The Little (Search) Engine that Could

I'm guilty, and maybe many of us are, of taking search engines for granted. We expect that when we put in a search phrase -- we will get back what we want. And we can definitely identify bad search: The notorious sites that never yield anything close to what is being looked for, or those which vomit back way too much to be useful. To be certain, having strong semantic metadata including a rich taxonomy will help yield the right results. But when sites work really well -- we often don't consider that there is a marvelous little engine pulling all the kibbles and bits together to make our user experience engaging.

When a company like Microsoft buys up a search engine -- like Fast Search and Transfer (FAST ESP) -- the install-base, or at least the guys and gals in charge, gulps. It has to wait for the inevitable day when the large company picks a favorite operating system and says, sorry we aren't going to support the rest -- but don't worry, we'll give you a year to sort it out.

Here's the problem. Ripping and replacing an entire search system is not a one-year effort. From the day a company begins a search for a new search engine, to when contracts are signed, SOWs are signed off on, and the plumbing, permissions, logistics, business rules and UX are considered -- well over a year if not two have passed.

When my boss, Mike Makeley, asked me to do an educational webinar on how MarkLogic server can easily swap out the FAST ESP search engine to keep all that plumbing in place, I was only lukewarm on the idea. Our educational webinars are usually geared to the execs and offer strategies on "the art of what is possible" when it comes to online interaction. Talking about the swap out of some boring old search engine sounded like changing the motor on the sump pump, necessary, but hardly glamorous. I mean how much more could we say after we showed that the MarkLogic server replacement program leaves all the FAST “plumbing” in place – and just replaces the FAST ESP engine. A very quick and relatively painless strategy -- that gives all the lift of MarkLogic – and none of the agita of a total replacement. But what I underestimated was the magnitude of what that total lift would be.

I learned from my two webcast guests -- Seth Shearer, MarkLogic's director of technical development, and Jagannath Saha, lead consultant for Avalon Consulting LLCs search practice, just how much enterprise search impacts all the audience engagement initiatives that a company offers. It makes perfect sense -- but I had never really stopped to think about it.

Gone are the days of the "10-blue-links" results page, said Saha -- today's search engine needs to be able to conform to any data representation -- density maps, bar charts, cloud tags, virtually any way you might want to visually present data. Here are some other things a search engine must do well:

Typeahead
The search box needs to support "typeahead" sometimes called "autocomplete" -- a fairly difficult-to-execute-well maneuver that presents readers with real-time suggestions. To be useful, explained Saha, these suggestions this must be executed in milliseconds -- no small challenge if the database is large. In a series of benchmarks by Avalon, MarkLogic was the speediest of leading search engines on scouring vast amounts of data and suggesting typeaheads.

Further, said Shearer, the typeahead must only suggest words eligible to the reader. "You don't want people selecting suggestions to documents that they aren't allowed to see," he said.

Consume all types of data
If your search engine is pickier than a two-year old, time to ditch it. It needs to be able to handle different types of data from - structured to unstructured, text files to binary. No excuse, no temper tantrums.

Not in-a-minute, NOW!
Search engines typically rely on relational databases -- which rely on an index to speed up queries. Challenge is there is often data residing in a queue waiting to be re-indexed. Depending on the criticality of the business -- and the volume of the data, that reindex may be done once a day -- or even once a week. An XML database indexes real-time -- meaning all data is available the second it is ingested by the search engine.

Consume all types of data
If your search engine is pickier than a two-year old, time to ditch it. It needs to be able to handle different types of data from - structured to unstructured, text files to binary. No excuse, no temper tantrums.

Not in-a-minute, NOW!
Search engines typically rely on relational databases -- which rely on an index to speed up queries. Challenge is there is often data residing in a queue waiting to be re-indexed. Depending on the criticality of the business -- and the volume of the data, that reindex may be done once a day -- or even once a week. An XML database indexes real-time -- meaning all data is available the second it is ingested by the search engine.

Bi-directional
It’s no longer enough for a search engine to just serve – it must log, learn and analyze too. To increase engagement, any engine must be able to log the behavior of the users: monitor which content is being consumed, the path that a user took to get there, and be on the ready to deliver trending topics. It also must be able to ascertain where the user is. With the reliance on search through mobile, the engine needs to be able to track the geospatial coordinates of the user – and match that to geospatially relevant content. And mighty speedily at that.

The reality is, the search engine needs to be evolve to satisfy the business needs of the entire enterprise. And search-based applications need a powerful entity to drive development. No longer are search engines a dumb-waiter meekly serving up matter – they are a full-blown intelligence system that need to be able to give as good as they get.

An XML Primer

Wow. I just did a "Bing" on "XML" and found 88,300,000 results. The third facet on the results page (with faceted search being the reason I prefer Bing) was "XML Definition." Nineteen million pages fell under the "related searches" facet of XML definition. I zapped off a few other searches of popular tech terms and three-letter acronyms (RSS, IP address, namespace, API, RDF -- and none of them had a facet called "Definition."

So what can be made of this? If you attend any digital media seminar, workshop or webinar or sit in on any content strategy, XML is de rigueur, but could be it be that people are throwing out this TLA without really knowing from whence they speak? The answer is absolutely. And solution providers, technologists and product makers are guilty of not recognizing that the community is struggling to keep up.

Cathy Palmer and I partook in a web series put on by the IDEAlliance this morning on making the case for XML. IDEAlliance is a non-profit that develops standards and best practices surrounding publishing and technology -- it offers events virtually every week of the year depending upon practice area. Cathy is a trainer from New Horizons, a nationwide IT training company. A couple hours later I was listening to a webinar by Publishing Executive -- featuring two book publishing executives. Peppered liberally throughout both webcasts was our little friend XML. And then came the question asked in a variety of ways: "But what if we don't have XML, what do we do?" Cathy did a super job explaining how you can extrapolate XML from InDesign files, while I offered that another way is to use combinations of machines (semantic analysis engines) and man (offshore) to create XML.

But how do executives create a content strategy -- determining man, machine and markup if they don't have a rudimentary understanding of what this eXtensible Markup Language is all about? The definition is easy -- the why is more complex. XML is a decade-old method of mark-up that can be used to classify and add meaning to content so that it can be organized, “sliced and diced” and repurposed.

XML tags look similar to HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language) ones, in that they both use start and end tags but that’s about it with the similarities. HTML includes a set of pre-defined formats that impact how information is rendered, eg. the command (along with it's close command ) makes a word bold. Unlike HTML, XML does not have predefined formats (although it does use the same syntax) and display commands; instead XML provides a structure so you can effectively find information again.

This format agnostic markup language means you can categorize sections of content -- find them again -- and then transform them (using style sheets) to be ready for virtually any digital channel. XML allows bodies of content to be broken down into reusable components -- for instance, maybe you would like to markup statistics within a text -- particularly if you know that you will be researching for that same type of statistic again. Or maybe you want to markup quotations by luminaries; charts by researchers, lyrics to songs, ingredients to recipes. Having the ability to search, find and reassemble these components of content is the secret to repurposing.

There's more to XML than that -- but that's the high-level basics. The key to managing is understanding what you know -- and don't know -- and filling in the gaps.

Letting a Picture Tell the Story

A picture is worth a thousand words -- but did you know it could also represent one thousand pieces of content?

Two years ago I wrote about Financial Time's (shortlived) Newssift, a business site that strove to create a business model around a new type of search -- with metadata exposed. With a naive go-to-market plan and too many months (and dollars spent) in R&D, the patience of the parent company were taxed, and Newssift was shuttered mere months after it was launched.

As a business Newssift failed. But the concept to use the metadata to attract and engage readers -- even if the graphics were simple pie charts -- was a bold move. Today news organizations like the Washington Post, The New York Times & PBS are using vast troves of content to drive sophisticated visualization tools as a means of telling a more complex story -- in an engaging way.

In some cases they are tapping their own archives on a given subject, in others, they are tapping the crowds. In this NYT interactive that appeared on May 3, 2011, readers were asked to weigh the significance and emotional response to the news of Osama Bin Laden's death. Each comments was semantically analyzed by sentiment, and that metadata were plotted in the multi-dimensional graph. Each blue dot represents a comment, which can be clicked on and viewed. The Times tapped the audience to create a visual that sums up the visceral feelings of its readers. 

Patrick Sullivan, veteran UX guru, founder and CEO of Modus, a digital agency that helps organizations like PBS and Bloomberg create exciting digital and mobile applications and interfaces, finds this type of visualization tool a terrific way to engage and extend the long form story. "Look at the corners of the map -- where strong polarization of feelings reside," he explained. "Of course, overwhelmingly, there is a universal feeling of satisfaction and that this was a significant event."

All three variables of information were captured and related in this graph. As you mouse over the points, a portion of the comment appears.

So how do news organizations, government agencies, museums -- anyone with large amounts of content --  do it? It's simple really: by exposing the metadata -- which plays right into the strength of the MarkLogic server. Sullivan will be joining me and MarkLogic's Principal Technologist Matt Turner on Wednesday, May 18 webcast at 11am to talk about these visualization techniques -- and what organizations need to do in order to have the content in ready-form to drive these terrific engagement tools. Sullivan assures me that this graphic depiction can work on mobile devices too!

Digital Services & Goods Purchasing Trends

Pew Internet, a division of Pew Research, asked 1300 smartphone owners across the country whether or not they had purchased any of 16 different types of digital content.

Here is the breakdown of what they paid for, with 75 percent saying they have bought multiple items:
33% internet access
33% software
21% apps for cellphones
19% digital games
18% newspapers, mags or journals
16% videos, moveis or TV shows
15% ringtones
12% digital photos
11% members-only premium content
10% ebooks
7%  podcasts
5% tools or materials to use in video or computer games
5% cheats or codes for games
5% have paid to access particular sites such as online dating
2% adult content
6% misc other content

Who Buys
There are not a lot of surprises here. Men and women behaved similarly in buying -- with the exception of men outdoing women in purchasing software. The most prolific purchasers are those 30-49, with a college degree -- and in the higher income brackets. The average monthly spend was $47 -- however most spend about $10 a month.

"Skip" Prichard on Publishing

Skip Prichard, CEO of Ingram's Content Group and a long-time executive in the publishing industry gave the keynote at eContent's Buying and Selling conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Being an alum of Lexis-Nexis, Elsevier, Ingram Books and Proquest, his career has been an homage to digital convergence.

He recalled being asked by a reporter to speak to the future of publishing, Prichard offered these tidbits:

• Standard Operating Procedures -- need to be revised. Disrupt the status quo because you can become a slave to tradition, versus looking at the situation with fresh eyes. Chances are your competition does not have the same constraints as your SOP. 
• Unprecedented Opportunity in terms of building audiences (look no further than GroupOn). Of course that opportunity means constant stress and pressure... because
• Competition is everywhere. It is global -- and it is relentless. There are no resting on laurels.

While little of what Prichard said was new or a surprise to me, he refreshingly gave real-world examples of how publishers need to embrace change by deftly calling on his own experience. Too often, pundits and executives speak in platitudes and such generalities that the subject could as easily be about March Madness as it is about Digital Publishing. By drawing from his own experience it changes blah-blah to rah-rah -- and I believe, actually works to inspire people to take action.

That would be an interesting exercise. Poll conference attendees to find out how the information they learned will be applied. 

Aetna: Rx for Engagement

"A retained member is not necessarily a happy member," says Melissa Jones, marketing manager for Aetna's New England regions, in addressing a Custom Content Council audience on why customer engagement is more important than merely measuring customer retention. To better engage Aetna's Medicare audience -- all over the age of 65 with an average age of 75, Aetna entered the world of content marketing.

Jones' objective was to turn around a trend of Aetna Medcare members voluntarily terminating their memberships by creating editorial content that was relevant to this demographic.  "We decided to create a pilot program to test the impact of an integrated communication program on member retention," she says. The goal was modest, a 1% improvement in retention to show the pilot's success -- and save the company millions.

The group came up with Healthful magazine, which has three standard sections: Health, Enjoyment and Reference. The editorial content is positive and slanted toward maintaining the emotional, mental and physical well-being of this adult audience. Jones was surprised at how important physical fitness was to this audience. "You can't believe how popular the Wii is at senior centers," she said.

In looking back, one of the harder chores was getting buy-in from the C-suite level. The group persevered and ultimately, the company realized a 6 percent increase in retention. The success easily offsets the investment undertaken.

The group is looking to offset costs by experimenting with advertising. A cover wrap was sold to HEB Health & Wellness. The wrapper was targeted to 25,000 homes in Texas - and more than 31,000 coupons were redeemed, an outstanding success. "Soft-sell" ads dot the magazine -- a feature on hearing encourages people to call a number to find out more about hearing aids, an article on adopting pets, includes a sidebar on how PetsBest offers health insurance for pets.

I asked Melissa what the percentage of ad revenue was against the cost of creating content. She was quick to tell me that the effort was merely a pilot, and that there was no intention of turning the entire magazine into an ad-supported title -- rather, it had to remain a value add.

She better not let the C-Suite know of the success of the ads then.

What Marketers Want

Before he was the Pariah of Hollywood, Mel Gipson starred as a chauvinistic ad executive who, after a lightening strike, could suddenly "hear"the secret thoughts of women. Of course he used this for his own personal gain.

Advertisers too have been trying to tap into the secret thoughts of users, either by watching behaviors online or by analyzing user comments. In turn they are taking this intelligence to create content that engages their audiences. This evolution of marketing messages from paid advertising to information development has been a bane for some media companies - and a boon for those who have created Custom Content departments.

At its annual conference in Charleston, SC, today, the Custom Content Council (CCC), revealed an updated benchmarket survey it had first conducted in 2006. CCC, whose mission is to match the needs of marketers with the information needs of audiences, commissioned Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communication to survey 100 CMOs and find out their inner most thoughts on Custom Content -- also called Content Marketing.

These CMOs across a spectrum of industries continued to see the upside of using content to build good relationships, and in fact, saw the cost of producing it as "not too expensive." These marketers are using 15 different content channels to reach their audiences -- notably, websites and newsletters -- both e- and print, and now, video, mobile and webinars.

Roper flipped the questions around and asked audiences their perceptions of content -- and while they admitted that they knew this content was meant to be persuasive -- encouraging people to buy, they didn't care as long as it was informative.

The research, said Andy Seibert, President & Publisher of SmartMoney (a Dow Jones Company) and CCC board member, "showed we don't have to convince marketers of the benefits of custom content."

Turns out that what readers want, is what marketers want -- which is good news for customer content creators.

New York Times' Pay Wall

To pay wall or not to pay wall, that has been the question.

Well the NYT did it -- they instituted the pay wall. (Paywall?? -- AP finally dropped the hyphen in email and the spaces in cellphone, smartphone and handheld -- although the hyphen remains in e-book and e-reader. Pay wall still has a space - perhaps because it is still a chasm for most newspapers).

But I digress. Only 3 months behind schedule, the Times has finally announced its new pay scheme. The critics are rolling their eyes, the schemers are figuring out ways around the fence, but I think Ken Doctor at the Nieman Labs has analyzed it best. The Times has, like every other newspaper in the universe, lost print subscribers, print revenue and while increasing digital subscribers, has not created a business model to sustain the legacy and additional digital workflows and deliveries. In other words, the Times had to do something.

Unlike the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, which hawk (chest beat) important business news, which in turn mandate that all businesses subsidize subscriptions for its employees (or at least the top echelon), the NYT and other newspapers, is a nice to have. Supported by aficianados, news junkies and advertising, the NYT et al are trying to figure out how to get non-print subscribers to pay for content. It is a very slippery slope since the Times' brass does not want to (further) erode print subscribers -- but they do want a mechanism to be able to charge said aficianados.

I think they have done a fairly good job. The new price points will capture some digital-only readers at a weekend-delivery pricepoint -- which is far higher than the Journal's annual subscription fee. While the paper may see some churn in the 7-day a week home delivery (a $600 a-year-habit) vs $195 for all digital, it protects the all-important-Sunday home delivery price of $197 a year. Sure some of the $680m subscription franchise might be at risk, home delivery bears a much higher cost of good. If news print fades to black and the Time can convert a growing percentage of news readers to digital only at the rate of $200 a year -- management will be only too happy to jettison print readers -- and greatly improve margins.

Who knows, in a few years, it may be that the diehard print readers will be anteing up big premiums to continue that home delivery.

Publisher as Software Developer

A zillion years ago I worked for CBS Software -- a publisher of interactive games. CBS, which owned stations, programming, magazines (the poor Ziff books) and textbooks -- saw nothing unusual about being in software publishing -- it was merely one more form of packaging information and entertainment. Okay, so it didn't do a very good job with this group; the division was gone before the end of the 80s.

Still it was this notion of software publishing that I recently wrote about the Appification of Old Media; how publishers needed to embrace their inner geek -- and package their content in the form of applications. This may seem obvious, but with the exception of Epicurious, there are few publishers who have crossed the chasm and morphed into true software publishers. Until now.

Hearst Corporation, better known for its consumer mags and daily papers like the Houston Chronicle, has unveiled Manilla. The new service is a consumer cost management tool - for managing household expenses. The "Chief Home Officer" lets consumers roll up aggregate household expenses -- to get a better handle on expenditures. That Hearst created the app initially to get a handle on its own mailing expenses is immaterial. As Outsell surmises, "it does not take too much thought to realize that the greater benefit to Hearst is in becoming the de facto clearing house for such consumer information."

While the business plan is not yet clear, Hearst is creating a free app -- that ostensibly can become a very important advertising channel. More importantly, a consumer brand publisher is leveraging its knowledge of the market to create a new information product -- versus letting someone else do it.

Let's Start at the ... Very End!

Apps, apps, apps. I need a good appetizer recipe for a holiday party, so I will be turning to Epicurious, AllRecipies -- and maybe even download the new Mario Batali Cooks! to find something yummy.

Why am I telling you this? Because if we want to join into the app craze -- we have to think a bit differently - like at the end, first. Or more specifically, what we want the end product to be. I know that probably sounds quite intuitive but for many companies just getting a mobile app out there seems to be more important than getting the right mobile app out there. And no wonder. With Chris Anderson and others now running around screeding the "Web is Dead" we are in a panic to push our sites to mobile.

Which is all well and good from a replication standpoint -- but not so good if what you really want is a killer app like those Angry Birds. Admittedly most of us aren't in the gaming business, but if your business is communicating with you audience -- then you need to put yourself in the shoes of your audience -- where ever those shoes may be.

For instance, the American Institute of Physics provides a digital platform for its 180 scholarly & trade journal constituents. Long journal articles are not going to do it for audiences looking for information  -- while say, atop a ladder. Instead they are building out specific apps that let readers ask the app specific questions -- what part do I need? -- and get a specific answer.

This requires a completely different mindset; instead of pushing information to the reader -- the reader is pulling the information required. Instead of a product -- media companies are providing a service. Its only by anticipating the types of questions readers might ask (under various conditions -- do they travel, are they outdoors in a field, at a desk) that publishers can begin to start developing highly sought-after applications.


A top 10 app for the Android right now is Greg Milette's Digital Sidekick. Responding to a Google challenge to develop for 'Droid, Milette chose to take advantage of the voice recognition tools -- and his love for cooking. Understanding the workflow of preparing recipes, he opted for a recipe reader that would allow the cook to ask basic questions without having to quick looking at a recipe: What temperature to preheat the oven? How much flour do I need? The app keeps track of which portion of the instruction has been read -- and can pick up where the person left off - despite any interruptions.

Milette designed hooks to import recipes from AllRecipes.com – but readers can also cut and paste from any site to put their own favorites to create their own cookbook.

Now Milette's app is unique in that he isn't packaging up his own content for an app -- he is relying on content created by others. Had he had his own repository of recipes he would have needed to prepare his content ecosystem so it would allow this re-assembly of recipes into this new talking cookbook.

In most cases, this is not an easy task - unless you are storing the content as XML -- and have an easy way to index it, find it and deliver it. Most media and enterprises have relied on databases that were built to efficiently handle structured data that is in columns and rows. Unfortunately these RDBMS databases do not handle unstructured content -- like articles, recipes, video and images -- very well at all. A flexible  content ecosystem today requires:

• a database that is purposely built for unstructured content - perfect for XML
• a means of enriching the content (with both semantic and administrative metadata) 
• a way to transform the XML from one schema to another so it can be delivered

By knowing what our finished product should be, we can take an audit of our content -- and see what is missing, determine the granularity of the enrichment (should people be able to search by types of cuisine and whether or not it is an appetizer or a dessert?) and which types of additional content may be needed -- that would be brought into the ecosystem -- and re-assembled and delivered.

These are not easy tasks without the right tools, particularly if you want users to add their own -- or 3rd party content -- which may not follow the same XML schema as your recipes did.

At Intelligent Content 2011, my MarkLogic colleague Fernando Mesa and I will be giving a plenary talk on creating this very agile content ecosystem -- and offer some terrific real world examples of how others are quickly creating applications that merge in disparate types of content -- and preparing these apps for all sorts of delivery mechanisms. It should be a terrific session -- not to mention warm -- since it is in Palm Springs. You should definitely come -- and bring your ideas which will allow us to brainstorm apps that will be killer for your audience.

Younger than a toddler & worth $6Billion???

Man, newspapers really should be kicking themselves.

Just hours after I wrote about the Deal of the Day mavens, Google announces an astronomical bid of $5.3 billion for the upstart Groupon and another $700k in incentives. According to analysts cited in a New York Times article,  the Chicago-based neophyte, is pulling in $500 million in revenue -- and achieving profitability. That is a staggering amount of revenue for a relatively simple business model. The company has about 3100 employees in 300 markets -- so do the math -- that's about 5-10 feet on the street selling online ads to all the little local spots that most likely can't afford to have its own Web presence.

That Google is interested in Groupon's connection to these micro-retailers is a no-brainer. For years Google has been trying to figure out how to get into the local market -- even trying to woo newspapers to virtually rent out their sales force to sell local ads. It was a bust. And of course it was!!!

Those of us in the industry assume every company is as digitally aware as we are. And that's hogwash.

When a small business is born -- it starts with an idea that is usually financed with a severance check.  Whether its a service or a retail shop -- unless those entrepreneurs have relatives that can provide HTML, graphics and editorial -- the Web offering is often anemic at best. In my opinion that is why Groupon is successful. They serve the low end of the market that the Clipper magazines and Weekly Shoppers do -- but via the Web. I don't know if it is part of its business model now -- but if I were Groupon, I would create a directory and let each of its customers keep the Web page created for them up on the Web for an annual fee. My bet is, this is likely the only (or at least the best) Web presence these small companies have.

Almost two years ago, I wrote about how newspapers are not serving this "down market." Dailies should have been all over this model -- and created it on their own! The Groupon/LivingSocial/TownHog template is staggeringly easy to build. Which is why some analysts are gagging on Google's gutty move. “A multibillion-dollar valuation for a company that is in a business with virtually no barriers to entry and is younger than my toddler is absurd,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester Research retail analyst, wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday morning.

Low barrier to entry, younger than a toddler -- and raking in $500 million. And so why aren't newspapers doing this?? I know creating a directory of deals may not earn you a Pulitzer Prize -- but last I checked the old cash cow of Classifieds weren't so sexy either. And with the money coming in -- at least you could continue to afford the journalists.

Deal of the Day

Newspapers and city magazines ought to be kicking themselves (yet again). Several start-ups have emerged in the last 12 months rolling out dazzling deals of the day for savvy bargainistas. GroupOn and LivingSocial have been the front runners, with TownHog nipping at their heals. All three are out canvassing merchants around various cities for compelling wares and services to dangle before audiences looking for "such a deal!"

I first bumped into GroupOn several months ago when searching for play tickets in Toronto. LivingSocial I read via HuffingtonPost -- and while researching this article I tripped over TownHog. All three have a similar model that advertisers love: pay nothing upfront to have someone else market your product. There is only a charge to the advertiser if the product sells. And what could be a better deal for retailers trying to drum up business than a risk-free promotion! Further, for a deal to go through, a certain threshold of takers needs to be met, if not, there is no deal. This incents consumers to virally promote the deal among their network.

Of course there are drawbacks: Retailers need to know that they can handle the demand if the deal is truly a great one. (I had a meeting with one national brand -- whose IT department found out that the company would be offering 50% off from Web site sales -- just 7 days before the offer went live. They were terrified that the servers would crash. They didn't.)

And, I have heard rumblings that some of the deal-meisters pay retailers at a slightly slower rate than others (can't confirm that). My brother-in-law has been trying to get a GroupOn rep to call him for a few months -- so perhaps there are some growing pains.

There are some newspapers like Media General & McClatchey that are catching the tiger by the tail and partnering and sharing revenue with these daily dealers. In Media General's case, Groupon is selling and developing the clever creative for offers -- while Media General markets the offering. (In some cases this creative is the ONLY web presence the retailer may have.) No word on the revenue split.

Here's the deal though: Media General like all newspapers OWNED the local market when it came to sales and fulfilling creative in print. How in the world could they let some outside organization get close to their customers -- and offer the marketing platform?? At least be the sales arm for the venture! It certainly seems that this is short-sighted at best -- and yet another lost opportunity for local news organizations to find a model that makes them relevant and solidify their reason for being.

Mobile Ingenuity

From how to mobilize to how to monetize, mobile is the topic célèbre for this season's tradeshow circuit. While many of the first generation offerings are ho-hum, there is promise that more and better is on the horizon.

The first-gen initiatives are, not surprisingly, a redux of what is in print and online. This replication consists of taking what is in a print and making the PDFs available in an eReader such as the Kindle, Nook or iPad. The product is largely contained – meaning there are no links out to the Internet. Most periodicals are using a 3^rd party developer such as Zinio or Texterity to convert the print to PDF. While others, such as Wired, splurged to create custom editions that are augmented with rich media and layouts specific to the medium. There is definitely an audience for eReaders – but it is highly unlikely to be a large enough one to save magazines’ bacon.

Optimization is the next step in the mobile maturity process. Any site, be it a periodical or a business should consider creating a truncated version of the Web offering – optimized for the mobile device.  Few are doing this well at all. Most are thinking of regurgitating the entire Web offering onto a tiny screen. This reminds me of a meeting I was in 15 years ago. I was making my case to the board of directors New Jersey for autonomy in putting our daily newspapers online – when one of the executives stood up with a boom box wrapped in a newspaper. “We wouldn’t read the newspaper on the air,” he said, “and we shouldn’t be putting the newspaper on the Web in the same format.”

And with mobile, the same argument holds; The medium demands a new product offering -- which brings me to the last phase in the maturity model. Appication are specific and compelling applications that allow users to self navigate. What is a specific and compelling app? Well it depends on the audience, and ostensibly, publishers know their audiences. Newspaper publishers, which know of every retail outlet in their Designated Marketing Area (DMA), could use temporal and geolocation data to provide restaurant lists. If the time is at 7am – diners would have greater relevance than fine dining restaurants. Because papers know of every retail location in an given DMA, they could also provide for fee search for local businesses. Let this audience search on how many fast food restaurants in a given radius, etc.

These types of apps fit in the sweet spot of publishers – although I give it 50:50 odds that newspaper in particular will “get it.” Part of the problem is that mobile is a new medium that will cultivate its own experts -- its own handlers. Yes, there may be some overlap now -- Chris Anderson's Wired editors and graphic artists lovingly create three versions of each issue: one for Web, two for iPad -- landscape and portrait orientations. But frankly, that is a luxury for staffs that have been butchered during this period of declining revenue. Secondly, and related, is that publishers can not inherently attract the best programmers out there. Best programmers want to go where they can innovate and lead – not be crammed into job band that is nestled between a Reporter III and Editor I.

So what is the solution? A shift in thinking internally. Papers have to think of themselves as software publishers – not just news publishers. They need to think like the folks that create games, utilities, and tools that we can’t live without (or at least will pay some modicum of money for). They will need to cultivate a workforce that is given the opportunity to experiment – and even fail – all in the goal of moving forward. And they will need an agile environment one that allows them to “mash up” disparate types of content – geo, temporal, internal, external sources. The technical piece is the easy part – the change in thinking – well, perhaps it is optimistic, but I think publishers are finally getting around to thinking a bit differently. We’ll see.

Editors Need to Work the Fry Station Too

Wonderful homage to editors by Greg Hadfield at TheMediaBrief.com -- with a bit of a tweak at the end. Hadfield praises the editors of past for being the "Manager of the football club," (if he were American, no doubt he would have likened them to the quarterback.) In any event -- the editors of lore inherently "got it" -- they knew the news that the audience wanted -- and getting the story and the edition right consumed them. They got it because they lived and breathed it.

But that isn't yet the editor of the digital age. Yes, they "get" the importance -- but they haven't yet gotten the medium as it relates to their audience. Hadfield chides them for not worrrying about the Home page -- as they did the Front page. And no wonder. Our top editors of today haven't yet come up through the ranks having worked the fry station.

Eighteen months ago I challenged CEOs and Publishers for exactly this same issue. Unlike editors, publishers and CEOs of past, today's top executives were well into their career when along came the Internet. They can wax poetic about waxing copy, remember their hands grimy with ink, but since they didn't spend their formative years clicking, tweeting and commenting -- they are merely fans -- and not the quarterback of today's media groups. And it shows.

It's why the bloggers are so far ahead in many ways than the traditional media. They have programmed their pages, figured out how to manipulate HTML, stay on top of new widgets and discovered how to get an audience -- and engage with that audience. They live and breath their blog -- they imbue passion.

I've said it before and I will say it again: McDonald's won't allow you to become a manager if you haven't worked the fry station. Today's editors, publishers & CEOs need to know that without these rudimentary skills -- they aren't fit for the job.

Bob Abel: The Father of the "Interactive Experience'

Robert “Bob” Abel is largely an unknown name in the world of interactivity. Which is unfortunate because he easily could be known as the Father of the Interactive Experience – and the originator of the Mashup. For me, Abel was the inspiration for my career -- which was to connect reporting -- with storytelling.

An Emmy and Golden-Globe winning film producer, a 33-time Clio-award winning advertising executive, Abel is considered a seminal figure in the world of computer animation and special effects in commercials and motion pictures (using computer-controlled cameras). So what do you get when you cross a creator, a curator, a curiosity for computing power and an insatiable drive to connect with audiences? You get Bob Abel, interactive producer.

Back in the late ‘80s, Apple introduced a unique technology called the HyperCard. It combined database capabilities with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface and was the first consumer product that introduced the concept of “hyperlinking,” being able to access external information with a single link. Abel realized the potential of the technology and set about creating a very ambitious production called “Guernica.”

Inspired by the anti-war painting by surrealist Pablo Picasso, Abel wanted others to be able to witness and explore that chaotic time period. Using HyperCard and videodisc technologies, Abel let users explore Picasso’s interpretation of the mayhem and tragedy following the aerial massacres of Basque civilians in Guernica, Spain, a cultural bastion of art and history during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso’s imagery is of course symbolic in and of itself with its strewn body parts and dying animals – and Abel enriches these symbols by providing access to archived interviews, footage and news coverage by different witnesses to history.

By choosing from an array of “witness” tools, users could click on various portions of the painting – the horse, the bull’s tail (a plume of flames and smoke), the women – and glean different types of information about the painting, the artist, the economy at that time -- or the war itself. Each tool allowed the user to obtain different types of information embedded in the painting – for the richest possible user experience.

Abel saw the potential of mashing-up disparate types of information around a narrative. While a person may skim right past the 2D painting hanging on a wall in a museum or printed on the page, Abel believed that they would stop and interact if it was embedded with information. In fact, Abel saw titles like "Guernica" as the ultimate educational tool – self-paced and self-directed.

This archtype of interactivity that was lauded by many, sniffed at by some who couldn’t fathom the huge price tag, didn’t actually deliver on all promises. Abel’s ambition outpaced the storage capacity of the videodisc, and while the experience should have been seamless, the tools of that time were primitive. The interface (necessarily) had so many windows and drop downs – and screens (NTSC interlocking on computer screens was not available yet, so video would open a window on a second monitor) it was hard to get your bearings. I believe Jonathan Gibson was the interface designer -- and while it was a kluge – it was utterly brilliant.

In truth, Abel was years ahead of the technologies out there, and his death in 2001 cut short his ability to see how user-driven experiences would become the Holy Grail for media companies. Although, I can’t help but believe, that this artist/executive/visionary would be disappointed in the convergence efforts by the media in general. Bloggers have keenly understood that assets are enriched when accompanied by links -- but the media still seems obsessed by the linear flow.

When given a chance to present complex information in this method of self-paced exploration, at best they create a list of links out to archives (at worst, they do nothing). Worse still, they have yet to truly harness the power of computing – the power of perspective.

Abel knew that to pique curiosity you need a narrative. And while media and news companies have the very archives that Abel’s videodisc called out to – I have yet to see one attempt to mashup information in the way that Abel managed to do with both Guernica -- and another effort, underwritten by IBM, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the voyage of Columbus to America. Abel titled it: "Columbus: Encounter, Discovery, and Beyond" (a multicultural experience). Massive in scope, it drew from 2,300 articles and had 400,000 soft links. A whopping 180 hours of instruction.

As today’s media struggle to find their relevance, perhaps what they are really missing is the consummate storyteller, the producer – who can weave together all of these loose threads of information into a rich tapestry of the likes of "Guernica."

Even 'Techies' May Just Not Get It

I’ve been involved in the technology world for over 15 years. And one thing I can say with certainty is there is no such thing as a technical person who “gets it all.” Technology, like any discipline, has many facets and segments. Folks that understand networking will know nothing at all about web services. People that are experts on search won’t have a clue about how encryption works. Database gurus can be imbeciles when it comes to managing wireless networks.

The challenge is that all of are guilty of painting all technologists with a broad brush. “He’s a techy so he’ll understand.” This creates two problems: 1) technical people tend to speak in the patois that is unique to their discipline – and never learn to speak in metaphors to ensure clarity, and, 2) we defer to the technical person in a company to make critical decisions – thinking s/he is getting it – when in fact, s/he might be as in the dark as we are, or worse!

Why do I mention this? It has to do with effective communication – or lack thereof by people who sell technical things/ideas/services to technical and non-technical people. And by communication I mean the human kind – not the networking type. The importance of this cuts on both sides of the fence.

If you assume everyone in the room understands the nuances of your technology you are potentially taking your product right out of the game. Let me show you how:

Company A has 3 professionals in the room. A “technical” domain manager – who is supposed to be the domain expert, a business one – who knows the business needs, and a higher level technical manager – who will actually sign the check. By only effectively communicating to the domain expert you have essentially eliminated the other two from the decision making process. If the domain expert doesn’t “get it” – or feels threatened by the new technology – you don’t have a snow-balls shot of making the sale.

If, on the other hand, you can effectively communicate with all three professionals – with metaphors, anecdotes and statistics – one person’s bias can be overridden by the other two.

So tips to communicating your technical product to a mixed crowd:

Assume everyone is not as technical as you are
This doesn’t mean speak in a condescending way – but enlighten with stories as you explain. People may have a rudimentary knowledge of your technology – but unless they are involved in the bits and bytes – probably are not going to be aware of the nuances. Use metaphors to make your points. A colleague and I both use “chocolate” as a metaphor for XML. Many people will never grasp the details of XML – but they can understand the concept of how melted chocolate can take on the characteristics of a mold – just like text in XML can be poured into a template.

Stop speaking in your patois
A Microsoft Word document cannot be understood in a WordPerfect application – unless it is saved in a neutral format. Do the same when you speak. Words like “shred,” “transform,” “hash” are technical concepts – that may mean slightly different things to people whom are technical – and may mean nothing at all to people whom are not. And technical people are the last people to ask for a definition. If they don’t understand what you are trying to convey, chances are they’ll just boot you. Instead define jargon and offer examples.

It’s About the Benefits, Stupid
Features are usually only of interest to Product Managers – and those clients whom have requested them. Benefits are what piques interest – and makes sales. But benefits are in the eye of the beholder. Technical people may look for speed, scale, ease of deployment. Business people will value increased efficiencies, minimal disruption to current workflows. Investors want to know how the product will hold up against competition. Analysts want you to pander to their language.

Former German Chancellor Willi Brandt once said, "If I'm selling to you, I speak your language. If I'm buying, dann mussen Sie Deutsch sprechen." You might find that by speaking the language your customers understands, translates to more sales.

The Role of Journalism Within the Press

The decade-long introspection of “the future of publishing” has twisted pubishing executives into Gordian knots. “Information wants to be free,” “Content can not be free.” “The Wall Street Journal charges,” “The WSJ has unique urgent business news – paid for with corporate expense accounts, not consumer ones,” so sayeth the pundits.

Pay-wall or no paywall, from mono-channel to multi, publishing has been forced by the disruption of the Internet, to evolve or perish. But should the burden of change be solely on the medium? Or should the creators of content be looked at as change agents – actively looking to revise the product? The challenge is the content creators have, in large part, been journalists. And as a group, they abhor change.

Publishing and journalism have been inextricably linked since the advent of the printing press, and journalism, throughout the world, is often understood to be a bulwark of democracy.

Indeed, when New York Weekly Journal editorial writer James Alexander lampooned New York's Royal Governor William Cosby for terminating New York's Chief Justice after the judge had ruled against the sovereign appointee. Governor Cosby had been appointed by King George II, to head the young colonial province in 1731. A vindictive and aristocratic ruler, Cosby had tried to justify the sacking in the Journal -- but the editorial page fought back. Finally, Cosby sued the paper's publisher, Peter Zenger for seditious libel. At the time, English law protected government against critics. In what has stood as a landmark ruling, Zenger's attorney, Alexander Hamilton, passionately defended the publisher and established that truth is an absolute defense against libel.

That victory for truth was a victory for democracy, and thereby elevated journalism, journalists and the press to be referred to as the fourth estate as well as the fourth branch of government. Keeping a watchful eye on democracy required being unfettered from the influences of commerce; hence the firewall between the newsroom and advertising had been inviolable. And with this sacrosantness -- came absolute power. Nary anything could be added or subtracted from the paper -- without the blessing of the newsroom.

However, in a world where publishing has been stood on its head by the disrupter of all disrupters, the Internet, forcing a rapid evolution of the medium, the sovereignty of the newsroom is at stake. If digital newspapers cannot survive – is it because the business model is bad – or because the product has not adapted to the needs of the people?

Early-stage investor Charlie O’Donnell asserts that people will pay for content if the product (and the payment model) are right, and cites products that are perfectly relevant to people’s lives. Outsell Analyst David Worlock concurs that an evolution is needed. He observes that “our customers have turned from a content-sharing and information-sharing environment to one that wants us to solve a problem.” Which may explain the rapid adoption of apps that help us find restaurants in cities, sales in malls, and sitters in NY.

But will people pay for that which journalists create? I am not debating the value of journalism to society. Journalism is often described as the (factual) reporting of trends, news and events, while the definition of the fourth branch of government was any group that supplied checks and balances on the government. For years the press held the edge of being sole watchdog of democracy. But in the new media, bloggers have assumed that role as well. That doesn’t mean that watchdog journalism needs to go away, but the press can’t stand on its laurels of thinking it is the only arbiter of the truth. As such, the value of watchdog journalism, like good parenting or nutritious food, is often lost on its benefactors -- until it is absent.

Will tomorrow's journalist morph into an oracle of answers to problems poised? It is possible. As journalists have more access to and comfort with technology, they will begin to mine the rich resources of their audiences to create news stories, including voices found in tweets and comments, and maybe some will be set up as experts in given areas. Some will also begin to lose some of their objectivity and proffer analysis along with their news, a trend seen recently in The New York Times, and commented on by its new Public Editor Arthur Brisbane.

But the real change will be in the hierarchy of the press. While we should continue to expect a veracity of our journalists, no longer should they have veto power over new technologies, new services, new sources of revenue for the entire organization. Keeping journalism at its best means freeing it from the shackles of holding the monopoly on content creation.

'Human Metadata' Shapes Experiences

I haven't had a chance to read Guy Deutscher's book “Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages,” being published this month by Metropolitan Books, but I read a fascinating excerpt in today's The New York Timess' Sunday Magazine.

Deutscher, an honorary research fellow at the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures at the University of Manchester, looks at different languages to examine whether they impose different contexts for its speakers. He cites for example how English speakers can be inexact about the gender in the following sentence: A friend came over last night., while in most other languages we would know whether that "friend" was male or female. (Totally unscholarly aside: might the English language ability to obfuscate gender allow us to create nonsensical laws like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and influence perceptions of homosexuality around the globe?)

Most languages required the individual to store gender with objects, (although not uniformly: the German bridge is feminine —the Spanish is masculine), whereas others use a mind-expanding geospatial method. Native Americans and indigenous Islanders apparently use N, S, E, W coordinates to relay location, whereas English and European languages use an egocentric method — in front, behind, etc. More interestingly, that "geospatial data" is actually stored in human memory!

Language apparently forces us to store a type of human metadata with every memory that shapes experiences, connotations and denotations. It is easy to infer how publishers providing mashups that rely on multiple types of metadata would enrich the experience to those who may think differently than the way the media originally thought they would.

6 Things About Unstructured Content You Need to Know

Unstructured data. As a writer I hate that term. I remember the first time I heard reference to it: sitting in a meeting and technical people were talking about all the unstructured content that publishers produce. How could they be speaking about articles as unstructured? If anyone has made it through kindergarten they have learned that they must follow a linguistic pattern or structure in order to communicate effectively. But in the lexicon of geekdom, any article, picture, powerpoint, video, song, user-generated content -- your kids' text messages -- are all: unstructured. Any "data" that does not fit nicely into a column or a row -- is considered unstructured.

Now, as much as I hate the term, there is a logic that places all content that didn't fall neatly into a table to be called unstructured versus structured. It was evident when classifieds first went online. Dumped from mainframes where customers paid by the character, people created their own short-hand to say 4BR House 4 Sale. Turns out though, that all that unstructure (which I prefer to say as free-form)  makes it very hard to search on. Don't believe me? Go to Craig's List -- which tries to impose structure on advertisements by putting it under broad categories and locations. Other than that -- it is pretty freestyle. Nannies are caregivers are sitters (baby or otherwise) -- and plural or otherwise. And search on one of those terms at the peril of not finding it under the other.

On the flip side are the sites that allow only structure: information fits neatly in a row or a table and has descriptive titles like Type of residence, # of Bedrooms, Siding, Price, MLS # etc. Having that structure makes it easy to query or search on that information. You probably have heard of SQL -- which is the acronym for Structured Query Language. Relational databases use SQL to find content -- by looking in the appropriate fields. Which is all well and good for content like financial information, inventories, human resources stuff. But what about the rest of the content that floats around a corporation? The memos, sales presentations, business plans, schematics, Web sites -- the stuff we sometimes refer to as: Knowledge - and which in geekdom is called unstructured content, are the digital assets we need to carefully manage.

So here's 6 Things You Need to Know About Unstructured Content.

1. It's everywhere. Analysts, pundits and people in the know estimate that more than 80% of content produced in an enterprise is unstructured
2. Content is containerized. Unstructured content resides in containers like .doc, .ppt, .tiff -- and you must have the right software application to read or edit it.
3. Managing unstructured content is hard. Because content resides in containers it is hard to know what it is in each one. 
4. XML is crucial for reuse and sharing. Sometimes called atomic or neutral format, XML is a language used to transmit content -- without burden of the container. Neutral content can be then "poured" into any template (Word, Web, PDF -- mobile apps!!!) for easier repurposing. If you have unstructured content (and most likely you have lots of it) it should be stored in an XML format.
5. Good metadata is essential. Once content is in an XML format, enrich it with semantic metadata. This is critical to letting knowledge workers find out what each asset is about
6. Native XML databases provide agility & efficiencies. Relational databases (RDBMS) are great for organizing and querying structured data -- while XML databases rock for unstructured content. You can make an RDBMS work with XML, but you will lose a lot in database performance (upwards of 30% is estimated by Forrester). ) -- Heck I will use a knife to tighten a screw -- but sometimes I need to go and get the Philips head.

Now let's look briefly at what all this means. You have tons of content that doesn't fit into tables and rows. Storing content in their original containers of powerpoints, word docs and PDFs makes it extraordinarily hard to share and repurpose this content -- since it's hard to search it -- and cutting and pasting becomes the only alternative. And when we are talking about sharing and repurposing, remember all the great mash-up apps that your content might be perfect for -- if only it were in a neutral format.

Look, I don't like the term Unstructured Content -- but the acronym of CTDFWICAR (Content that doesn't fit well in columns and rows) is hardly memorable -- and way too long. Semi-structured content (because XML actually follows schemas -- which makes it semi-structured, but that's for another day) is only half as horrible as unstructured. In any event, while it may be free-form -- this type of content is the lifeblood of any organization -- and deserves its own special database to help keep it valuable.

No Net Neutrality? The Ultimate Tax on Businesses & Society

Wanna watch conservative and libertarian eyes twitch: tell 'em we need more government oversight. No doubt they would point to the all-but-impotent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as yet another example of how government mucks things up. And they would be right, with only themselves (and Congress) to blame.

Set up in 1934 to "ensure that the American people have available -- at reasonable costs and without discrimination -- rapid, efficient, nation- and world-wide communications services," the FCC has been loaded with commissioners more concerned with areola than meaningful access. And the laws they have made (1996) deregulating the telcos but not dealing with the last mile until nearly a decade later, increased competition - but only to a point. The "last mile" is the euphemism for the customer -- and every long-distance new competitor that emerged in the 1990s -- had to pay the incumbent Bells a "toll" to bring the long-distance wire to the customer. Fast forward another 10 years, and through roll-ups, the FCC managed to pave the way to a new unregulated monopoly -- Verizon.

Which brings us to today's topic Net Neutrality -- or rather, Verizuhn'sNet, or as my favorite curmudgeon Jeff Jarvis decries: The Schminternet. Google and Verizon cobbled together a self-serving policy. Per the FCC edict: there would be no discrimination -- on wired services. But wireless and managed services? New ballgame. In fact, the business model already exists: it's called cable -- and you can only get your HBO if you pay for the mega movie package. Telco and Internet Law Professor Susan Crawford calls this a "science-fiction-quality loophole."

That Google has decided to cross the line and work with Verizon to end the Net-Neutrality stalemate is because the FCC created a blackhole instead of policies -- not that the courts have helped. None of the adults decided to man up -- so the corporations are. Funny, the libertarians and conservatives don't trust government -- but they want to trust the folks most likely to profit from any policy changes. Fox. Henhouse. Anyone?

So while the FCC is impotent and will remain so if the commissioners -- and Congress -- who pass insipid bills who are too busy fundraising rather than studying up on the subjects on which they are making laws,  perhaps we can rouse that other slightly older federal agency the FTC, who is supposed to be worried about trade and commerce, consumer protections and anti-competitive monopolies to see that what this mumbo-jumbo really is: a tax on small businesses and individuals. If they can't afford to pay, they won't be able to play. This regressive tax would unlevel the playing field -- stifling job creation and innovation by blocking those too small to ante from Schminternet services.

Oh and just in case there is any, ahem,  (no doubt) unintended discrimination, according to the GooVer proposal, one can file a complaint. A $2m penalty would be incurred by anyone in violation (see loopholes above to see if you have a snow-balls chance of winning).

And of course if the FTC won't step, we can always pray to the folks at FaceBook to do the opposite of whatever Google wants.