I have been pleasantly surprised by Twitter’s cost-effectiveness as an advertising medium. For little or no cost (the effort in composing a 140 character message) the system has been routinely generating 10-20 mostly US-based clicks to the Nimble Books Store per tweet. By way of contrast generating the same number of clicks via Google AdWords costs me anywhere from $3 to $10. (I don’t have good data yet about conversion rates). For 2010 I am going to experiment more systematically with an extensive Twitter-based ad campaign. Accordingly, if you Twitter, please:
a) forward me your Twitter handle and follow http://twitter.com/nimblebooks
b) forward me a list of Twitter friends and hashtag channels that you follow regularly
c) Tweet about your book once a month and include @nimblebooks in the messsage
d) RT anything you see from @nimblebooks that looks interesting to your network.
Chrome Frame is a new browser plug-in developed by Google to give you a Chrome browsing experience inside of Internet Explorer. Let me restate that slightly to make it more clear: Chrome Frame turns IE into Chrome.
Yes, it’s both hilarious and awesome (or hilariously awesome, if you will) that Google seems to dislike IE so much that it has spent its own time improving it. Google claims its goals are noble. Talking to Group Product Manager Mike Smith and Software Engineer Alex Russell, they tell us that they simply want to make a more seamless web experience for both web users and developers. That said, they are only targeting one browser, IE, right now.
via Google Has A Solution For Internet Explorer: Turn It Into Chrome .
I thought I would report the results of some experimentation with Twitter. I
have been using the web-based program Hootsuite.com to schedule Tweets, usually
one or two per day, on a “book of the day” from my list of ~100 titles. So far, the results have been encouraging. I use the URL-shortening service Bit.ly to track clicks per Tweet. Right now, with ~530 followers, I am getting from 10 to 18 clicks per Tweet, with a high of 45 for one title (MARINE OF THE IMPERIAL GUARD, which has the magic word “Marine”). While it’s difficult to track conversions for a variety of technical reasons, I am observing daily sales spikes that correspond to the books being Tweeted–generally speaking, 1-2 sales per Tweet over the “background” ales.
I can’t help but observe that this seems to be more cost effective than my Google AdWords campaign, which costs me ~$0.50 CPC and doesn’t seem to be as effective at converting. I am thinking about discontinuing the Google Adwords at the new year and switching entirely to a Twitter-based program.
Will future Presidents express strategic goals in terms of Twitter graph theory? That is almost a certainty.
via Evolution of a Revolution: Visualizing Millions of Iran Tweets .
It’s almost a certainty that no President will ever mention graph theory.
This reverses everything I thought I knew about the PC market.
Move over Microsoft. Apple can claim big, big market share numbers, too. According to NPD, in June, nine out of 10 dollars spent on computers costing $1,000 or more went to Apple. Mac revenue market share in the “premium” price segment was 91 percent, up from 88 percent in May.
By the way, Apple’s command of the premium market is way up from first quarter 2008, when, according to NPD, Mac revenue share was 66 percent. Gee, and it seemed so high when I broke that story.
via Apple has 91% of market for $1,000+ PCs, says NPD | Betanews.
Today’s announcement of the Plastic Logic/B&N partnership was interesting.
Although it’s not mentioned iin the article, I see that they claim to support PDF.
these include such standard and widely available formats as PDF, ePub and Microsoft Office document types. Information on creating content that is optimized for easy viewing and user interaction on a Plastic Logic eReader will be available through our Publisher Program.
But experience is that “support” for PDF is a vague term that often means less than it appears.
I realize that the persnickety tech details of PDF support may not seem worth including in an article aimed at a general business audience, but let me try to explain why journalists should always try to get the exact details about PDF support in articles about e-book readers.
My view is that true, full-fledged support for PDF is the key step that will open the floodgates for an iPod-like transformation of publishing, for the simple reasons that 1) every publisher already has every book in their collection availablle in PDF and 2) PDF is the only choice for a no-compromises reading experience that takes full advantage of print’s 500+ years of readability testing (Gutenberg, Caslon, Goudy …) This is where Google is heading with Google Editions: PDFs on the PC.
A couple more of my assumptions:
- E-readers will always be a small fraction of the installed base of PCs.
- Smartphones and “handhelds” will always be a less satisfying reading experience than true “codex” book size, 5.5 x 8.5 ” or greater.
What this means, for a journalistic hook, is that the question whether the manufacturer truly supports PDF is a marker for whether they are placing their money on Google, or Amazon for the long run. (And as the WSJ article notes, even Amazon is preserving the option to bet against itself …)
Barnes & Noble Inc. stepped onto the nascent electronic-book battleground with Amazon.com Inc. and Sony Corp. on Monday, saying it would launch its own e-bookstore with bestsellers priced at $9.99, in line with its rivals.
via Barnes & Noble Challenges Amazon’s Kindle – WSJ.com.
Who has exorbitant prices, other than scientific, academic, and professional publishers?
Mr. Turvey said that Google would probably allow publishers to charge consumers the same price for digital editions as they do for new hardcover versions. He said Google would reserve the right to adjust prices that it deemed “exorbitant.”
via Poised to Sell E-Books, Google Takes On Amazon – NYTimes.com.
Publishers Marketplace scoops world!
One major aspect of Edition not yet reported is that it will allow online retailers to sell the digital books directly from their site, with Google playing the role of electronic distributor. The selling feature is linked to Preview, the program that already lets retailers present the ability to browse inside Partner books.
via Publishers Lunch Deluxe: Closer Reading of Google Edition.
Is Google Editions the death of e-books?
I don’t think so … sitting upright at a PC will never be the best way to read a long complex document.
Google Editions is the coming out party for “cloud publishing” where content is purchased, but never physically owned. Cloud publishing is where downloading will only be done to enable offline access, not ownership. If this works, we won’t care about epub, we wont care about Digital Editions vs. Mobipocket vs. Kindle Reader. All we will need is a device with a browser that allows us to log on to our Google Account and install Google Gears.
via Ceci n’est pas un ebook « Black Plastic Glasses.
Insanely credulous article makes one question the credibility of VentureBeat.
Most useful link is in the comments:
To give Acrobat.com Presentations a spin, visit http://labs.acrobat.com/
Acrobat.com, Adobe’s website of free office software, is unveiling a new tool today that marks the early steps towards competing with PowerPoint, the ubiquitous presentation-making software in Microsoft Office. As a part of Acrobat.com Labs, Presentations is still in early testing mode, with many features still to come. But judging from the demonstration that Adobe’s Erik Larson gave me last week (including a presentation made in Acrobat.com Presentations, naturally), there’s a solid core for Adobe to build around.
I haven’t actually used Presentations yet
via Acrobat.com challenges PowerPoint with collaborative presentations » VentureBeat.
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