Welcome to Imagination's company blog. Here's where our people will share their great ideas about custom publishing and content marketing, and display their talents, professional and otherwise.
Guru Smackdown
1 Jul 2009
by Joel Witmer
Chris Anderson authors the new book Free.
Malcolm Gladwell offers some critical commentary in his review. A sample:
There are four strands of argument here: a technological claim (digital infrastructure is effectively Free), a psychological claim (consumers love Free), a procedural claim (Free means never having to make a judgment), and a commercial claim (the market created by the technological Free and the psychological Free can make you a lot of money). The only problem is that in the middle of laying out what he sees as the new business model of the digital age Anderson is forced to admit that one of his main case studies, YouTube, “has so far failed to make any money for Google.”
Chris Anderson responds to Gladwell.
My verdict: Gladwell 1 – Anderson 0
UPDATE: Tim Lee weighs in with a good response to Anderson’s critics.
Not-Bad Housing News!
30 Jun 2009
by Joel Witmer
Over the last year Imagination has done a video series on home buying for one of our clients. Not coincidentally, this series spurred me into buying a home and even using the client for my mortgage (ROI, ROI!). Now that I’m a home owner I pay much more attention to things like year-over-year property values, which is why these new housing numbers are of interest. Check it out:
The bad news is that home prices are still falling 18% year-over-year.
The good news is that the rate of decline appears to be reversing.
Here’s a summary from The Economist:
The headline number is a pretty good one; Year-over-year prices are off 18.1%, down from 18.7% in March and a better figure than forecast. Perhaps more importantly, 8 of the 20 markets followed by Case-Shiller saw a rise in their index value in April. The increases were widespread—markets from San Francisco, to Denver, to Cleveland, to Boston, to Washington, to Dallas saw a tick upward. The hardest hit markets still posted declines in prices, some large, but the rate of decline slowed across the board.
It’s good news, though times will continue to be difficult in home markets for some time to come. A large number of new purchases, particularly in the major bubble markets, are foreclosure or otherwise distressed sales. And while a bottom in home prices will likely bring a flood of buyers into the market hoping to buy at the lowest price available, it will also bring “shadow inventory” online—homes for sale by owners who had been waiting for markets to level off. In markets with large existing inventory, the dynamic will probably favour renewed downward pressure on prices.
The obvious conclusion from all this is that you should buy a home and use Wells Fargo for your mortgage, even if some still think home prices will fall another 10-15%.
Video: Inside Imagination Publishing
30 Jun 2009
by Michelle O'Hagan
Recently, Erin Dorr gave a tour of our offices to Tim Jahn, editor of the blog, Beyond the Pedway. Watch and learn more about Imagination Publishing and our custom publishing professionals. (hint: I think the video loads faster if you turn off the “HD” option).
Interview with Imagination Publishing (on BeyondThePedway.com) from Tim Jahn on Vimeo.
The Barbell Model Of Media
29 Jun 2009
by Joel Witmer
Felix Salmon weighs in on the media jobs:
My feeling is that there’s media jobs are looking pretty much like a barbell these days: you either work for a last-man-standing monolith or else you’re part of a small and nimble team. It’s the media properties in the middle — regional newspapers, small cable-TV properties, anything with high fixed costs and less than a million paying customers — which are suffering the most.
This is a pretty interesting theory, not the least of which because it can be summarized with a tidy infographic some social media expert really ought to make so that we can all better grasp the concept.
But I’d quibble with the notion that the middle of the barbell (the bar) can be treated as a single entity. In my mind there is still monetizable value in regional newspapers, even those with fewer than a million paying customers. While they may be suffering more than giant media congomorates they are distinctly more viable, in my opinion, than secondary intern/national newspapers like the Washington Post, a point Matthew Yglesias echoes. The Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun, two papers with a rich tradition of broad coverage, should probably be a warning to the Post.
It’s easy to see how a regional paper could adjust towards a streamlined, hyper local model that offers content relevant to its immediate audience while leaving broader coverage to the NYT, AP, Reuters, etc. It’s not as easy to see how a monolith like the Washington Post could so easily change course. But it probably will have to, right?
Social Networking And Iran
29 Jun 2009
by Joel Witmer
An interesting thought from Jim Kelly, speaking to David Corn at the Personal Democracy Forum:
[Kelly] has studied Internet usage in Iran. Kelly was telling me that he’s worried that social netowrking could interfere with successful organizing in Iran. How so? After all, such a remark sounded like blasphemy at this gathering, where speakers and attendees routinely speak of the transformative political power of the Internet.
Kelly explained that his concern was not related to a prospect that had been discussed at a panel discussionon social networks and Iran: that a repressive government can easily penetrate and/or block social networks to undermine or disrupt an opposition. Instead, Kelly said, he wondered if social networking–blogging, Twittering, forwarding email–gives people the feeling they are participating in an opposition and leads them to believe they don’t have to hit the streets.
Of course, Twitter and the rest can facilliate opposition by spreading the word about protest actions. But does social networking also undercut old-fashioned in-the-street networking? (It seems clear that autocratic governments tend not to yield power without being confronted physically and, often, violently.) I don’t know if Kelly is right or not. But it was interesting to hear him note that the sword of Twitter might have two edges.
Ad Rates On The Web
25 Jun 2009
by Joel Witmer
Via Bloomburg:
Television programs such as “The Simpsons” and “CSI” are for the first time commanding higher advertising rates at Web sites including Hulu.com and TV.com than on prime-time TV…
Marketers typically pay $20 to $40 per thousand viewers for a prime-time ad. On Hulu, which began offering shows to the public in March 2008, an ad on the animated series “The Simpsons” costs $60 per thousand viewers, Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. wrote in a June 18 report…
A “Simpsons” episode on Hulu has just 37 seconds of ads, Nathanson wrote. A broadcast episode has nine minutes and produces three times the revenue per viewer at half the price, he estimated.
“The networks should be very careful that the move to the Web does not cannibalize the core business,” Nathanson wrote.
Weep For Civilized Society
24 Jun 2009
by Joel Witmer
My friend Linda sends along the following article: Twitterature: 19 Year-Olds Score Twitter Book Deal.
Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman successfully sold the rights to the book to Penguin, the premise being that Tweets can refine literature “to its purest form”.
Twitter has a lot going for it. This is not one of those things.
AdLay
23 Jun 2009
by Joel Witmer
Tony and I are introducing a neologism today: AdLay.
Definition: An advertisement overlay that pops up during an online video.
Trends from the Money Men
23 Jun 2009
by Andy Schultz
Last week I attended a conference on Private Capital that reflected the optimism, pessimism and opportunity at the leading edge of our economy.
The meeting was a series of presentations, interviews and panel discussions on topics for the private equity industry and among the 230 attendees were private equity and venture capital firms, plus large banks and law firms specializing in deals-making.
On the optimistic side of the ledger, the current marketplace is teeming with investment opportunities. Those with free cash to spend can pick and choose among companies for sale at bargain rates; “distressed” assets of real property whose values are under water; and troubled divisions of major firms being cut loose from the balance sheet as “desperation carve-outs.” The problem is, few have the necessary cash to act, and the banks either aren’t lending or can’t lend because they are tied up in fiscal knots of their own devising on the prior lending fiascos that got us into this mess.
The few deals that are going forward feature “creative” financing, where the sellers become the bank and help the buyers, who with other investors are putting their own debt-free “skin in the game.” It’s a different world and we may never go back to the go-go days lately past.
Another arguably positive trend is that things are not-bad-to-downright-good for so-called Second World economies, led by China, India, Russia and Brazil. These non-Western economies are still growing at a rapid pace and there was a strong difference of opinion over whether China or India was the place to make a big bet.
Another key trend is that the debate over climate change is over, at least in an investment sense. The question of whether we are suffering from man-made warming or not has been overrun by the politics of energy independence and economic growth. These top gun investors believe in the potential of “clean tech,” “sustainable materials,” “alternative energy” and anything “green” as real and substantial growth opportunities.
The biggest take-away from the meeting– a keen desire and openness among these very sharp and accomplished businesspeople to re-engage each other and the world toward the task of revitalizing the economy.
Thank You, Gov’t Overlords
22 Jun 2009
by Joel Witmer
The Federal Trade Commission is considering expanding its authority to the blogosphere.
No commentary is necessary.
600 W. Fulton, Suite 600
Chicago, IL 60661
800.482.0776
312.887.1000
312.887.1003 (f)
© 2009 Imagination Publishing
privacy | terms of use
