 318,000 Icelanders purchases an average of eight books per year. Around 30 Icelandic authors are expected to be in Frankfurt, including Andri Snær Magnason, Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir, Hallgrímur Helgason, Jón Kalman Stefánsson, Kristín Steinsdóttir and Sjón, along with famous crime writers Arnaldur Indriðason and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and this year’s winner of the Nordic literature prize Gyrðir Elíasson.

The question seem at first trivial: everyone who is part of your network in Facebook. But if we consider the questions once more, a number questions come to mind:

- What is Family?
-  Who is Family?
- What are Friends?
- Who are Friends?

Is somebody who you do not know a friend, only because he or she is part of your Facebook network?

It seems that Facebook is enabling a new definition of friendships which is not identical with the one we have off line.

This has a number of consequences I believe on the way we then:

- Interact with (Facebook) friends
- Trust (Facebook) friends
-  Reveal yourself to (Facebook) friends.

I visualize the set of Facebook friends defined for a particular profile of a person, like an extended part of the Self of a person in his online dimension of life. This is one aspect of what I call Self Revealing.

RVZ

Tom Allen, President & CEO of AAP gave blessing in the press release:“By extending their work as developers, producers and marketers of high-quality content to emerging technologies, publishers are constantly redefining the timeless concept of ‘books.’”  Considering single month sales of $90.3 Million E-Books, it may not a surprise that he positively accepted the disruptive change and didn’t regret for the decline of P-Books.

Enhancing E-book Purchases: Consumer Driven Models From the Text Book Industry, By John Konczal, the Publishing Perspectives, 04/05/2011

Storytime Goes Digital: Assessing the Children’s E-Book and App Market at TOC Bologna, By Sophie Rochester, the Publishing Perspectives, 03/29/2011

In dedication to those who suffer in Japan right now.

RVZ

“The middle is everywhere.“

And now, try to find the “middle” in the Internet….

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: a Book for Everyone and No-one. (Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen)– written between 1883 and 1885.

RVZ

I myself read Google news almost every day. Why? Because it is fast and I get an overview of some of the main significant news.  Main significant news?

In fact, most of the time I scan the news headline and when I am interested in one of them, I click on the link to get to know the story. I only spend a few minutes on Google news.

I became interested to know what is influencing people when clicking (or not clicking) Google news.

In cooperation with a colleague at the Copenhagen Business School and my group at the Goethe University, we explored the tradeoffs between the source’s reputation and the way content is displayed or offered on a web page, as well as the effects of both on the Internet user’s choice of information services.

Our study was built upon behavioral economics and focused on the interaction between background and local context effects on the individual’s choice.

In particular, we investigated the tradeoffs between the source’s reputation, representing the background context and the provision of enriched content (e.g. source bundled with a picture or a video) representing local context.

The research involved a set of experiments based on hypothetical choice or matching tasks.

The main findings of our work indicated that there are significant interaction effects between reputation and enriched content, in the form of content related pictures, video and users’ recommendations, which affect the user’s choice of information services.

However, for enriched content in the form of an attractive picture or a colored frame, there were no significant effects in the user’s choice of online information services.

RVZ

(*) Reputation, framing strategies and user’s choice of content on the Web: an Empirical Study.
Ioanna Constantiou, Natascha Hoebel, Roberto V. Zicari.
Journal of Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, Volume 22, No. 7, pp. 872-889, May 2010, Wiley.