Ads in Books….or Ads in Newspapers?
Just read Tim O’Reilly’s article expressing skepticism over whether books can ever be ad supported. The Amazon Kindle is what has prompted all the recent discussion. I’m now a happy Kindle owner so I though it toss in some thoughts. I think Tim is right on books, but i don’t think the Kindle is going to turn out to be primarily a book reading device…
I’ve had my Kindle for about 2 weeks now. I’ve been using it about every 2 days. If I have my laptop, I tend to go to it first. I still start my day reading email and I can’t get that (yet) on my Kindle. The Kindle is much easier on my eyes, and when I was running to my flight last Thursday, it sure was great to be able to get my newspapers (via over the air download) AFTER I was on the plane. The Kindle saved me from having to spend two hours reading Hemisphere’s magazine. Thank you Kindle! I won’t miss Hemisphere’s one bit!
Mossberg got it right again I think in his review of the Kindle: Great service, ok device. The click and buy service is great. If Apple hadn’t raised the bar, the device would have been getting rave reviews. And if it had an Apple logo on it, I think it would be the hottest item this Christmas.
The Kindle was created by the world’s biggest bookseller and most of the discussion on it naturally has been around books. What I find myself using it for most though is newspapers and magazines. Those are what I need to get new access to every day. And those are what aren’t at my fingertips (unless I have my laptop). I know first hand having had a paper route as a kid in Indiana, how much effort goes into getting the news to consumers!
The Kindle device wasn’t even designed for newspapers but fortunately they are supported. The buttons don’t support “next story” “last story” etc. I can’t get a couple paragraphs into a news article and single click to the next story the way I can when reading the newspaper. But when I turn it on and my nytimes is delivered within 30 seconds, I find I can’t put it down.
Tim talks about $1 cpm and does the math on the number of book readers and concludes the math doesn’t work. I agree. But has anyone done the math on blogs, newspapers, and magazines. Ads are a big portion of those revenues. I read a lot more page views on newspapers a week than I do on books. And the commerce opportunities are much better.
The kindle could be a killer commerce engine beyond media. Just like links to amazon on a blog talking about a product result in commerce on amazon, the Kindle “could” do the same thing. But even better since they can close the transaction in one click since they have my credentials already… and I am captive to their device at the time.
Some example commerce opportunities:
- I’m reading a book on my Kindle and it references another book that sounds very interesting. I scroll up to that line on the page, click and purchase to “read now”, or click and purchase to “read later”. An impulse buy. This desire to stumble through books happens to me all the time. The book that is being referenced seems always to be more intriguing that what I’m currently reading. Since O’Reilly has a subscription service, it could be a single click to sign up for a subscription.
- I’m reading the NY Times on my kindle and an article references a product that is very interesting. I scroll to the reference, click and buy. This happened to me last week. The NY Times had an article on a gadget that I wanted. I wanted to buy it right then. But instead I had to “clip” and save the page, then go hunt it down when I got back to my laptop. I still haven’t purchased it. I would have it already if Amazon had the click-and-buy for products live on the kindle. Think of how good this would be for Engadget. Everything they write about is a commerce opportunity. Engadget as retailer… There are semantic webservices from several providers (relevad.com, etc) that can automatically take in text and find the products and generate the right links. That could just be called as part of the document prep process on Amazon’s servers.
- Think about this for O’Reilly Media. Offer 100% of O’Reilly blogs, books, etc on a Kindle as a subscription…and use the traditional book channel as a means of acquiring subs. Offer the blog for free with plenty of single click links to O’Reilly books and subscriptions. Offer the first couple books for free and in between each chapter put an ad page with a single click to subscribe to their subscription service. You get my attention once, and that is an opportunity for me to opt-in to pay to subscribe for you to have my attention every day. And make it free to send a book to a friend via Kindle (Kindle’s current lack of ability to forward content to a friend is a huge missed viral opportunity). With a subscription, offer access to the “ask the author” through the Kindle’s “ask an expert” service. Why Amazon supports that on the device but doesn’t allow me to forward a blog post or a news article is a confusing product decision. Have Tim launch a “read what I’m reading” where you get the best of what Tim read yesterday.
- Think of the same for Harvard Business School Press. They have a wealth of cases, articles, books, blogs, etc, all in paper form. Why not offer me access to the blogs, articles and cases, with links to the subscription service which gives me access to the books and to ask questions of the authors. Perhaps Tim O’Reilly can take his understanding of how to run a subscription media company and leverage this to help other media companies convert to the “attention” world. Amazon offers free 14 day subscriptions to major newspapers via Kindle-all that auto-renew if you don’t proactively turn them off. I think most free trials will convert. I wonder if Tim has seen the gym membership effect- where you get a bunch of subscribers who never churn off but yet use very little of your services. Wonder if he has data to show that an all-you-can-eat business model for a publishing company produces higher overall revenue.
- I’m reading the auto section of the NY Times and click to get the product brochure for a new car. The attention of that user who is an auto purchase intender is worth way more than $1 cpm.
Newspapers are already ad-supported today. With the improved conversion opportunities on the Kindle, they can be even more so. Amazon is charging for blogs. will that finally allow bloggers to have a business model other than running conferences?
Will be fun to watch how this progresses. Ted Turner saw the new medium of cable and did something completely different with CNN. Does Kindle create a new medium that can be leveraged similarly? Will Amazon open up the “platform” and let companies innovate on it? Will O’Reilly leverage their understanding of subscriptions and new media and inexpensive attention access to be the “electronic amazon” where I subscribe to 0′Reilly and get access to the library in the sky…
Perhaps nothing will happen in this area until Jobs gets on stage and launches the iTablet + iTunes/iLibrary in the spring which will effectively by an iphone with an 8.5 x 11″ touch screen and the service I describe above. It will leverage all the iphone apps and developer community, have web-browsing, allow me to take notes for meetings…and read books and read newspapers. The content owners will kick themselves for not moving sooner and will end up playing along. Then everyone will wait for days in front of an apple store to get the device…and think it was obvious and Steve is a genius!
