Ficci publicon-2011

Manish Dhingra

Co-Founder and Director

[email protected]

Digital Publishing – Unchartered Territory or

Greener Pastures

Digital Publishing –Unchartered Territory or Greener Pastures | Mediology Software

Confidential – Not to be replicated without permission from the authors

The above info graphic clearly highlights the reason why Digital Publishing is slowly

gaining momentum and is a must have for today’s publishing business.



Introduction

Over the last 4 years there has been a surge of interest on Digital Publishing and

consuming print content on digital devices. While there are several reasons that

have led to the built up of this interest, today Digital Publishing is more real and a

bigger opportunity as the world moves towards bridging all the geographic divides,

through technology and digitization.

Four main reasons have led to this being a paradigm which is here to stay.

1) New affordable set of devices: The iPad and a new set of Android powered

tablet devices have brought down the cost of owning and participating in

content consumption of Digital Devices. From the time when there used to be

one PC in a household to today every member of the household having their

own computing device, be it tablets or smart phones, the device access

factors which were until now stalling the revolution in the publishing industry

are now irrelevant.

2) Greater Connectivity: With a major improvement in the telecom

infrastructure, Wi-Fi and Broadband connectivity becoming more affordable,

along with 3G enablement on mobile devices, today the consumers are no

longer limited by Digital Access. Hence this brings in the perspective of an

always connected consumer who can easily access digitally published

content, at greater speeds.

3) Improved on Demand Computing: The emergence of Cloud Computing and

access to Cloud Computing setups like Amazon Web Services makes it

easier for businesses to setup and expand their computing infrastructure for

large loads. The services enable highly specialized use for storage,

computing, databases, emails and notifications.

4) Increased Social Media Penetration: Social Networking is slowly and

steadily taking over most of the content engagements which happen in the

digital world. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly being used to

create a highly interactive, social media optimized experience for content



publishers. Today publishers cannot ignore putting up a facebook like or a

twitter share widget on their sites. Hence to enable social sharing, content

needs to be available in a digitally hosted domain.

Why is the Digital Publishing Landscape so different?

While it is true that digital publishing is a very important trend in the industry and

should be looked at very closely, there are definitive reasons which have led to this

trend, and where knowledge of technology are most important.

1. Changing consumer preferences: With the advent of internet, the computer

started to become the preferred device for consuming real time content like

news. Mobile and e-reading devices like the iPad, the Galaxy Tab and Kindle

have made digital reading possible and convenient for other forms of content

like magazines and books.

2. High costs of distribution: Print is difficult to distribute and limited in reach.

The cost of paper, coupled with cost of transport and delivery makes digital

publishing very attractive.

3. Competition from new media: New Internet based technologies such as

blogging; micro-blogging and social networking have led to a drastic erosion

of readers from traditional print publishers forcing them to adapt themselves to

the digital media.

4. Carbon footprint: Paper is produced from cutting trees and there is an

increasing concern around the environmental impact of the same.

The Need for a Digital Publishing Platform

Unlike traditional print publishing, Digital Publishing is a more complex and dynamic

endeavour. Traditionally, publishing had two major aspects – content and layout.

However, in the digital world, apart from content and its layout, publishers also need

to think about making their content interactive, social and discoverable. Furthermore,



monetization of digital content is radically different from the old approach of selling

ad space in newspapers.

As the number of devices (be it mobile phones, e-readers or tablets) continue to

increase, publishers need a platform where they can create their content once and

then be able to publish it and monetize on all possible digital media.

A Digital Publishing Platform would hence contain the following elements

1. Interactive content creation: A web-based system to allow publishers to add

interactive elements like videos, slide shows, opinion polls etc. to their existing

static content.

2. Content digitization and optimization for various media: Ability to create

content once and then optimize it for distribution through the web, various

mobile devices, e-readers and tablets.

3. Social Media integration: Allow users to share content with their social

network and find out content being read or recommended by their friends.

4. Analytics: Ability to track and analyse readership data segmented by

devices, geography, demography etc.

5. Hyper local Targeting: There are several large media companies that have

very regional and local publications. The publications using a combination of

geo tracking and advertisement targeting can enable effective local

distribution.

6. Monetization: Inbuilt ad-serving capabilities optimized for specific devices

and modes of content consumption.

Where are the Revenue Sources

Digital Publishing opens up completely new avenues to revenue generation. Some of

the perspectives allow for revenue generation from pre-created content, which



effectively means a much greater return on investment. So of the newer modes of

revenue generation are highlighted below:

Subscription Sales

Publishers can choose to sell some or all of their Publications online, through a point

and click subscription based mechanism, today it is ever so easy to subscribe to

content which gets delivered to your inbox very easily.

It has been typically observed that niche content genres like personal finance,

education, career development, medical and travel are more relevant to subscription

based sales, since such content has a greater shelf life and a highly targeted

audience which understands the value of the subscription.

However if the content is generic, like local newspapers, news magazines, lifestyle

magazines, then that content is better off being distributed free, on a digital platform.

Nevertheless, even if that content is distributed free, the opportunities for revenue

generation are still available, primarily through Advertising.

Advertising Sales

Ever since the start of the internet age, spanning to almost 20 years now, digital

advertising has been the main stay of revenue generation from content forays on the

web.

So it is no different here to that Advertising Sales will play a major role in this space.

The difference however lies in the fact that the cost of putting your content up on the

digital platform is almost zero for an existing publisher.

The above is coupled with the fact that as access to news on various digital devices

increases, new ad-solutions which allow for a more immersive advertising

experience is emerging. Mobile Advertising networks like AdMob (Now owned by

Google) and InMobi are catering to this new genre of advertising.



Lead Generation and Newer Ad Formats

The Digital Publishing industry like any new industry has also brought in new

opportunities for enhanced, more interactive ad formats.

As we saw in previous years, every time a new publishing trend has come into being,

new advertising opportunities have cropped up. Similarly there are numerous new

possibilities in Digital Advertising, which are becoming more relevant to digital

publishing.

0.56

2.6

4.75

0.94 2.1

6.14 6.29 6.99

2.68 1.08

0

2

4

6

8

CPM Rates across categories (USD)

CPM

The Indian Internet Advertising Industry has seen robust growth in the last 5 years. Internet &

Mobile Association in India (IAMAI) predicts at least a 28-30% growth in these numbers over FY

2011 – 2012.

As per Comscore data,

on Display Advertising

Categories for 2010

newspaper sites attract

the highest CPM rates

from the advertisers,

owing to constantly

changing content and

greater interest in

world affairs among

the masses.



1980

• Online Advertising

1993

• First Clickable Banner Ad

1996

• First Ad-server

1998

• Yahoo! Advertising, PPC

2003

• Google Site Targeting

2006

• Admob, Mobile Advertising

2010

• iAd, Apple Inc

2011-2015

• New Formats for Digital Publishing

Interest Point

Augmentation is a format

of Advertising which

consists of providing

interactive opportunities

to consumers, to associate

directly with the content.

This could be through

hyperlinks which are

linked to advertiser sites

or lead generation forms

which allow for the

readers to associate with

the advertiser.



A Peek into the Future, What’s coming?

Augmented Ad section which enable lead

Ficci publicon-2011

Technology

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