Karl and I just finished running a session at NCVO’s Publishers Forum Conference on new models for income generation (Karl did all the talking and I looked after the flip chart!)
We had a discussion with the participants about how publishing has changed over the last 5 years, and how they thought it would change in the next 5 years. Here’s what we discussed.
How has publishing changed in 5 years?
From paper newsletters to downloadable pdfs
From a one page inactive website to a interactive website
Fewer paid-for publications
An alert service for new web content
From content written by a webmaster to content generated by all staff
From an online journal which copied the print version to a dedicated and appropriate online journal, including video etc
A wider audience, which expects to find content online
How will publishing change in the next 5 years?
Paid for services will be wrapped around free content
‘Horses for courses’ – hard copy formats will be used where appropriate and web formats where appropriate
From content (what we want to put out) to user experience (what they want to receive)
‘Digital natives’ will enter the workforce and move into senior position, having a big impact on how we use the web
The ‘wheat will be sorted from the chaff’ in terms of online tools
Web2.0 tools will be ubiquitous and email will still be ubiquitous
Quality will have been compromised. Or… trusted brands will have been strengthened.
Referral and recommendation systems will drive traffic to highest quality content
More collaboration, but tension with intellectual property
The librarian will have been reinvented as a way of getting exactly what you want
More tailored web pages taking into account geographical locations of users (geo-mapping)
Users may pay what they can afford for content, the better off subsidising the less well off
Megan
Third Sector ForesightKarl and I just finished running a session at NCVO’s Publishers Forum Conference on new models for income generation (Karl did all the talking and I looked after the flip chart!)
The presentation was based on Karl’s piece about what the VCS can learn from the music industry.
You can have a look at the slides here.
We had a discussion with the participants about how publishing has changed over the last 5 years, and how they thought it would change in the next 5 years. Here’s what we discussed.
How has publishing changed in 5 years?
How will publishing change in the next 5 years?
What have we missed here?
Caroline
Third Sector ForesightSince Megan wrote this there has been some media coverage of just the issues described above. New methods of publishing are disrupting services and people are increasingly finding new methods for getting their message out. The following two articles examine these movements further: Book publishing in America unbound and Millions of books to choose from – yours will only take minutes to print