The Rotten Apple of Publishing
Published May 18th, 2012 | 
I’ll be the first to admit when I am wrong. While I’ve long been a vocal critic of Apple’s “agency model” ebook pricing scheme, I never actually believed there was any collusion between Apple and the major publishing firms. But then, all these lawsuits happened, and what we are learning is that not only was there collusion, but Steve Jobs, himself, strong-armed reluctant publishers into the deal that gave Apple “most favored nation” status and fixed prices. Jobs basically sold publisher on the idea that Apple’s way was the only viable option for them.
According to Jobs, the agency model would level the playing field for publishers,end Amazon’s monopoly on the e-book market, foster competition and reduce digital piracy. Let’s see … how did that work out?
Did it reduce piracy? Nope. In fact, since the iBookstore was released for the iPad using the agency model, e-book piracy has spiked.
Did the agency model end Amazon’s monopoly? Not really. Sure, Amazon lost some of their market share to other players, but that would’ve happened anyway due to the simple fact that there emerged other players. Amazon still basically owns the ebook market as of this writing with somewhere between 65 and 70 percent of the market share.
Did the agency model foster competition? Again, not really. Other players emerged, but the agency model forced everyone to follow Apple’s rules. Those rules benefited publishers in the sense that they were able to earn a profits on many books, but it hurt consumers in the sense that they were paying more for those e books (in many cases, more than the hard copy).
What bugs me is that the publishers woes were self-inflicted. They never bothered to look for another option. They were susceptible to Apple’s machinations because they were looking for a shortcut. Dumb. Really dumb.
* This post is sponsored by car title loans philadelphia.
How Do You View Video Content?
Published May 1st, 2012 | Direct TV continues to compete with cable for subscribers, but I’m thinking it may ultimately be a lost cause. Or at least there are now way more options for viewing movies and other content. What, with the IPad and Kindle and services such as Amazon Prime, the iTunes store and Netflix. There’s also Hulu and rumor has it that Google is going to be getting into the game(they already own YouTube). So maybe it doesn’t matter how many commercials cable runs or how many sales for dx3 direct tv.
I currently view at least 60 percent of all video content online. Today, I spent about 90 percent of my viewing time online. Sooner or later, I suspect all of these subscriber-based services will be available through an Internet connection. Cable or dx3 doesn’t matter. In utilizing the Internet, these services have just about conceded the point.
Financial Content Providers
Published March 17th, 2012 | When I first got online nearly fifteen years ago, their was a saying that “content is king." The conventional wisdom was that good websites were driven by good content. Then, after the tech bubble burst, it became all about web design. People argued usability v. graphic design standards and so forth. Then, lo and behold, Google comes out with adwords and adsense. Almost overnight, neither content nor design became as important as SEO. Content farms popped up as if web developers had discovered the holy grail. They’d finally figured out how to generated income from online content. Problem was, quality suffered. Every non-writer was a writer, repurposing crap around valuable keywords. Google, having made billions from this practice started to realize that their brand was suffering and other search engines like Bing were nipping at their heels. So they came out with the new Panda algorithm. A change was on the horizon. Now, more changes as ranked will be weighted in favor of content and against SEO.
What that means if you freelance writing online content is there is little room for non-writing generalists anymore. They want experienced journalists who specialize. So if they are hiring financial content providers, they not only want an experiencing writer, they want an experienced writer with a solid background in financial reporting. In order to write stock market tips you will actually have to understand what stocks to buy today.
So content is king once again. That might prove to be a good thing as it will lead to better web sites. But it will also be harder for many would-be writers to compete.
* Mother’s Day is coming — have you purchased your personalized mothers day gifts yet?
Posted in Current Events, New Media, Publishing, content mills, seo writing, websites | 
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