The Romantic Semantic Web 3.0 Is Here to Stay (and it was here all along)

By Felice Bochman, special to The Content Wrangler

Web 3.0 should allow people to have a better online experience.

So said uber tech gurus, Mark Greaves formerly of DARPA (and currently of Vulcan) and Alex Iskold of GetGlue, some time ago.

So true.

On January, 26 and 27, in Santa Clara, CA, Mediabistro hosted a Web 3.0 Conference for some straight-talk and much brainstorming (by big guns at companies such as Mojiva, Primal Fusion, Thoora, and more) about the semantic web.

What is the semantic web, fondly known as Web 3.0 (and sometimes known as the contextual web)? Here it is in nine words, distilled from a jargon-heavy conference: user-experience, meaning, intent, story, relevance, mobile, data, share, and free.

Want it in one? Real. (Really real…as in less contrived.)

Web 3.0 is not quite your mother’s web, though Web 2.0 has indeed put us into position.

What happened to Web 2.0? Nothing.

The web  is and always was a semantic entity anyway so don’t get all twitched-out about a new name or a giant explosion on a certain date or anything.  This is about an evolution in meaningful, interactive web experience that’s the result of improving technologies and innovation so constant it’s happening while I write this. Think of it as a big, soft upgrade.

Yummy.

But if you feel like you have muffin-top when it comes to Web 2.0, you’re on track.  It’s too tight.  While Web 2.0 isn’t failing (yet), it is going to pass into history sooner than later. As with “muffin-top” and your too-tight pants, there are two solutions for your jiggly Web 2.0 practices:

• firm up
• and get bigger pants

Luckily, for Web 3.0, these are not mutually exclusive directives…hallelujah.

Is it all good?  Yes…even though parts of it may ding others as some technologies race ahead and others lag behind. And, yes, if you get on board and get educated.  If you don’t, it’ll be a slow and kinda painful “see ya later” as your site drowns in its own and other data.

Whether you’re in content, search, marketing, product, or research, you need the semantic web to help bring you back to earth, well, okay, to your user’s earth where they are trying like mad to manage, link, engage in, and otherwise grapple with the flood of data (generated by our own use).

Don’t panic.  Build basics.

Marketing

Right off the bat, let me answer two burning Web 3.0 questions for marketing folks who want the scoop on ROI:

• Twitter or something like it (as in maybe/maybe not the Twitter brand) has staying-power. The “tweet”-ness of this application is permanent. Don’t overlook that branding swipe either…a name isn’t bank and if people can’t find what they want with you, they’ll find it elsewhere. In fact, they already are. That means driving branding efforts to further define your company will be more important than ever…not less so.
• Pay-for-Performance is eventually going to overtake Pay-per-Impression.  Love it or leave it.
• If you haven’t taken mobile seriously, go to Mojiva and don’t waste another second. You cannot miss the mark on mobile—even if it takes you some time to figure it out – get started.

Speaking of  Mojiva, Branden Claisse, Director of Business Development and Media Sales at Mojiva, Inc. has this to say about  marketing in the semantic web atmosphere: it’s about data and user intent. Marketing services, such as Mojiva, don’t need to understand that much about your business.  They need YOU to understand your business. The semantic web can mine for ways to more deeply integrate your user’s experience of the market and serve them with better options.  And, if you have global in mind, mobile isn’t a choice…it’s mandatory or you’ll miss as much as half of your potential market.  Sounds like a lot, huh?  It is.

Claisse reports that reach, penetration of the smart phone, and explosion of content on the application side are they key factors which have altered  the web so drastically in just the last year. And, he warns companies against the misconception that this is some kind of “young person’s” phenomenon..all that mobile stuff and devices.  “Look around you and see the mobile use in action,” Claisse says pointedly. (Actually, I’m seeing it now…Moms in their 40’s at Big Name Coffee Place pushing strollers…doesn’t seem like some young person’s thing to me.)

But what about the metrics?  Those are changing too (sorry, folks but it was inevitable…Mojiva can help you though). Think “dwell time” and “time spent” as growing in importance over the ubiquitous “click.” Luckily, there’s no 1-answer for everybody (that’s very sem-web, by the way).  Claisse urges companies to really understand their own goals and needs.  When it comes to expanding into mobile, it simply gives your users a more targeted and relevant experience. And, think less about writing or marketing to the web, think more in terms your company’s story and the things which are relevant to your user base, whether small or large.  This…in case you felt your ears burning…has to do with the whole concept of “real” that I mentioned above and it’ll work for marketeers, publishers, and web writers alike.  More important, it plays a huge role in the feeling your user base gets from you..definitely don’t want their ears burning. It impacts customer loyalty.

On the concept of “real,” Claisse is convincing.  It goes straight to the heart of branding in the semantic web atmosphere.  Take social media for example.  Whether the current big name lasts as a brand is an unknown, but as a function it will grow.  But, more and more the barrier to effective social media functionality is how to manufacture real.  Sounds like a contradiction in terms but it isn’t.  How can companies message to real? Claisse said you have to aim for as true a connection as possible and experience that “tingly feeling.” (If I’ve ever heard something like a meaningful intangible actually voiced by a web pro, this is certainly it. I like this kind of web.)  In fairness to Branden Claisse, don’t let the “tingly feeling” fool you…it’s not a warm and fuzzy accident.

That “tingling feeling” isn’t something you should ignore. Case in point? Check out the concept of thought networking. Peter Sweeney, Founder and CTO, at  Primal Fusion says that although the value proposition offered by social networking will remain constant, better technology is going to bring more knowledge-based applications to bear on the social web. That’s good news, I think.  We’re all getting a little tired of the whole “friending” thing (real friends notwithstanding, of course).

Gathering knowledge via social media and/or one’s social network is becoming the search mode of the future.  Might be a little tough to get your head around it, but think of the social side of the web as a platform for people connecting to other people and then the “non-social” side as the use of these relationships as intermediary channels for search queries or for needed business information.  Sweeney says social networking connections are for more than just your vacation photos (okay, that’s probably the understatement of the year) but can indeed also be the conduit for finding experts and expert content.  Current social networks just do not do a good job at mediating knowledge, according to Sweeney.

What the heck does this mean for you, your company, and the social web in general?

Here’s where it’s going: semantic knowledge networks that function without the baggage of social networks (or simply without the social part of social networks). This industry, Sweeney says, is “ripe for disruption.” That means innovation is needed now and is already happening in real time. Sage-like, Sweeney confirms that you just can’t use the old ways and expect a new result. Semantic web doesn’t work like that.  There’s no magic or fairy dust to sprinkle over degrading Web 2.0 “stuff” – it has to change before it gets better or offers new, more precise and more usable results.

To drive the point home, Sweeney suggest the above is akin to the industrialization of social media…it’s not about being social, it’s about machine automation.  Industrialization of social media is NOT going to happen along with the development social media…an important distinction that will have huge impact on productivity options.  But, Sweeney warns that if you think social media is the end of the story, you’re missing it.  You’ll miss the massive potential of the social web as a productive channel for marketing.  Again, think hard, start slow…but get started. He sites The Huffington Post, BBC, and NYT as media companies who are successfully embracing social media while pushing on the potential for marketing (at least it isn’t someone we’ve never heard of). De-couple the automation of the industrialized social web from the social side of social networking…yet don’t think of them as binary.  Confused?  Don’t be.  Just think about it in terms of tasks and intent.  Thing about what your user’s intentions are when they’re using social networking platforms and how (and if) these intentions pertain to your company.
Joining us in the discussion of Primal Fusion’s industry contributions was Derrick Cho, Director of Sales and Marketing at the company. Get an invitation to try Primal Fusion’s alpha and you can see for yourself what thought networking can do for you. In the very near future, Primal Fusion will make it very easy for you to sign up and try them on for size, so keep an eye on their site.

Content

There’s a lot to say about Web 3.0 and changing notions of authorship.  Part of the change will involve how companies value content and decide to monetize it.  Sounds like a no-brainer but it’s going to take a while to evolve…good and bad.  At two ends of the writing and news media spectrum are Demand Media and it’s gazillion underpaid writers but oodles of connected content and the more hyper-local, power-to-the-people, The Sacramento Press and their new product, SLOAN, to help local folks get their ads up. Situated also in the semantic news media phenomenon is the actual phenom that is Thoora.

Is content king these days? Well, I think we can safely say that at least content isn’t content (as in not comfortable).  What is a sure thing about contextualized, sem-web content is that meaning is king.  If content could be dethroned, it would actually be as a promotion to a more meaning-based unit. The article is no longer the editorial end-all and be-all.  Meaning, however, is.  Again, bring back the “real.”

Ben Ilfeld, Co-founder and COO of  The Sacramento Press, parent company Castle Press, LLC, and his new local marketing product SLOAN insists enthusiastically that meaning is key. Writers have to get to the meaning of their story.  Storytelling is everything….forget writing specifically for the medium.  Worry less about space and time limitations and older editorial conventions. The burden is placed more on meaning as it resonates with humans and computers alike. Why?

Sacramento Local Online Ad Network (SLOAN) Introduction from Ben Ilfeld on Vimeo.

You want computers to suggest your stories to other people so they can put their own narratives together…narratives which are relevant to them. One thing that professional web writers, journalist and bloggers can know for sure (if they haven’t guessed already) is that more and more people will be “cobblers” of information. Keeping meaning key to writing and “storytelling” on the web will ensure that your content quality stays high and ultimately “share-able” in a market with such an unknown future.

Ilfeld goes on to say that Tweets are the new headlines—in fact more powerful than headlines.  Why?  They’re like a pulse for the nervous system of the web.  (Readers beware, this is not the first neurological or biological metaphor that surfaced at the conference.) In fact, Ilfeld finds this to be one of the more interesting features of the semantic web  – as it grows, as we’re trying to construct the semantic web – the web becomes more biological and organic than technical.  It’s still a slow process though.  The Web 3.0 revolution is about managing the flow of news data and it will be a continuous process of innovation. In the short run, the  break (or let’s say discontinuity) between corporate and creative will be worse. This doesn’t mean that  that excellent creative content should be free or is in unlimited supply. But, how to find it, monetize it, build a community with it is still relatively unknown. For writers who are shaking in their boots (oops, I mean “bots”), Ilfeld says, “Innovative industries require crazy optimistic people!” (Now I know where I fit in.)  Programming is becoming less expensive, but figuring out what to do with the best content has yet to be determined.  For better or worse, it’s the large corporations that will probably get to make the rules about content valuation.

The Sacramento Press focuses on transformational stories (stories that impact people at a more personal level) and hyper-local content, and not so much on the “Top Stories” of the day that might appear on almost any news site.  That said, Ilfeld find’s value and interest in CEO Mike Lee’s, online news site, Thoora, which also allows for relevant stories to rise to the top, despite the popularity of their authors. Thoora tracks  relevance (right down to the grammar) on several vectors and as a result, reporting news isn’t just a popularity contest. While Ilfeld admits that both The Sacrament Press and Thoora are probably a bit ahead of the online media curve, he’s excited about the content debate fired up by what it means for stories to be personal without being personalized. Personal has better impact, grabs readers, and keeps them.  It also creates a conversation…and that’s a huge part of online news media.

Ilfeld says contextualizing your writing isn’t the only thing that web writers need to do.  They need to think of each story they are writing as a continuation to a conversation that is ongoing. A writer’s comment section is more meaningful than ever. He urges writers to be more focused, m ore interactive, and more inclusive in their linking practices. Links should be thought of as a person-to-person function, and not worried about as content to content problems. To link is to make your writing alive…and to allow it to live out there on the web.  Word of caution:  don’t be casual about your links…make sure they’re right and that they work (otherwise they can hurt as much as they can help). Ilfeld reminds writers (and corporate content folks) that not linking off site is deadly when as much as half your readership might be “bots.”  And, if they can’t find you…well, enough said. Let journalists reach other journalists and comment on each others writing, stories, blogs, etc.  It’s about keeping great writers and great content noticed.

Getting great writers and great stories noticed is uppermost in the mind of Mike Lee, CEO at Thoora. Commenting on The Sacramento Press, Lee finds Ilfeld to be brilliant and insightful as well as on target when it comes to their hyper-local focus and emphasis on their plan to produce differentiated content that affect people’s everyday lives.  Says Lee of the progress made by The Sacramento Press, “It’s intelligent and what’s missing in today’s market.”

In terms of what’s missing or the biggest obstacle facing the online news community, Lee says lack of differentiation is it.   It’s so  important to understand how to differentiate yourself in a world where consumers can go from one source to another with a couple of strokes at a keyboard or mouse. The challenge in the media industry is lack of data and information to support levels of differentiation when the topic coverage is more broad. I think that’s a role that we [Thoora] can play.

So, how does Thoora play?

They index stories in real time and then look at all content available on the subject at hand.  The approach is both human created and hand selected. Most of stuff written is not indexed or written properly, they find. Thoora goes in and individually evaluates each contribution on the basis of quality of writing (right down to the grammar), relevance, popular influence, historical performance, twitter response, among other indicators, and then ranks stories accordingly.  It allows great content to rise up, but doesn’t necessarily rank the content based on pure popularity…again, great news for strong writers with small or niche topics and or audiences.  Basically, Thoora is looking for the best written stories and the most potent storytelling.  It’s pretty literary considering the webby-ness of it.

In our interview, Lee commented on some of the jargon that littered the conference. Specific to content is the ontology editor (I hesitate to link to Wikipedia here, but there’s such a wide range of ontology editor tools available that I believe this will give you a wide shot of the applications out there.)

According to Lee,  ontology editors define relationships between relevant terms within a domain…makes the connections and provides structure around content. Some hard core semantics would argue that computers could write articles…no way! Beware of totally removing the human factor in any web system. Lee continues, Thoora takes a different approach.  Because we’re processing so much data in real time, Thoora produces real time ontology for each story….finds what makes each story common and drives out an ontology for each story.  Thoora makes decisions about relevance and does not allow keywords to drive evaluation. Lee says,  Michael Jackson is not a keyword! His death and his doctor, for example,  are two separate stories with separate coverages, and editorial.  Lee encourages very fine parsing.   He also references what is now called an “ecosystem,” all the components and assets that go into writing a story (content, article, blogs, video, tweets, etc.).

Lee encourages companies with content needs to really understand which data is important for their use and goals. How  it impacts their decision making process should guide their  purchase of new technology. Also, and probably as scary for the corporate side is this exhortation from Mike Lee,”Don’t think about owning information…instead defend a domain of expertise. Get over yourself.  Think of an editorial team across web.”

But what about best practices for writers and editors while everything seems to be in such flux? One outspoken conference attendee, Miram Bookey, who oversees web development and editorial at Mind Over Media, offered the following “So this is what I should do, right?” summation at the end of the 2-day event. I will offer them to you as:

Miriam’s Must’s for Web 3.0

These seven directives reflect an early best practices for writers and marketing folks alike.  Take them to heart please..including the companies, tools, and applications she mentions.  They are examples of forward thinking—semantic web thinking – for all of us. Thanks, Miriam…for helping us get some content into our content!

1. It’s about being a problem solver for my audience, so make great content or mashup existing content in a new and wonderful way.
2. It’s about giving me page authority, so link to relevant data (can use extraction engines like Zemanta or a content delivery platform like Evri).
3. It’s about making me relevant by being the owner (and sharer) of data, so don’t hoard it (my data may have value for me under my umbrella, but maybe has 10x the value if I package it for other people to use and mashup and aggregate).
4. It’s about making my data more search-able in the world of semantic search, so make sure my structure/descriptive tags/captions/snippets/onsite-search-results are awesome (check out solutions from OpenCalais, Textwise, Textdigger, Rich Snippets for Google, SearchMonkey for Yahoo. And…can we do anything about captions via Bing?  Help?
5. It’s about harvesting the amazing amount of data that’s already out there, so get out there and find it (open data assets, partnerships, APIs).
6. It’s about being where the consumer is going to be, so get on mobile.
7. It’s about not making it impossible, so if I have the luxury to start fresh, pick the right content management system to make it all happen (OpenPublish is one option that is locked and loaded for the semantic web).

Finally,  these two writers should be on your radar now:

Semantically mindful writer and blogger Mark. S. Luckie (yes, his real name). Fast becoming an icon of digital journalism, his Digital Journalist’s Handbook is just out…literally, hot off the press, if we can still say such things.

And on Web 3.0 branding and marketing check out the innovative thinking, Mark Twain-quoting, wiz blogger Josh Jones-Dilworth and his biz posts on Mashable.

Search

When it comes to search across the web, the man to talk to is Andrew Hickl, Co-founder and President at Extractiv,  Founder and Managing Partner at Swingly, and CEO at Language Computer Corporation. Busy!  However, he did have time to fill in some of the gaps in understanding the full impact of the semantic web. In answer to a number of questions put to him about search and the semantic web, he takes an innovative but  common sense approach.

Hickl says, lots of folks are out there talk about “semantic search” as this mystical shiny new app that someone’s going to build, package up, and market to the masses. Folks who think this (heaven help’em) are going to be sorely disappointed…it’s just not going to happen quite that way.

The real challenge, he says, that we have in semantic search is distinguishing amongst technologies that improve search — and technologies or tools that improve search by virtue of being “semantic” (in some way or another).

Hickl says the technology is in place right now to tell you what anyone is saying (or has said) about you (or your competitors) anywhere on the internet. What’s more, he continues,  we have the ability to tell you why they’re saying it, how influential they are, and how to get in touch with them. “Not interested in knowing about what people are saying,”  Hickl says, “we’ve also got the tools to track any kind of event that you might be interested in, from new product launches to failed drug trials to IED explosions in Afghanistan. We’ve also got the ability to build dossiers on any person, place, organization, or thing that you ever might be interested in — even if it’s too esoteric or ridiculous to show up on Wikipedia.”

You heard it.  As Hickl makes abundantly clear, the semantic web has been hard at work for quite some time…improving on search technologies and the web in general even while the rest of us we’re just coming to terms with Web 2.0.

Welcome to Web 3.0, everyone.  It’s your web folks.  Use it!

What’s that?  You need a virtual personal assistant to help with all this semantic goodness?  Check out Siri – something very, very fabulous from Tom Gruber and his team. Chicken is nice, but let’s get this app in every pot!

About the Author

Felice Bochman is a web content/editorial expert and eCommerce consultant for Web 2.0/3.0 best practices. She was the former Senior Editorial Director at Care.com, and prior to that the Managing Editor of US and Canadian Regional Websites at Babyzone.com.  She’s widely published on the web, has edited several books, and is currently freelancing about the semantic web and working on a young adult book.  Felice lives near Boston with two very, webby kids.

How A Taste Of Kindle Reader For Blackberry Made Me Hunger For More (And More, And More)

by Maxwell Hoffmann, Desktop Publishing, Localization, Globalization and Sales Training Veteran

A few weeks ago I got a Tweet that sent me straight to downloads-ville. A “free” Kindle Reader app for my Blackberry! As a used-book store addicted Baby Boomer who color codes all of his hard copy books with highlighter pens, might I be the perfect guinea pig for this latest content delivery platform? Could an old school guy like me get used to reading literature or technical manuals in chunks smaller than 3×5 cards?

The answer surprised even me.

So I downloaded Kindle reader for both Windows laptop and Blackberry. I was skeptical at first. Really, how long can anyone really read long chapters on that tiny screen? The answer is “for hours, and hours and hours”. Why? Kindle on Blackberry has crisp, readable screen display (with adjustable fonts), bookmarks are created with ease, navigation is fast, and everything from eBook downloads to synching with other platforms is quick and pain-free. As spell out below, I could consume a lot of virtual pages, swiftly. By the end of my first day of I thought the only limitation to this form of digital content consumption was battery power on my Blackberry. Thank heavens for those laptop draining USB cables.

And guess what kids, Amazon’s Kindle Store starts you out in thriftsville with tons of books for FREE, ranging from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf to Miss Mapp by E.F. Benson (later serialized on PBS as “Mapp and Lucia”).

On my second day I bit the bullet and actually shelled out more than $9 for a “real” book, The Museum of Innocence by my favorite living author, Orhan Pamuk. If you’ve never been lucky enough to visit Istanbul, reading Pamuk’s sensual text is as close as you’ll ever get. On Blackberry’s tiny screen I read the first 5 chapters in less than 90 minutes. It could have been faster if it were a guide to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture. (Hey, where’s Ann Rockley’s DITA 101 on my Kindle list? Stay tuned.) Some or Pamuk’s passages were so beautiful that I found myself hitting “P” a lot to reread the previous page again.

[FYI – Istanbul by Pamuk will give you great insights into Turkish national character, a good thing to have as Turkey emerges as a global and economic power throughout the rest of this century. Read The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman, which I read in the paperback version purchased at my favorite brick and mortar bookstore. I work in the translation industry, and Turkish is quickly becoming the most popular “new” language for many of our clients, especially in Life Sciences.]

But, I digress. Soon, I hungered for more, and found myself frustrated with the current limitations of most eBooks. Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and YouTube have put most of us in the habit of sharing “samples” of content with others. And PDF files reviewed in Acrobat have put us in the habit of making marginal comments in digital ways. Kindle (and most other eBooks) don’t have copy/paste functionality, there is no highlighter pen, and no way to make a simple annotation. And, if there is, it’s not easy to find and use this functionality, which is a problem. All I wanted to do was extract legally correct, small samples to upload somewhere (isn’t there a “YouRead” community yet?) … and I wanted to mark content in multiple ways. Shucks, I just wanted to “color code” text to find favorite passages based on different needs.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not expecting eBook Readers to double as a word processor, (or to become the next copy/paste Wikipedia to let college students whip out quickee term papers). I suspect that most users will also miss the ability to put their fingerprints on content like we do nearly everywhere else.

Ironically, the ability to “personalize” content is one of the things that I love the most about real, physical books. We can dog ear (upper or lower corner to code importance); we can underline, circle, or highlight sections of text we want to reference later. (In college I was nicknamed “nerdanada” for the 4 colors of highlighter pens constantly sprouting from my polyester shirt pockets). And of course, real books allow us to make marginal notes. I consider these physical highlights and doodles our “finger prints” on physical content.

My Kindle Read / eBooks Wish List

Digital versions of these old paper-based mark up methods (based on XML, or more specifically, DITA attributes, or course) should create persistent and personal “finger prints” on our personal Kindle or eBook copies that could make the world a better place in several ways:

• We could quickly locate content that mattered to us personally, based on different criteria.
• Amazon (or other providers: think Apple) could track our individual buying habits on an even more granular level. Instead of recommending books based on previously purchased titles, the vendor can use community driven social networks to recommend further eBooks for purchased based on the sections of the book that we related to the most.
• For the first time in history, publishers and authors would know exactly what portions of content turned readers on (or off) the most. (Today the most we can do is post a comment on Amazon, or elsewhere, and rarely do we cite individual pages, paragraphs or passages).
• Imagine the power of having a constant consumer survey occurring, page by digital page, all driven with uploadable “highlighter pen” passages! And imagine the apps that could interpret smart content and metadata embedded by our highlight selections, to graphically display consumer response to specific portions of content! I visualize a sort of daily Dow Jones line chart mapped to the book which has longer lines for chapters or DITA topics that got the most “hits” or reader embedded fingerprints.
  • FYI – although Kindle reader offers a “book mark” feature, it is really only useful for general navigation.
• The ability to track the changing hot spots of readers via “fingerprints” over time would also give sociologists and historians the ability to impact a book’s changing impact over several generations. Would it be great to see how graphical representation of reader response to The Next Hundred Years by Friedman had changed 20, 40 or 60 years from now, as we approach the end of the time that he documents?
• And if there is ever a way to “will” your Amazon/whomever library to someone else, your heirs could not only thumb through static pages, they would see your fingerprints, sense your personality, and know what mattered to you at the time of your reading.
• Consumers commenting and sharing digital eBooks would leave an incredible legacy.

This last point has been one my biggest misgivings about the “one-way” aspect of current digital media: the locked, protected content of eBooks precludes any way for us to share our content-specific comments, annotations, whatever, with others. If I “will” my Kindle library to some designated heir, he/she has no way of knowing what turned me on. On the other hand, I have a shelf full of carefully selected books from my grandmother’s estate that achieve that goal beautifully.

Grammie was a red pencil/underline addict (highlighter pens didn’t exist yet) and her personality is evident on every page of what mattered to her. From marginal “stars”, single/double/triple underlines, little balloons around key words, and, best of all, marginal notes like “you’ve got to be kidding!”, I can literally hear her voice as I read what mattered to her.

She was the woman who more responsible than anyone on the planet for who I am today. (OK! So now you know who to blame!) Incidentally, you can get a glimpse into this remarkable woman through a blog I wrote about the discovery of her 100 year old journals, written last year. I have Linked In contacts from Germany who connected with me after reading about what Grammie wrote in 1912. Now that’s what I call persistent fingerprinted content! These remote Linked In contacts are really connecting with her, through me.

Will my Kindle-driven wish list ever come true?

So, is there any hope that the publishing industry (and copyright lawyers) will smell the coffee and make my wish list of interactive features come true? I attended the Intelligent Content 2010 Conference in Palm Springs, CA where a roster of the “smartest guys/gals” on the subject gave us all a realistic whiff of the future of content. (Hint: DITA DITA DITA).

Dev Ganesan of Aptara (a digital publishing and XML content conversion services firm) gave a highly dynamic presentation on “Reimagining the Book: How Intelligent Technology is Changing the Publishing World”. His depiction of the future of the book far exceeded my Kindle-driven hunger for new features. Dev is actively involved in shaping the evolving EPUB standard, a free and open eBook standard designed for reflowable content, meaning that the text display can be optimized for the particular display device. Dev demonstrated “beyond engaging” DITA-driven intelligent and interactive content that runs on anything from a laptop to a Blackberry, iPhone, or most effectively, on the iPad.

The Q&A session was lively, with much discussion about Kindle being the lone wolf on sticking to its proprietary format, which Tim O’Reilly thinks this is a bad idea. The recently launched iPad is “intelligence” ready for what’s coming down the pike. Many of the questions opened up the whole can of worms regarding how do authors, artists and publishers flexibly copyright their assets without creating an impenetrable “glass box” that drives consumers away. (Follow Scott Abel’s tweets on this issue, he is more on top of this than anyone I know and will soon be presenting to a select group of Alpha Dog investors to clue them in).

What will it take to get the ePubs world to “wake up” and create the fingerprint and sharing tools we all crave?

Scott Abel (The Content Wrangler) had the answer during the Q&A session for his closing presentation Intelligent Content 2010. “When the lawyers finally realize that publishers can parse book content down to the chapter, or DITA topic level, and sell that content for pennies, and as with iTunes, do this millions and millions of times, then it will happen.” In other words, Amazon and other eBook publishers are sitting on a content gold mine. But they are trying to sell you the entire glass display of See’s Candies when you only want to buy a Marzipan Honey almond paste, a Light Chocolate Truffle and a Dark Bordeaux. (If your itchy fingers clicked on the link in the previous sentence, you will see that even old lady See has wised up and lets you do exactly that!) If a dead chocolate icon can make individual “topic level” content available for a modest purchase price, why can’t newspapers, eBooks and other media creators who are quaking over broken copyright laws?

In the closing conference session, Scott also revealed a future Trival Pursuit question. Name the most popular app on the iPhone right now? Kindle reader and other eBook readers. The future is here. All we need is the intelligently structured content to go with it. And I will think of my grandmother’s red underlines every time I highlight eBook sections and upload it to some future eBook community site. Grammie would have loved this stuff.

‘And this affects me how?’, you ask

So how does any of this affect you? If you are creating content that must be published in multiple formats (including formats that don’t exist yet), get on the DITA wagon and start structuring your content now. Find out what intelligent content is and how to embed it usefully in what you produce. Closely follow webinars, tweets and especially blogs from Ann Rockley, Scott Abel, Joe Gollner and the crew of visionaries that presented at the Intelligent Content conference.

Why? Because the projected pixels displayed at the posh Parker Meridian resort in Palm Springs this week portend the world that we will all soon be living in. The old adage for college professors used to be “publish or perish”. Perhaps the new adage should be “embed intelligence in your structured content, or watch it evaporate.”

*** About the Author

Times They Are A Changin’ – But Most Publishers Aren’t

By Alan J. Porter

[This post is part of a planned series of articles that examine how the traditional book industry could benefit from adopting XML.]

A few days ago I saw a job posting from the publishers of my first book, who were looking for an editor for one of their imprints. What caught my eye was that the posting emphasized that the new editor should have experience and skills in using the same software that had been used to produce my book. A book that was published in 1997 – thirteen years ago!

Technology has changed a lot in thirteen years and so has the way that content can be created, handled and made ready for publication. But this publisher is far from being alone in sticking with old processes. My experiences working on other book projects in the last few years have just reinforced my belief that the vast majority of the traditional publishing market still works around a production system designed to do one thing – move paper.

A process that, despite changes in tools, has changed little since the dawn of the printing press.

For centuries the traditional publishing workflow has been:

• The author writes a manuscript (first on paper, then typewriters and more recently word processor software – these days usually Microsoft Word)
• The completed manuscript is then sent to the publishers for editing. Editing involved marking up, with either pen, or now using track changes and comments in the word processor, although sometimes it is just an email list of things to change. The editing phase can go through several iterations before everyone is happy and ready to go to publication – and by publication I mean go to print.
• The book, article, pamphlet or whatever is then recreated in the publishing tool. In the days of the mechanical printing press this meant manual typesetting, then with the emergence of desktop publishing tools it meant importing and converting the content from one for to another. The end result was the same however. Once the content is at the print ready staged it is locked into the format and layout of the physical page. Changes at this stage become costly, time consuming and rarely get reflected back into the source content.
• If the content is going to be published in more than one format, say a paperback and a hardback version, then a whole parallel production process has to be created.
• As systems and software are changed, as inevitably happens, the content becomes locked in multiple different software formats meaning that it either becomes unusable and the book goes ‘out of print,” or that multiple parallel production processes have to be maintained and coordinated for different titles based on when they were originally published.
• Even where publishers are now producing eBooks they are still setting up separate parallel production processes by taking the source content and having it converted into yet another layout driven format, that still uses a page-based paper-like model.

As I started to write this blog post I received an email from an editor of a magazine I contribute to on a semi-regular basis, who had attached a copy of my latest article for last minute edits and a request to use MS Word version tracking so that any last minute changes I made could be “replicated in the InDesign file.” Another example of a process where the content is locked by the format of the deliverable, even though the magazine in question is now delivered electronically rather than as a print copy.

Once the content is locked into the deliverable format like this, it loses any potential to add value.

As I outlined in my last post, using XML allows the publisher to add real value to the content; it also allows them to fully separate the content from the publishing process allowing the content to be reused and republished many times over in different formats and on different delivery platforms without having to lock the content into the physical design of a page.

With XML the strictly linear production process that we are used to can also change allowing for more flexibility and reduced time between creation and publication.

There are several ways that the XML mark up can be applied to the content, either at creation or as part of a post-creation conversion process.

The best way to leverage the power of XML for any project is to use it from the start. This means using XML writing tools during the content creation process. The problem is that most authors (and I’ll include myself in this statement) just like to start with a blank sheet and let the words flow without having to worry about tagging and structure; another throw back to the parchment / typewriter approach. This is the reason why the vast majority of documents created in MS Word use the default normal.dot template.

A well configured XML editor can give the same sense of freedom, by having a well thought out schema (mark up template) applied and installed before the author starts.

In the comments section of my last post publisher Richard Hamilton suggests that the biggest issue with getting authors to use XML is that it is perceived as ‘too technical’ and that implies both a step learning curve and a restriction in flexibility and style.

He makes some valid points. The truth is that the XML can be hidden from the author behind a template or a series of basic styles. If this were presented as a specific publisher’s Style Guide, rather than as XML Tagging it would make it easier to accept and implement for a non-technical writer. Most authors are used to working with different style guides from different publishers; working with XML should be no different.

Another approach is to develop the XML markup as the book is being written. In the sprit of full disclosure, Richard Hamilton, mentioned above, is the publisher of my upcoming book “WIKI: Grow Your Own For Fun And Profit”. In keeping with the book’s subject I am writing the book on free wiki software, (PB Works). Once I had a couple of chapters drafted in a totally free form way, Richard then developed a test page on the wiki to map the underlying wiki markup to XML, and associated that with basic styles such as:

Here is the Chapter title (Format = Heading 1)
Here is another heading (Format = Heading 2)

I, as the author, could then apply this style to my ongoing work without having to worry about the mark-up underneath.

By using just the first two chapters of the book we have developed both the required markup, as well as the end page layout and format for the print version. The book design is completed before I have finished the writing task greatly reducing the production time. It also means that changes can be made very close to publication date. The same source will also be able to be used to produce multiple versions for different delivery platforms without locking it into any one production process.

Another alternative is after-the-fact tagging. Once a manuscript has been delivered it could be sent out to specialist companies for conversion to XML. This could be an off-shore process or an in-house one. It is no more costly than importing, cleaning up and replicating edits in a tool like InDesign or applying existing typesetting markup languages such as LaTeX and the potential payoff is even greater.

It may be that to take advantage of XML and the added value it can bring that a book’s production ‘team’ will need to expand from the author / editorial / print to now include intelligent content and multi-media specialists working with the original author or adding value on behalf of the publisher. The production team will become more akin to a movie production with relevant specialists bought in on a per project basis. There may be an incremental increase in initial cost using this approach, but the pay off can be so much greater as instead of just a couple of print versions and maybe a basic eBook page turner, you can now deliver the same content as a full multi-media experience that not only works on today’s emerging technology, but will be positioned to take advantage of tomorrow’s technology too.

Switching to XML does not mean getting rid of paper in favor of eBooks, it means that paper becomes just one option among many. Most importantly it means changing the business model from shifting paper, to delivering intelligent content with real value.

[In the next post I’ll look in more detail at how XML can be used to add value through multi media and different presentation and delivery models.]

About the Author

Alan J. Porter a 20 year veteran of the corporate communications industry is founder of 4Js Group LLC a consulting and services company that specializes in combining creative talent with business expertise to help companies tell their story. He is also the regular writer of the monthly Disney*Pixar “World of CARS” comic book series.

His latest book, “WIKI: Grow Your Own for Fun and Profit” will be published by XML Press in May 2010.

Blog: THE CONTENT POOL http://4jsgroup.blogspot.com
Email: ajp@4jsgroup.com
Phone: 512-968-7362
Twitter: @4jsgroup

What Is A Book And Why Does It Matter?

By Richard Hamilton, special to The Content Wrangler

According to the Open Dictionary, a book is: “Sheets of paper bound together to hinge at one edge. If blank sheets of paper this is commonly referred to as a notebook, however most books are printed material.”

The definition above is remarkably consistent across dictionaries, but while this is the “dictionary” definition, it is not a true picture of what most of us think of when we think of a book. Over the hundreds of years that make up the history of books, we have built up a set of expectations that go far beyond the dictionary definition.

This expectation even carries over to the blank book. If you’ve ever owned a bound, blank book – and judging from the space given over to blank books in book stores, a lot of us have – I’ll bet that you treat it differently from the way you treat a spiral bound notebook or pad of paper. You probably don’t use it for shopping lists, reminders, or other ephemeral writings. Almost unconsciously, we place a higher standard on what we put into a book.

To explore what a book means, beyond “sheets of paper bound together,” let’s look at the process used to create a book from material that is already published. I’ll use as my example Joel Spolsky’s two books, Joel on Software and More Joel on Software, both published by Apress. Spolsky publishes a blog titled, Joel on Software, and over nine years he has published more than 1,000 articles. These two books compile a selection of his articles.

Looking into the process that created these books from his blog can help us understand what differentiates a “book” from “content,” and provide insight into what authors and publishers need to focus on as we move into the world of electronic publishing. The process of creating these books required the following steps:

Selection

There are two aspects to the question of selection. A publisher, in this case Apress, had to select Spolsky’s books over other potential publications. Secondly, Spolsky had to select which of his 1,000 articles to use for the book.

Joel Spolsky Organized His Book in the way that books have been organized traditionally, not the way blogs are organized on the web.

This a major function of publishers and one reason why brand-name publishers have an advantage. If they are good, they have built a reputation for selecting material that sells – a smaller number have even built a reputation for selecting quality material.

Organization

Spolsky organized the articles into chapters with themes, for example, “Managing Large Projects,” or “Starting a Software Business.” We expect that the material in a book will be organized in a manner that will make it easy to use. Most readers would be disappointed if Spolsky had arranged the articles by publication date or alphabetically.

Editing

Spolsky didn’t just dump content into the book. He and the editors at Apress went through the book and edited it for content (are things out of date, should there be references to other material in the book, etc.) and for detail (copy editing). In addition, they created an index.

While you can make a pretty good argument that editorial standards have slipped – no author expects the kind of editing Maxwell Perkins did for Hemingway and Faulkner – I think it is still fair to say that we expect the material in a book to meet a higher standard than we would expect from a newspaper article, letter, blog entry, or other more casual communication.

Packaging

The Spolsky books have a good, readable book design and interesting covers. We expect that from a book, and we are generally disappointed if we get a slapped together design and packaging.

Distribution networks like iTunes and the iBook Store are revolutionizing digital product distribution.

Distribution

The Spolsky books are distributed through traditional book channels and web retailers in print and ebook formats, another reasonable expectation for most books, though this is changing.

As you can see, even a book that is simply a compilation of existing blog articles carries with it a set of expectations that go well beyond the dictionary definition of book. If Spolsky and Apress had not met those expectations, I believe these books would have sunk without a trace; instead, the first is still in the top 100 software engineering books on Amazon as I write this article, nearly 6 years after publication, and the second is not far behind. Even as we shed the physical definition of a book with e-books and other electronic means of distribution, we still need to honor the process described above in order to produce books that people will choose to purchase.

The second part of this two-part article will look at the question, “why does the definition of a book matter?” and the relevance of that question to authors and publishers. As a teaser, I’ll offer that it matters because none of the items listed above goes away when you publish in electronic form; they are all still critical when you are trying to assemble something that you want people to pay for. But, every one of them is changing; if you ignore them or think you can go on treating them the same way you always have, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

About the Author

Richard L. Hamilton is Founder and Publisher of XML Press, which is dedicated to producing high quality, practical publications for technical communicators, managers, and marketers. Richard is the author of Managing Writers: A Real-World Guide to Managing Technical Documentation, and editor of the upcoming 2^nd edition of Norm Walsh’s DocBook: The Definitive Guide, to be published in collaboration with O’Reilly Media.

XML Press is the publisher of Anne Gentle’s Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation, and in 2010 will publish new books by Brenda Huettner, Alan Porter, and Zarella Rendon.

[Video] eBook Production in Two Minutes

This two minute video demystifies eBook production and highlights the five things publishers must get right to profit from eBooks. The video was created by digital publishing solutions provider, Aptara, a firm that helps publishers — and today, that’s basically every organization on earth — distribute content in any format, to any device or platform, including eBook readers like the iPad, Kindle and Sony eReader as well as on smart phones like the iPhone and Android.

The Making of a Mashup Compilation: Aurally Volume 1

By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, aka The Audio Wrangler

What do you get when you cross Pink Floyd with Christina Aquilera? How about a little Elvis with your Public Enemy? Or some Cher on top of This Mortal Coil? Although it may sound a little frightening, pairing musical groups and vocalists together in unorthodox ways can yield some pretty incredible audio sensations.

Known commonly as mashups (or bastards), these bootleg musical creations are user-generated derivative works created by blending two or more songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental version of another. This technique makes it possible to create a new music product by combining, for instance, the a cappella version of “Hurt” by Christina Aquilera with the instrumental “Is there anybody out there?” by Pink Floyd. The result, when done well, yields a beautiful new audio product – in this example, a mashup entitled “Is There Anybody Hurt There?” by the mashup artist Okiokinl.

I use music mashups in conference presentations, workshops, and during consulting assignments, to teach my clients (organizations struggling to get a grip on the documents, web pages, marketing brochures, and other information products they produce) about content reuse, XML authoring, component content management, and content personalization. I use music mashups as an example because it’s the easiest way to help people understand these concepts and it’s something most — if not all — humans have experience with in one way or another.

How do you make a music mashup?

There are various ways to make a music mashup based on two songs. They can be created digitally on a personal computer using software designed to facilitate the mixing of music files together such as Apple Garage Band, which allows user to mix and record music from multiple sources. Music mixing software — of which there are many varieties at varying price points — provides a granular level of control that is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain using traditional music mixing methods.

Mashups can also be created using a more traditional remixing approach. This method requires two turntables (or two CD players), a dj mixing board (a type of audio control panel that provides the dj control of what music is being played, its volume, bass, treble, midrange, as well as its tempo, calculated in beats per minute or bpm), headphones, and a recording device like a CD burner. Inexpensive modern mixing boards like the Numark iDJ2 provide an iPod interface, allowing you to mix music directly from your iPod (without the need for CD players, turntables or other music inputs) onto the recording device.

More complex mashups may involve a hybrid approach that utilizes a variety of approaches and may even incorporate other techniques including live vocals, music, and spoken voice.

How I created my mashup compilation

Aurally Volume 1 is a mashup compilation – a series of mashups (created by other artists) that I weaved together using the Numark iDJ2 mixing board, a home stereo system (amplifier, CD recorder, speakers), a video iPod, a MacBook Pro, and a series of carefully selected mp3 files (the mashups).

The art of selecting, sequencing and mixing the tracks together to create the final product is what I enjoy when making a compilation. It’s an art form that relies on timing, feelings and emotions, as much as musical knowledge and technical ability. It’s not something everyone can do well. In fact, the mashup databases are littered with good examples of bad mashups. Here’s an example. It’s called “Bringing Back Sexy Knights” (Justin Timberlake vs Knight Rider Theme Remixed) by DJ Skip .

To create my compilation, I first determined the theme (or flavor) of the mix. I decided to deviate from my comfort zone. Usually, I tend to create hiNRG, continuously mixed dance compilations, which involve a technique known as beat-matching. But this time around I decided on a downtempo vibe — a collection of mellow songs, with the occasional uptempo track included for good measure. The goal of a downtempo mix is to create a listening experience by weaving the tracks together in a way that is both interesting and musically pleasing.

To create my continuous mashup mix compilation, I performed the following tasks:

1. Scanned online mashup databases for mashups
2. Listened to each mashup and downloaded those that were candidates for inclusion in the compilation into iTunes
3. Recorded metadata about each mashup I planned to use. (Note: I recorded this metadata in iTunes, but you could do it in a spreadsheet or on a piece of paper). Metadata included:
   • Name of mashup artist/dj who created the mashup
   • Name of mashup (usually a combination of the original song titles repurposed to create a new mashed up title)
   • Titles of the original songs and artists included in the mashup
   • The total length of the mashup in minutes and seconds
4. Created a draft line-up (the order in which each mashup would be included in the mix); I use a piece of paper for this, but you could use a spreadsheet or a text document to accomplish the same goal
5. Played each mashup, paying special attention to the beginning and ending of each mashup in order to identify places where the mashup had a natural break, or a change of tempo, that might make a good place to introduce the next mashup in the mix — aka seque
6. Recorded the exact time (in minutes and seconds) of the seque on my draft line-up
7. Fired up the mixing board and my iPod
8. Rehearsed the mashup following the draft line-up, making changes to the segues and switching the order of the mashups in the line-up until I was happy with the final product
9. Created the final line-up
10. Recorded the final mashup compilation mix (as documented in the final line-up) onto compact disc
11. Copied the compilation file (an .mp4 file) to iTunes
12. Listened to the entire compilation
13. Satisfied with the end result, I used iTunes to convert the .mp4 file to .mp3

Finding mashups

Finding the mashups to include on a compilation is a time-consuming process. I searched music libraries, peer-to-peer networks, music industry blogs, Facebook and MySpace pages, and websites dedicated to cataloging and writing about mashups. I downloaded hundreds of mashups – a more difficult and time-consuming task than you might imagine. Some sites provide an ability for you to download a mashup with one click. Others require you to right-click, then select a destination for the file. And still others trick you into thinking you’re going to download the file with a single click, but they really are trying to get you to register for (and often purchase) a service. To add to the frustration, many sites are advertising-based. They display a series of never-ending pop up ads, some of which start off by playing bandwidth hogging video that sometimes causes your browser to crash, forcing you to start all over again.

Once I accumulated a large selection of mashup files, I began the screening process. This is perhaps the most time-consuming part of making a solid compilation as it requires you to listen to each track and determine if you have an interest in keeping it, or whether you should delete it. If you’re like me, you can get wrapped up in the music and lose track of time, so it’s best to try and stay focused on the task at hand.

The Ingredients in Aurally: Volume 1

Here’s a listing of the mashups I included in my compilation (including the metadata described above):

1. “Strictly Safe From Rock-n-Roll” by Apollo Zero
   • Ingredients: Bent “Strictly Bongo”, Britney Spears “I Love Rock-n-Roll”, Christina Aquilera “Beautiful”, Paris Hilton “Nothing in this World”, Simple Minds “Belfast Child”, Massive Attack “Safe From Harm”, K-Tel Records “Dance Lesson Intro”.
2. “Turn Up The Club Ghetto” by Okiokinl
   • Ingredients: Elvis Presley “The Ghetto”, Public Enemy “Bring the Noise/Terminator X”, and DJ Rob “Clubbed to Death”.
3. “Is There Anybody Hurt There?” by Okiokinl
   • Ingredients: Christina Aquilera ”Hurt” and Pink Floyd “Is There Anybody Out There?”.
4. “Safari Love” by Loo & Placido
   • Ingredients: The Beatles “Because the World is Round”, Aretha Franklin “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?”, The Pixies “Where is My Mind?” and Elton John “I Want Love”.
5. “You Won’t See You’re All That I Need” by DJ Nite
   • Ingredients: Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrel “You’re All I Need to Get By” and The Beatles “You Won’t See Me”.
6. “If This Isn’t Numb” by Ministry of Mashed Sound
   • Ingredients: The Pet Shop Boys “Numb” and Jennifer Hudson “If This Isn’t Love”.
7. “Apologize Life” by Winkar Lopez
   • Ingredients: One Republic featuring Timbaland “Apologize” and Julie McKnight “Diamond Life”.
8. “Jude’ll Fix It” by Phil Retrospector
   • Ingredients: The Beatles “With a Little Help From My Friends”, Jim Sturgess “Hey Jude” and Coldplay “Fix You”.
9. “Walk on By ‘Cuz I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone” by Matt Bland
   • Ingredients: Dione Warwick “Walk on By” and Duffy “Stepping Stone”.
10. “Sunshine on My Foolish Ocean” by Apollo Zero
    • Ingredients: John Denver “Sunshine on My Shoulder”, This Mortal Coil “Song to the Siren”, Sheena Easton “Foolish Heart”, Cyndi Lauper “Come on Home”, Dolly Parton “God’s Coloring Book
11. “Funk That Shit: Believe in Glorybox” by Funk That Shit Productions
    • Ingredients: Cher ”Believe” and Portishead “Glory Box”.
12. “Bootiful Prudence” by Autopilot
    • Ingredients: The Beatles “Dear Prudence” and Christina Aquilera “Beautiful”.
13. “Nancy Gets Banged” by Phil Retrospector
    • Ingredients: Nancy Sinatra “Bang Bang” and Ryuichi Sakamoto “Railroad Man”.

Selecting the mashups to go on a compilation generally means finding a dozen or so songs that go well together. This is the tricky part. It involves understanding the emotional and dramatic impact of music, it’s tone, tempo, style, vibe, and flavor. These are not things you can easily learn. I think, like being able to sing, paint, sculpt or draw, it’s something you either have inside you — or you don’t. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn the techniques used by djs, mashup artists and remixers. They can come in handy for a variety for purposes.

Elapsed time to create this compilation…well, we won’t go into that. Let’s just say, it was days, not hours. Your mileage may vary. It’s a creative endeavor that involves lots of emotional judgements that are hard to describe. Suffice it to say that artists can’t be rushed when they are practicing their craft. Sometimes it comes to you quickly and other times, it’s a painful process — a trial and error experiment.

Aurally: Volume 1

Here’s the final product. Give it a listen. Then, let me know what you think by leaving a comment at the end of this article. If you like what you hear, join my DJ Scott Abel (The Audio Wrangler) fan page on Facebook where you can listen to and download my other mashup mixes.

In future articles, I’ll discuss how to make an original mashup, how to use social networks to promote your mashups (and get to the top of the charts), and I’ll interview some of the most famous mashup artists. Until then, enjoy the music.

[Interview] Joe Gollner: Defining Intelligent Content And Providing Some Real-World Examples

Interview with Joe Gollner by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler

The Content Wrangler: Joe, thanks for agreeing to chat with us today. Tell us a little about yourself and your experience in the content industry.

Joe Gollner: I began tinkering with content, using open markup technologies, in 1987 while still a grad student at University of Oxford. The tinkering has never stopped. Tapping on another side of my background, the military side, I was deeply embroiled in the CALS initiative – where we applied open markup technologies to the most complex documentation scenarios imaginable -– within the NATO defense community. I was even given the delightful, as well as official, title of “CALS Philosopher”.

Over the years, I have been entangled in a bizarrely large number of projects and in sectors as far afield as aerospace and education, health care and telecommunications, academic publishing and oil engineering. I formed an XML solution integration company in 1998; sold that company to Stilo International in 2004; and chaired, for many years, the XML World series of conferences. So you could say I have been immersed in the content business for a long time –- so long that perhaps it is time to change my title again, this time to the “Content Philosopher”.

The Content Wrangler: Tell us a little about your firm, the markets you serve, and the products and services you offer.

Joe Gollner: Currently, I am assuming new responsibilities for Stilo International as the Chief Solutions Architect (Intelligent Content Technologies) and my specific role is to initiate and lead solutions projects for customers who need to elevate the IQ of their content and the associated content processes and information products. These efforts dovetail naturally with the technology products side of Stilo, with the venerable OmniMark content processing platform being the foundational offering. Go to almost any large scale content environment that you would be tempted to identify as an example of intelligent content at work and there is a better than even chance you will find OmniMark at work as well. Specifically, OmniMark is used to build conversion, enrichment, validation and publishing processes that bring intelligence to the vast stores of content. OmniMark is used to put in place publishing processes that make something of that new found intelligence.

At Stilo, we use this technology to build highly sophisticated content management and publishing environments. It turns out that we can also build new services that organizations will be increasingly able to access “in the cloud” (or in their environments, if they so choose) – with these being cases where these customers can leverage the power of OmniMark without necessarily jumping in with both feet and mastering what is admittedly a highly specialized field.

For the last couple of years, we have been working on an on-demand conversion portal, known as Migrate, and after collaborating with a number of organizations a new release is fast approaching.

New for 2010, I am also dedicating a larger portion of my time to research and publishing, with a book in the works that focuses, resolutely, on the subject of “intelligent content”. Under my research and publishing agenda, I am approaching the question of “intelligent content” from a number of angles and identifying design patterns that have, over the many projects in my history, seemed to produce the best results. These efforts will lead to a book, as mentioned, but I also expect it will produce some new methodological tools, learning resources, and even, looking further downstream, technology components. These activities are being organized under Gnostyx Research. Most recently on the publishing front, I contributed a chapter to a forthcoming book on Information Management Best Practices which I see is getting some good press at KMWorld.

The Content Wrangler: Intelligent Content is a hot topic today, but many people don’t understand what it is or why it matters. From your perspective, what is intelligent content? What makes it so smart? And, why do organizations need it?

Joe Gollner: I might be the last person you want to ask that question. Not because I don’t have an answer – but because I have too many answers. In fact I have been circling the question of “what is intelligent content” on my blog including a recent post that resurrected some of the memories from Intelligent Content 2009 (very positive memories) and that looks forward to this year’s event.

In essence, the definition I put forward last year in my whitepaper, The Emergence of Intelligent Content, still holds water, I believe:

“Intelligence refers to the ability to acquire and apply knowledge (normally a quality attributed to people but not exclusively), or to a collection of information of value in a particular context (OED). Content can be considered intelligent when it expresses, in an open way, the full meaning underlying a communication such that the data, information and knowledge being expressed can be easily accessed and effectively leveraged by both people and the software applications that support them.”

There is quite a bit packed into this definition. In practical terms, intelligent content is about upping our game in the content business – identifying the content that is the most important to a given business, ensuring that this content is created, managed and leveraged in the smartest way possible, and putting in place the mechanisms whereby these high-value assets and services can evolve in a rapidly changing marketplace.

OK, I should be able to make this more tangible than that. Picture intelligent content is an array of ingredients that can be used to satisfy every customer request as they make their way to your counter. One says, “I want a beautiful reproducible PDF that I can send to my print media supplier.” The next one says, “I want ePub output that is tuned to each of the main eBook viewing platforms.” Then one shows up and says, “I need dynamic help, that is filtered on-the-fly for an almost unlimited number of configuration scenarios.” Finally one says, “I need to glean the best morsels of this content for marketing material which will be arrayed across a number of media channels and delivered individually to each of our customers and prospects.” The purveyor of intelligent content is like Chef Ramsay, who with a few well-timed barks, sees that the right dish is delivered to each customer — prepared, just they way they asked for it.

At Intelligent Content 2010, I will be speaking about Intelligent Content Management. I explain how this content kitchen needs to be organized and how it needs to work. In an effort to make the subject both accessible and entertaining, I am leveraging the motif of a famous spaghetti western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, to address the three sides to intelligent content and the management demands that arise around each and, more importantly, around their integration. I am now thinking that there maybe a little Chef Ramsay involved as well.

The Content Wrangler: Creating intelligent content certainly seems like a good idea. Can you share with us a few examples of how intelligent content can help an organization to be faster, leaner, make more money, reduce expenses, reduce risk, or serve its clients better?

Joe Gollner: On the subject of examples, I could go on forever. I will touch on a couple. Before I do, I want to stress that creating intelligent content and integrating it into business processes and offerings of an organization can be very hard work. I am bald for a reason. I mention this not to put anyone off but only to remind people to start small and evolve their “intelligent content capabilities” incrementally. For reasons that I will go into in Palm Springs, where intelligent content is involved the “big leap forward” might well be your last.

In the chapter I contributed to “Information Management Best Practices: Volume 1″, I recount a case study where we dug deeply and greedily into the various benefits that intelligent content can deliver. And this was done on a relatively large scale so what benefits were realized translated to some very big numbers. Perhaps the most important benefit, at least in terms of returning concrete financial savings and fundamentally improving the quality of the information services being provided, was the dramatic reduction of content redundancy.

Content in most organizations exists in a state of unbridled redundancy. If there is one version of a warning statement being managed and translated there will likely be a hundred. In this case, there were often thousands of identical components being managed and translated in parallel. Eliminating this redundancy, making it leaner, saved over a $100 million dollars a year in this one example. And the dollars saved were not the only story. By eliminating the content redundancy the number of documentation errors was dramatically reduced. By eliminating the content redundancy and raising the intelligence of the managed content components, a fundamental change could be introduced that would see content processes fully integrated with the system engineering processes that were continually modifying the equipment platforms the documentation needed to describe.

My favorite anecdote from this case study pertains to the publication of a large parts manual which historically took 18 months to republish. This manual, in being managed the old not-so-intelligent way, was, as you can imagine, almost completely useless because it was always a couple of years out-of-date. When questions arose, the mechanics would typically phone headquarters to ask the equipment lifecycle management office about what parts they should use or order. Once the content was rendered “intelligent”, the republishing of this manual went from taking 18 months to 18 minutes. And the people responsible for providing up-to-date parts information to the field units joked that the 18 minutes coincided with the amount of time they spent on coffee break, because their process produced an online reference tool that was “continually up-to-date” automatically. That’s intelligent content in action.

The Content Wrangler: Are there any examples you can point to of intelligent content on the web?

Joe Gollner: As another example of intelligent content in action, and this one being accessible online, I would point to HP printer products division and the support resources they supply to customers. My good friend, Rahel Bailie, president of Intentional Design, gave a great talk last year where she explicitly used HP support environment as an interactive illustration of several things being done well. As usual, I acted up in the presentation – this time blushing, fanning myself and getting all misty because she was showcasing one of my customers.

A couple of years ago my team had done a substantial amount of work for HP renovating the intelligent content infrastructure that underlies these online support services. Now our work was made infinitely easier by two factors – one was that HP really did have their proverbial act together and the other was that the previous integrator who had designed the initial system (many years before) had done a spectacularly good job. How often does that happen? And, how often does one integrator say that of another’s work?

The Content Wrangler: Do you know of any useful online resources you think our readers might find useful in understanding intelligent content?

Joe Gollner: In terms of where to look for more information, I would first point readers to the Intelligent Content 2010 conference. Somewhat unabashedly I would point people to my blog posts on this topic and specifically those falling under the xContent category. I also contend that my whitepaper on this topic remains a pretty good place to start.

The Content Wrangler: Thanks for taking time out of your hectic schedule to chat with us about intelligent content. We really appreciate it.

Joe Gollner: I am looking forward to seeing everyone in Palm Springs at Intelligent Content 2010. I am especially looking forward to any debates that might break out –- as they did last year.

Valentine: The Digital, Device-Independent Comic Available Via Wireless In 14 Languages

By Alex de Campi

Imagine a graphic novel series, released every month simultaneously in 14 languages and across all major wireless platforms (Kindle, EPUB, Android, iPhone), hopefully soon via the web and, eventually, in collected print editions. Every month, you pay 99 cents and get 70-75 screens of action, adventure and suspense. In its first fortnight after launch, in the difficult final weeks of December and with no marketing and without all our distributors yet on stream, the first episode had 5,000 downloads — of which English was in the minority. (There were over 100 downloads in Irish, which some call a “dead” language! And Latin is next…seriously.)

So, what is this publication and what innovative publishing house is behind it, you might ask? It’s Valentine­ — an original supernatural thriller set during Napoleon’s retreat from Russia that I am co-writing with artist Christine Larsen — and, at the moment, none. It’s just two American girls who got in over their heads.

Valentine became what it is today as a result of philosophizing about future models of publishing, and our real-life needs to have the book start paying for itself quickly. This was one of the reasons for choosing wireless distribution: it’s easier to sell downloads on phones and eReaders than charge for content on a website.

We are a Creative Commons work, which means that we acknowledge that there will be what some people may refer to as “stealing” but honestly, we’d prefer folks just enjoy the story rather than be demonized for how they obtained it. Hey, their sins may be scarlet, but at least our book is read. We’re also deliberately setting our price point very low (99 cents, versus $3.99 for a US comic book of similar length/content) to entice purchasers.


To my mind, the three most interesting aspects of how we are publishing Valentine are: the translations, the multiplicity of distributors per format, and the flexibility/scalability of the model, which allows us to dovetail nicely with the traditional publishing model.

The translations came about because in my other life as a filmmaker, I am always complaining about how not releasing films simultaneously in all geographies and all formats is basically what causes “piracy,” — a corporate term for “people wanting to see a film but having no other affordable way of doing so other than torrenting it.”

So if you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk, right? I also have a lot of friends around the world with whom I like to talk comics, and having written for French comics publishers and being a devotee of Japanese comics (to name but two markets) I am very aware of how comparatively tiny the English-language comics market is. Hell, there are individual French bandes dessinée and individual tankubon that regularly outsell per volume the entire annual output of the US comic book industry.

To find our translators, I put messages up on Twitter and Facebook. It really was that simple. Our first six or so translators were friends of mine; the next seven ranged from friends of friends to complete strangers. Most have professional translating experience. The translators receive 50% of the net sales of the book in their language, which gives them an incentive to blog, tweet and otherwise market the hell out of Valentine. Everyone has been warned though that 50% of our net sales for the first nine months or thereabouts is unlikely to earn them more than enough to buy a cup of coffee.


I can’t say enough good things about the translation team; they are amazing individuals (they range from an Anglo-Italian pop starlet and a Serbian artist to one of Rolling Stone’s Brazilian correspondents) and, for something organized via Twitter, there has been absolutely zero drama or flake factor. (Actually, that’s a lie. My first Spanish translator went AWOL, but a good friend, the artist Felipe Sobreiro in Colombia, stepped in at short notice.) The translations come in on time, perfectly done; clarification is often asked for and given — a loose network of individuals acting to an extremely high, professional standard.

Another exciting thing about Valentine is the relative frictionlessness of wireless distribution. We have two “publishers” for iPhone: Comixology and Robot Comics. We could add more if desired; there is no exclusivity. I always say this is like having your comic book published by DC and Marvel at the same time — or Glenat and Casterman, or Kodansha and Shogakukan. As we really start hitting the eReader stores we will have the same distribution reach (though not the same marketing muscle) as any major publisher. In today’s publishing world, you have to be everywhere people look.

And that also means, eventually, landing our product on store bookshelves. I love printed books. Part of the thinking behind Valentine was how to achieve three things: an immersive, high-quality reader experience specific to small-screen devices such as the iPhone; a true right-to-left reading experience for our Japanese, Hebrew, and (eventually) Arabic readers as well as our native left-to-right; and an equally good reader experience in our eventual printed collections. The idea of publishing Valentine as a paper book was embedded in our plans from the very start.

Each “screen” is a stand-alone comics panel. There are no “pages” of multiple panels, just infinitely flexible single panels which act as building blocks, shown singly on iPhone screens or rearranged to a traditional comics page for a book. Episode 01 opens with a five-panel panorama of a battlefield that not only creates a wonderful feeling of movement and space when reading on the iPhone, it raises the quality of the print version, where that five-panel spread will become nearly ten digest-sized splash pages.

Though there is no animation or “motion comics” in Valentine, because we are basically dealing with panels of all the same size and orientation — panels shaped like a cinema screen — we have created a very cinematic experience for the reader, in our expression of space and time.

I am beyond excited for when we reach the first major “break” in the Valentine story, at the end of Episode 08, when we will have the first volume of the story complete and ready to look for a publisher — or indeed publishers, as I doubt one will be able to handle all our language editions. (We already have interest in the US edition, but are actively looking for overseas publishers…write me.) The story is set to run to 24 episodes, which in book terms will equate to three volumes of 250-300 page full-color digest size graphic novels.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s difficult. I work four days a week at a bottom-level job to pay my rent, and I could really use those days to improve the Valentine website, work on our marketing, and write my next series. We make mistakes. We are very much learning as we go along. But sometimes I pause and look back over what we’ve accomplished so far, and it strikes me just what a giant thing a small, informal group of people has achieved. And we have so many exciting places still to go! Episode 04 of Valentine is out on February 17th for iPhone, Kindle, Android, and eReader.

[Note] This article reprinted with permission of the author. It originally appeared in Publishing Perspectives magazine.

From The Start We Were Different … An Amazing Video From Mark Logic

This video was used to open the Mark Logic 2009 User Conference. It’s an amazing presentation that tells the story of humans and the paradigm-shifting information explosion we find ourselves in today. When the video ended, the crowd went wild with applause. I’ll have to admit, I’ve never seen such response from an audience, not even to a great presentation delivered by a human opening keynote presenter.

Watch the video and let us know what you think.

And, consider attending the Mark Logic 2010 User Conference, May 4-6, 2010 in San Francisco.

[Interview] Microsoft's Gabor Fari on Intelligent Content: Saving Lives By Helping New Drugs Get To Market Faster

Interview with Gabor Fari, Microsoft Life Sciences by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler

The Content Wrangler: Hello, Gabor. Tell us a little about yourself and your experience in the content industry.

Gabor: I am a Chemical Engineer by training. I became fascinated with software a little over 10 years into my career, before I made the switch to the software industry. To me, building software solutions is still pretty much engineering, and my approach is to build solutions block by block.

I have been working in the enterprise content management industry for over 10 years. I am constantly thinking about how to remove the road blocks to effective content management. Part of the challenges are technology issues, and many of the rest have to do with managing people and change. I am a contributing member of the Document and Records Management SIAC at DIA (Drug Information Association) and the OASIS DITA Pharmaceutical Content Sub-Committee.

The Content Wrangler: Where do you work? Tell us a little about your firm, the markets you serve, and the products and services you offer.


Gabor: I work for Microsoft on our Life Sciences team. I am the driver behind the Intelligent Content Framework (ICF) initiative. The idea is to implement a people-ready approach to structured content authoring and dynamic publishing, using the Microsoft tools that many people use everyday, i.e. Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office.


The Content Wrangler: Intelligent Content is a hot topic today, but many people don’t understand what it is or why it matters. From your perspective, what is intelligent content? What makes it so smart? And, why do organizations need it?


Gabor: That is a great question. I have read a lot of definitions about Intelligent Content. I think Ann Rockley and Joe Gollner have the best definition of Intelligent Content, and it would be redundant to quote them here. Another way to look at it: Intelligent Content is where we need to move to, in the Era of Dumb Content.


[Editor's note: See "What is Intelligent Content?" by Ann Rockley and "The Emergence of Intelligent Content" by Joe Gollner.]


The Content Wrangler: Creating intelligent content certainly seems like a good idea. Can you share with us a few examples of how intelligent content can help an organization to be faster, leaner, make more money, reduce expenses, reduce risk, or serve it’s clients better?

Gabor: The best example I can think of is in my domain: what if a pharmaceutical company could complete all the documentation necessary to finish a submission to regulatory authorities (a New Drug Application, for example) 6 months faster than they do today using ‘Dumb Content’ approaches. Most importantly, medication could reach the population so much faster. And secondly, consider the competitive advantage a pharmaceutical company would gain by getting to market faster.


The Content Wrangler: Are there any examples you can point to of intelligent content on the web?


Gabor: I am mostly focused on Intranet applications at the moment, but I have seen a number of ‘Citizen Self-service Portals’ that are applying Intelligent Content approaches to Content-Centric applications such as dynamically generating permits, tax statements etc.


The Content Wrangler: Do you know of any useful online resources you think our readers might find useful in understanding intelligent content?


Gabor: I would recommend “The Emergence of Intelligent Content” by Joe Gollner and Document Engineering by Robert Glushko and Tim McGrath.


The Content Wrangler: Many of our readers might not be that familiar with your products and services, do you have any knowledge resources you’d like them to know about?


Gabor: You can keep track of my efforts working with the Microsoft Intelligent Content Framework here. You can also find me on Twitter.


Gabor Fari will be presenting a keynote address, Intelligent Content: An Emerging Trend in Enterprise Content Management, at Intelligent Content 2010, February 25-26 in Palm Springs, CA.