BBC Have Your Say is moving out into the wilds of the web and joining the conversation where it happens – link [via Peter Brantley]
This is surely a significant move that publishers should watch with interest. The BBC is testing the waters of not hosting the discussion.
One of the answers to MBQ (My Big Question: why visit a publisher’s website?) contains ‘discussions and user generated content’ in it somewhere. If the best stuff about your book of the moment can be easily found, and neatly aggregated, on the publisher’s site then surely surely surely that’s a good reason to visit the site. Right?
Perhaps, though, if the publisher joins the conversation you’re already having on Phreadz or Qik or Twitter, then that is a good reason to visit their site – to find out more about the book at source… to see what else the publisher’s saying about other books… and so on.
There are real advantages, too, for the publisher in creating and stimulating discussion (i.e. ‘undertaking customer engagement’) on other people’s servers where the storage and serving of the content is someone else’s problem (sorry, can’t help being pragmatic, as ever). The stock disadvantage to this, of course, is that you’re not as directly in control of your own content anymore, or people’s interaction with it. But that’s the point, isn’t it?
The point: joining the conversation, whereever and however it’s happening, is an open impulse; it is a release of control and a shifting of roles. And I think another answer to MBQ, if not the answer for a while at least, is that people will come to your site if you make it into a purple cow [tips hat to Seth Godin] – shift the roles, change the content, flip the structure over, and generally do things in a new, unexpected way that connects with readers.
6 Comments
Believing that you have to host your own content is one of the things that’s always puzzled me about publishing companies. Why go through all the cost and effort of creating a bespoke embedded video player, for example, when YouTube is sitting there ready to be used?
Like you say, it’s a control issue, and I guess publishers have always liked to be in control.
But publishers should defintely get out into where the discussions are taking place on the web. Why not utilise the caché that automatically comes with their name and brand to promote what they’ve got to say? It’s a way of reaching out to their readers and letting them know that they still exist, and ultimately that they’re still relevant. And of course, it’s always a way of bring punters back to their websites.
Hi,
“joining the conversation, whereever and however it’s happening”
You’ve hit the nail on the head on one of the main things that Phreadz is all about – as well as also providing the means to start or join a conversation from Phreadz itself.
I built it to support all the places which I and many others like to use all the time. 3rd party APIs have made it possible to do this. Phreadz will also have a full read/post API to enable people to present these ’social multimedia conversation threads’ in many ways, environments and on different devices (if the media type of the post is supported) and provide a way to build interesting and useful communication and sharing tools on top of Phreadz as a platform.
Exciting times!
Kosso
Founder : Phreadz Networks Ltd.
Incidentally, we actually have a Books channel on Phreadz, where people talk about what they’re reading.
It would be a *great* place for authors and publishers to connect with their readers and customers.
Kosso
I think you make some good points here, but the problem with ‘joining the conversation on Phreadz, or Qik or Twitter’ is that 99% of readers still have no idea what these platforms are. I work in publishing, and this is the problem I think with a lot of ‘exciting digital publishing/marketing’ developments – they’re all very well if they’re targetted at an early-adopter market for, say, Science Fiction and Fantasy. Not many readers of historical fiction, or ‘reading group’ women’s fiction will be having a conversation about it on Twitter (or on a publisher’s website, probably, but at least that’s a concept which is slightly clearer to readers now). I think digital marketeers need to remember how very technologically backward a lot of readers still are – what they want to do online is talk and read about books, and not necessarily be connected with in an ‘unexpected’ way. As an example, the language and many of the phrases used on The Digitalist would be baffling to your average book-buyer.
We reckon people don’t bother to visit publisher’s websites (unless they are very very big), so we re-thought what Canongate stands for and built a website based on the seeking out of great work, any great work. It’s still in beta, but it’s getting there. We’ve also got Twitter and Facebook and we reckon getting in touch with people via BookCrossing and Goodreads is vitally important to our communications with readers.
Like Matthew says 99% or people have no idea about twitter, a lot of people still have no idea what an RSS feed is for, or what is the point of a blog. And for those who do know about all the new possibilities, it’s too easy to get carried away.
Just because it’s out there, it doesn’t mean it will work for you. I can see some advantages of not hosting the discussion, but the big disadvantage is if the discussion is all over the place, how will anyone know where it is?