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.