E-Publishing

Mitch Gelman, vice president of quality for local content network Examiner.com, released a white paper Tuesday, Identifying Quality Content Online — Efficiently and Effectively, with the goal of answering the question: How is it possible to identify and promote the best news, information, and advice pieces on sites that empower the general public to contribute?

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.

I’m obsessed with the tangible. I read books—yes, real books, those paper things that come bound with cover pages and indexes and page numbers. I like the way they smell, a smell that can’t be replicated on an iPad or Kindle. I want evidence. Stone cold, hard copy facts. No digital boarding passes for me.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced a $975,000 grant to be used by The Texas Tribune and The Bay Citizen to develop an open-source publishing platform for online news organizations to use free-of-charge.

The two nonprofit online news sources said the goals of the platform they will develop are to enable other online news organizations to engage with readers, manage content, and raise revenue, and the platform should be inexpensive to implement, yet flexible enough to keep up the pace with innovations in the industry.

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Eight new sites have joined Complex Media Network, an entertainment and lifestyle portal aimed at men 18-34. The network now totals 61 sites, 28 million unique monthly visitors, and 282 million page views.

Complex Media also announced the addition of 21 sites in early November.

The eight sides added Tuesday are: online design magazine Yanko Design; Kineda, a street-wear and lifestyle brand; hip-hop and R&B site DJBooth.net; urban culture hub Refined Hype; GeekTyrant, a source of geek-movie news; fighting-game community site Shoryuken; football and hip-hop culture site 6 Magazine; and sports-news site Ball Junkie.

Every Friday, mbStartups joins GalleyCat editor Jason Boog on the Morning Media Menu to discuss the week’s biggest headlines.

Now that indie bloggers can post alongside seasoned journalists on the Huffington Post and eBooks can pop up on Amazon next to bestsellers, the question becomes, which writers should be paid, and how much? Today on the Morning Media Menu, Kirkus Reviews lent us their indie editor Perry Crowe to weigh in on this week’s headlines and share advice with writers who are fed up with the publishing industry.

Kirkus is an 80-year-old book review publication that was purchased by Indiana Pacers’ owner Herb Simon after it was shut down at the end of 2009. Â  On Tuesday of this week, the company relaunched its website. “Kirkus is making a big push to own the area of book discovery,” said Crowe, “which is basically helping people find books that they’d like to read.” In response to the shift, Kirkus’ paid review service, Kirkus Discoveries, has been rebranded as Kirkus Indie, and Crowe said the reviews will be better integrated with the other verticals, such as fiction and nonfiction, to level the playing field for independent writers.

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mbStartups is pleased to announce the Startup of the Week: a weekly post dedicated to the newest faces in new media.

This week marketing guru Seth Godin released his new book, Poke the Box through his own publishing venture, The Domino Project, which is powered by Amazon. Godin is not the first bestseller to break away from traditional publishing. A startup called FastPencil has similarly lured established authors away from their publishers with FastPencil Premiere, a platform that promises a full buffet of services, coffee-table quality and a greater cut of the profits. We recently spoke with co-founder and CEO Steve Wilson about how published and indie authors can create a domino effect of their own.

How it Works

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The latest addition to the list of online content-syndication services comes from Free Range Content: Repost.Us, a Web-based solution that debuts Tuesday, is fully automated, removing the human element and allowing publishers and content creators to share content.

However, the original content does not appear on syndicators’ sites: Repost.Us issue embed codes, loading content directly from its origination site into the reader’s browser, guaranteeing content integrity and ensuring that the original publisher remains the primary search destination.

Publishers and content creators can choose from four monetization options: embedded advertising from Repost.Us; embedded advertising from the publisher; paid syndication with tiered pricing based on number of impressions (page views); or free syndication (including open licenses such as Creative Commons).

Partners at launch include Worldcrunch, The EDGE Gay Media Network, Spot.us, and FanSided.

The CEO of Free Range, which was founded in January 2010, is John Pettitt, founder of Cybersource and Beyond.com.

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Google returned Apple’s serve from Tuesday, except that Apple has the dominant tablet behind its serve in the iPad, while Google is relying on recently introduced Android devices.

Chairman Eric Schmidt introduced Google One Pass, its answer to the App Store subscription model announced by Apple Tuesday.

The two major differences: Google will keep 10 percent of revenue from sales, as opposed to 30 percent for Apple; and, as reported by TechCrunch, information collected by Google will be shared with publishers, unlike Apple.

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Digital-publishing-technology provider NewspaperDirect railed against Apple’s subscription policy for content-based apps via its App Store, and the company also announced that ASUS will use its technology to offer newspaper content across its line of digital platforms.

In a statement on The PressDisplay Blog, NewspaperDirect said:

It is unjustifiable for a hardware-device manufacturer to charge 30 percent on a transaction that costs them less than 5 percent to perform.

It is inexcusable to force publishers to comply with a manufacturer’s tiered subscription levels under that manufacturer’s terms and conditions not just on its own iOS devices, but on whatever platform the publisher supports under their subscription plan (e.g. Android or BlackBerry, or even PCs).

Apple’s personal data policy is completely self-serving, helping neither publishers nor their subscribers.

Offering opt-in choices for subscribers to share their personal data with publishers is fine for single copy sales, but when a user specifically subscribes to a publisher’s content, the publisher should have access to the personal data of its subscribers. These are not Apple subscribers; these are the publisher’s subscribers.

In a world where personalization is becoming more and more important, publishers must be able to tailor content to the preferences of their subscribers. Under Apple’s policy, this will not be possible.

And what is even worse is that publishers will not be able to count these subscribers in their audited circulation. Ridiculous!

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Students from Northeastern University and Emerson College will contribute neighborhood news to Your Town, Boston.com‘s network of hyperlocal news sites, under terms of separate agreements with both universities.

There are currently 50 Your Town sites up and running, covering neighborhoods or towns in and around Boston.

The Boston Globe regional editor David Dahl said:

We’re delighted with this collaboration. It provides Your Town readers with even more local coverage and enriches the educational experience of Emerson and Northeastern students.

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