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We d e s i g n h a p py c u s t o m e rs

Helping paper get upA future publishing concept for a media ecosystem

Concept Presentation, November 12th 2012Markus Sandelin (markus@fwd.fi)

The original presentation was originally made for a client, but we thought it was universal enough to release to the world. We

hope it will be of use to you as well. The approach was more books and magazines, but many things apply elsewhere as

well.

Markus Sandelin - in Helsinki, November 12th 2012

The 10 issues the media field will face next

1 “Building separate user interfaces will become unmanageable and too expensive.”

2 “The media companies have to start selling and adapt to the app store mentality.”

3 “Users aren’t looking for uniqueness, they are looking for compatibility.”

4 “Users want to buy once and consume wherever.”

5 “Media companies cannot survive by selling just their own products, they have to expand.”

6“Media companies publication processes for current and especially archive material are

antiquated.”

7“The amount of information is growing faster than we can consume it. Metadata and automation will

play a key role in the media future.”

8“The former CRM model media companies use is facing extinction, they will have to adapt a more

data driven model and automate segments.”

9 “Modern lay-outing will eventually lose to UI frameworks and modular publishing.”

10“The magazine format will change, expand and evolve in the near future. It cannot maintain the

amount of data without change.”

“Consumers don’t just buy products, they buy ecosystems.”

Kevin C. Tofel, GigaOM

The first two phases of digital publishing have passed.There have been winners and there have been losers.

1. Paid web content2. Kindle + iPhone

Like with most new technologies, the early versions were focused either on the product or the content producer. They

became invested in what they have now. MySpace learned this the hard way.

After Apple created its ecosystem, the walled gardens started to crumble. It was new and it was what the people wanted. It

was good, it still is good, but it won’t last the test of time.

It too is a walled garden, just bigger.

The concept is an ecosystem.

A good ecosystem allows the three E’s

Evolve Expand Enable

Ecosystems grow and die with their participants, those who are using the

ecosystems for their own benefit.

A ecosystem that does not actively try to expand to encompass other ecosystems

will stagnate and die.

A ecosystem is all about the survival of the fittest, a good ecosystem gives out

the best for the best and forgets the rest.

The new ecosystem consists of six parts

Reading

Discovering

Buying

Caring

Sharing

Administering

The act of consuming content and moving between different content no matter the device

The act of finding more content from the ecosystem, recommendations and browsing

The act of purchasing for the individual or group

The act of customer service, account management and portability

The act of making a note and/or sharing it in other services, pulling in other people

The art of running the whole show behind the scenes

What’s great about our concept that there’s nothing new with it. It is a collection of proven practices and lessons learned.

It is basically a mashup.

AReading

Reading

Discovering

Buying

Caring

Sharing

Administering

The book and the magazine have great user interfaces. So do the hundreds of digital designs imitating and/or disrupting

those interfaces.

From these existing solutions, there are existing standards that people expect to have. We’ll show you a few examples.

Let’s start with a unified design and layout, what we call a UI framework. Our example is

from Readability.

Text

Readability has mastered unified layouts.

Text

They have developed a proven UI framework.

Then there’s on how people move between content, we chose Amazon’s Kindle and Feedly iPad applications as our example.

Text

Kindle had to rethink moving between content.

Text

They took the convention from other digital media.

Text

And applied an unified UI framework.

Text

This same principle has been copied often afterwards.

Text

Like for example Feedly has done.

Where you have content, you have to keep it organized and be able to create collections, we went with Amazon, Google and

Feedly.

Text

Making lists is very human.

Text

Lists have become even more important now.

Text

Whether textual or visual.

A lot of data is only meant for single serving, that’s why there’s a need for a good data stream and the heroes there are

LinkedIn and Facebook.

Text

Data today is not constantly relevant.

Text

There’s too much of it, so the stream was invented.

All of these have already been done, our standards have been set.

In short, we believe there are already very clear and good conventions in consuming content and media. We can copy the

best principles and focus on the important matters.

The end of Reading

Next up, Discovering.

B Discovering

Reading

Discovering

Buying

Caring

Sharing

Administering

When we are able to read and consume content, move around it and organize it the way we want in any tool for consumption,

we can start searching for new content.

Discovering content grows from four corners: Promotions, semantic content, recommendations and searching.

You need proper tools for making and showing promotions, we think Apple’s App store and the Chrome store are great

examples.

Promotion

Show off the goods and maintain control.

Text

Some automated, some manual.

Spotify and StumbleUpon are great in showing more relevant content based on your decisions and actions.

Text

The more data, the more help we need to get started.

Text

Metadata and semantics are crucial.

Sometimes human touch is required for proper recommendations, but there’s always use for a good algorithm.

Our examples are from Spotify and Kindle store which have combined both.

Text

The power of recommendations still lives strong.

Text

Whether it comes from peers or machines.

If all else fails, we need to implement a good enough search, maybe even tailor a custom Google installation. The end users

like results like Steam and Kickstarter searches provide.

Text

The users know how to search.

Text

And we expect good results, every time.

Conventions have a tendency of being self-amplifying. In layman's terms this means: These are conventions people are

used to and the more familiar they feel, the more they will use it.

The media houses also have a massive history of content. With this model, we can deliver a massive archive without much

extra work and we can do that in big or small steps.

There are multiple generations of promotion tools and existing ecosystems that we can take as a foundation, helping us to save

our strength for the administrator tools.

The end of Discovering

Next up, Buying.

C Buying

Reading

Discovering

Buying

Caring

Sharing

Administering

Once people are able to read and find more content, we will help them to pay for said content.

There are a lot of conventions in buying for myself, but not so many where people can buy in bulk in a corporate setting. At

least in general ecommerce applications.

We’ll handle buying in three scenarios: Subscriptions for individuals, purchasing for individuals and subscriptions/

purchasing in bulk.

Managing subscriptions for individuals with Spotify and LinkedIn as the poster boys.

Text

Don’t hide the price, no one likes that.

Text

We are used to pay and consume.

Buying products for individuals is mastered by Amazon.

Text

Users are very used to buy products.

Text

Buying has to be at least as good.

The only “new” thing here is thinking how to fix buying and subscribing for groups, we think we can take a model from the

IT world. Our examples, Google Apps user management and billing and 37 signals suite management.

Text

Buying in bulk for media is new, but we cross over.

Text

The app scene has answered this already.

Subscriptions and purchases for individuals don’t require much thought, it’s been done so many times over. What we

should focus on are bulk and business users, that will be the killer app in our ecosystem.

The end of Buying

Next up, Caring.

D Caring

Reading

Discovering

Buying

Caring

Sharing

Administering

In order to buy and save content, the users need an account to store their data and purchases.

This too, has been done many times.

There are great examples of account management, we chose LinkedIn and Google.

Text

Self service and transparency is a must.

Text

And there are examples of this too.

Data portability is a must. We like how Google and 37 Signals have done it.

Text

Data portability doesn’t have to be too big.

Text

But doing it well makes you the good guy.

We feel that proper customer service can not be over emphasized and we like Get Satisfaction and Zendesk.

Text

Customer service can become a platform.

Text

But it doesn’t mean that the quality should suffer.

A good self service environment is a great boon for the ecosystem when done right, customer service will make or

break any newcomer to the market.

The end of Caring

Next up, Sharing.

E Sharing

Reading

Discovering

Buying

Caring

Sharing

Administering

Once we've created a happy customer, we help to share the experience.

Sharing happens everywhere, every day. Such as blogs, Facebook and Youtube, which are our example.

Text

You can do it on any site.

Text

All of Facebook is sharing.

Text

Not forgetting embedding and other types of sharing.

In a modern service, we also want to share with ourselves. We think we have great examples from Amazon and Spotify.

Text

For readers, notes are important.

Text

Such are personal data collections like playlists.

We should start with basic sharing and then improve it later after we have the rest of the ecosystem working. The basics are

simple: Lists, notes and links.

The end of Sharing

Next up, Administering.

F Admin

Reading

Discovering

Buying

Caring

Sharing

Administering

The user side is just half of the story, we need great admin tools to succeed.

Luckily, these tools are already known to us and our users are used to handle them. We take care of our own blogs,

advertising, communications and many other things. Here are a few examples.

Text

With Wordpress users know how to publish our content.

Text

Users know how to talk to our fans in Facebook.

Text

Users know how to advertise on Google and earn from it.

Text

Users know how to build web shops themselves.

Text

Users know what an ecosystem is, they understand it.

What we are trying to say, that everything has already been done. We just need to put it together in a different way that

hasn’t been done before.

Very similarly like Apple approaches product design.

Just like the whole western civilization and every single invention has developed through iteration.

(Steam engine development started in first century AD and the “beta” came out in 1698, the first proper release was by Thomas Newcomen in 1712)

Admin tools are amazingly important in any ecosystem. Whether it’s for customer service or promotion, adding new books or reading reports. They are paramount. They are our

chance to shine beyond others.

The end of Administering.

And now for something completely different.

That’s it, your new ecosystem.

Reading

Discovering

Buying

Caring

Sharing

Administering

The act of consuming content and moving between different content no matter the device

The act of finding more content from the ecosystem, recommendations and browsing

The act of purchasing for the individual or group

The act of customer service, account management and portability

The act of making a note and/or sharing it in other services, pulling in other people

The art of running the whole show behind the scenes

Thanks for your time.

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We d e s i g n h a p py c u s t o m e rs

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of

getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable

tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

Mark Twain

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We d e s i g n h a p py c u s t o m e rs

KiitosTackThanks

More information:

Markus SandelinDesigner

+358 44 36 99 887

markus.sandelin@fwd.fi

Lisäinfoa:

Markus VarhaAccount Director+358 44 36 99 887markus.varha@fwd.fi