Data is changing.  A process started originally by writing, and then printing, is now about to go through an even bigger revolution that of digitisation.  Now that we are getting all these great ways to consume data, how are the publishers responding?  Thanks to Pearson and Techhub, for putting on a series of talks,  we have a good idea where they think the market is going.

Digitisation is old news- since the beginning of the web, books and content has been migrating to digital.  Now that we have tablets, the next stage in the process  is about to hit:

Is Content getting “Smarter”?

In the first talk given tonight, Madi Weland Solmon who is the director of content standards for Pearson, started the ball rolling.  ( Stay with me, I think this might be a bit too theoretical but have tried to make it accessible to all)

Most data can be put into multiple categories( aka is poly hierarchical) – the cool thing is that storing content digitally we can now do interesting things with it.  The secret sauce in this recipe is something called Metamedia- which refers to the new relationships between form and content.

For the most part, publishers have been too worried about the container for the data- eg how many books can I sell or how many DVDS can we ship.  What they don’t realise, is that data can be consumed in multiple ways and us users prefer it that way.

Why can’t I watch a DVD on my mobile phone?

Actually, there is nothing around at the moment that makes transferring content from one medium to another easy,  but its coming! Pearson showed off an example, which was frankly mouth watering.

Content and Learning is getting personal

Tablets are the latest iteration of an ongoing trend. Books have moved to  html books and then to flash books.  Now we have the advent of  tablet books, which allow for some interesting applications to add value to the experience.  Currently these interactions are basic at best- ( eg. what does this word mean) , but taking it to the next level, apps will be able to push the boundary and create a more interactive experience.

Pearson predicts that authors will start to look outside the medium and embrace the content, blurring the boundary between tv and books or even more interestingly, integrating websites or even location based data to change the user experience. On the most basic level, content is about to get a whole lot smarter.

What is Smart content?

• True smart content has good metadata that is  fit for purpose- ie apps will be able to tell more about the content and personalise it to the users’ benefit.
• Use classifications to provide context and aid discoverability- It will soon be easier to find content your are interested in. ( Almost like a Last.FM for books)
• Structured for analytics- Owners will be able to tell who is reading what – and what they are interested in.
• Semantics to create relationships with other content- “Want to know more?” Intelligent links between books, websites, authors and subjects is frankly a concept that can’t come soon enough.

What it enables is :

• automation of content
• How to pay content creators
• provide analytics to show how people use things.

Whats next for publishing?

An interesting stat that was quoted is :

18% of revenue from pharmaceuticals goes into R+D and the figure for  publishers is only  0.1%

Clearly the publishers need to play some catch up! Pearson is using some of their research money to pursue the strategy of using technologies ( like RDF and SKOS for those who are techie) to build relationships within their data and eventually allow future developers and app builders to do the same.  Hopefully one day soon, you will be able to navigate between content, no matter what type, what format and what media you want to view it on- frankly a delicious concept.

Publishers have been around a long time, and are SLOWLY waking up and taking action to really take their content to the next level.  Finally they are getting it, your user is your editor and we are moving away from a push environment, to an on demand environment where users can pull in whatever they want and most importantly view it how they want it.

Where will this content be stored?

Already there is a massive boom in the building of massive datacentres.  These large server farms are going to be the backbone of “the cloud”.  These will be the future homes of your books, your photos, your files- everything!

On the final note- what is the incentive for publishers to do this? Its really simple- if they don’t, they may find that they are soon going to find themselves out of print!

Hope you enjoyed this – and for those of you still around, I would love to hear how you think you will be viewing books in the next few years.

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