Publishers Make a Plan: A ‘One Stop’ Book Site

Publishers have spent a lot of time and money building their own company Web sites with fresh information on their books and authors. The trouble is, very few book buyers visit them.

In search of an alternative, three major publishers said on Friday that they would create a new venture, called Bookish.com, which is expected to make its debut late this summer. The site intends to provide information for all things literary: suggestions on what books to buy, reviews of books, excerpts from books and news about authors. Visitors will also be able to buy books directly from the site or from other retailers and write recommendations and reviews for other readers.

The publishers — Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group USA and Hachette Book Group — hope the site will become a catch-all destination for readers in the way that music lovers visit Pitchfork.com for reviews and information. The AOL Huffington Post Media Group will provide advertising sales support and steer traffic to the site through its digital properties.

“There’s a frustration with book consumers that there’s no one-stop shopping when it comes to information about books and authors,” said Carolyn Reidy, the president and chief executive of Simon & Schuster. “We need to try to recreate the discovery of new books that currently happens in the physical environment, but which we don’t believe is currently happening online.”

As bookstore chains like Borders have liquidated many stores, pressure grows on publishers to depend less on brick-and-mortar retail outlets to promote their books. But few have found easy and effective ways to communicate directly with readers, who are already confounded by too many choices in the book marketplace.

“We thought it would be really good if we could come up with a site that embraced all the amazing marketing materials that publishers have been doing on their own sites and put them together on one site,” said David Shanks, the chief executive of Penguin. “With the purpose of answering the question for the consumer, ‘Which book should I read next?’?”

The venture will be led by Paulo Lemgruber, who developed digital businesses for Comcast and Reed Elsevier, and Charlie Rogers, the former editor in chief for digital media at NBC Universal. Mr. Rogers will be editor in chief of the site.

Mr. Lemgruber said he would have a staff of 20 people, who will select books from at least 14 participating publishers.

The three publishers that provided start-up financing have committed to financing the company until it becomes profitable. Mr. Lemgruber declined to say when he thought that would be.

He said that the creators found some inspiration in film sites like Imdb.com, Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix for their comprehensive content.

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Publishers Make a Plan: A ‘One Stop’ Book Site

Publishers have spent a lot of time and money building their own company Web sites with fresh information on their books and authors. The trouble is, very few book buyers visit them.

In search of an alternative, three major publishers said on Friday that they would create a new venture, called Bookish.com, which is expected to make its debut late this summer. The site intends to provide information for all things literary: suggestions on what books to buy, reviews of books, excerpts from books and news about authors. Visitors will also be able to buy books directly from the site or from other retailers and write recommendations and reviews for other readers.

The publishers — Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group USA and Hachette Book Group — hope the site will become a catch-all destination for readers in the way that music lovers visit Pitchfork.com for reviews and information. The AOL Huffington Post Media Group will provide advertising sales support and steer traffic to the site through its digital properties.

“There’s a frustration with book consumers that there’s no one-stop shopping when it comes to information about books and authors,” said Carolyn Reidy, the president and chief executive of Simon & Schuster. “We need to try to recreate the discovery of new books that currently happens in the physical environment, but which we don’t believe is currently happening online.”

As bookstore chains like Borders have liquidated many stores, pressure grows on publishers to depend less on brick-and-mortar retail outlets to promote their books. But few have found easy and effective ways to communicate directly with readers, who are already confounded by too many choices in the book marketplace.

“We thought it would be really good if we could come up with a site that embraced all the amazing marketing materials that publishers have been doing on their own sites and put them together on one site,” said David Shanks, the chief executive of Penguin. “With the purpose of answering the question for the consumer, ‘Which book should I read next?’?”

The venture will be led by Paulo Lemgruber, who developed digital businesses for Comcast and Reed Elsevier, and Charlie Rogers, the former editor in chief for digital media at NBC Universal. Mr. Rogers will be editor in chief of the site.

Mr. Lemgruber said he would have a staff of 20 people, who will select books from at least 14 participating publishers.

The three publishers that provided start-up financing have committed to financing the company until it becomes profitable. Mr. Lemgruber declined to say when he thought that would be.

He said that the creators found some inspiration in film sites like Imdb.com, Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix for their comprehensive content.

View the original article here

Bits: News Aggregator Zite Wants to Play Nice With Publishers

Zite, a news aggregator for the iPad whose app has irked major news publishers, said Monday that Mark Johnson, a longtime adviser to the company, would become its new chief executive.

But the announcement those news publishers were likely to focus on was Zite’s release of a new version of its app, which it calls a “personalized magazine.” It said it was intended to quell the criticism from publishers.

A month ago, Zite, which competes with other news aggregators like the well-financed Flipboard, Pulse and News.me, received a cease and desist letter signed by a long list of major publishers, including The Washington Post Company, Gannett, Dow Jones and The Associated Press. The publishers accused company, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, of using their intellectual property without permission.

Zite quickly defended itself. In a blog post, Ali Davar, the previous chief executive, said the company obtained content by crawling sites, much like search engines do, and that it would respect any site that asked not to be crawled. Mr. Davar, who is now Zite’s president, also said that while Zite stripped articles of ads to make formatting for reading easier, it would honor any publisher’s request to show the ads in “Web-view mode,” where they would appear just a they do on the publisher’s Web site.

“Zite is eager to work with publishers in a way that benefits everyone – most importantly end users,” Mr. Davar said.

In the new version of the Zite app, content that appears in Web-view mode will load faster and will be easier to share with others, Mr. Johnson said. Users will also be able to read content in Web mode without leaving the app.

“In complying with the [cease & desist], more content needs to be served in Web mode,” the company said on its blog. “So it’s important to us to improve the user experience for articles rendered in that view.”

Previously Mr. Johnson worked at Microsoft, as senior program manager at Bing. He joined Microsoft via its acquisition of Powerset. He previously worked at other hot start-ups, including SideStep, which was acquired by Kayak.com, and Kosmix, which Wal-Mart bought recently.

Mr. Johnson has worked as an adviser to Zite for nearly two years. The company, originally called Worio, has developed a technology that analyzes content a bit like Pandora analyses music, he said. As a result, it can recommend articles based on what a person has read, shared or liked, he said.

“Over the next six to nine months we want to work with innovative publishers to figure out monetization strategies that will make money for everyone,” Mr. Johnson said.

Zite, which plans to remain in Vancouver, will also open offices in the San Francisco area to tap local talent, Mr. Johnson said.

The market for aggregators that turn Web articles and links shared on Facebook and Twitter into digital versions of a customized magazine on the iPad has grown increasingly crowded. Flipboard, the best known of the services, recently said it had raised $50 million in financing. News.me, a site backed by publishers, including The New York Times Company, was released last week.