Encyclopaedia Britannica, the 244-year-old company, recently announced it would stop printing encyclopedias. Of course this triggered a flurry of talk about the end of printed books, magazines, and newspapers and a once-great company humbled by shifts in technology. But to fall into that narrative is to miss the greatest lesson of the story. Innovating, creating something new, playing the beginning of the game is the easy part. Britannica offers us invaluable insight into the much harder half of the innovation process: how to play the end game.You see, every game--chess, tennis, business--has an end. Every business will eventually die. We cannot escape this inevitability. Yet we hold on to the fantasy that somehow OUR company will be different, that our company is “built to last.” The key to long life in business is knowing how to play the end game so that you can position yourself to play the next game. Britannica seems to be doing that well.The Wi-Fi PatternTo understand what is going on here, think about Wi-Fi (wireless Internet) service. Ten years ago when you walked into a Starbucks you had to pay for Wi-Fi access. Now you get it for free. If something doesn’t cost anything to provide, eventually someone will give it away for free. Or as an economist would say, over the long run, the market price of any competitive product or service reaches its margin cost.Wikipedia has proven that there are lots of smart people out there who are willing to write content for free.... Continue reading at 'Fast Company'
[ Fast Company | 2012-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Military history publisher Osprey Publishing is to create a dedicated games division to develop... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Celebrating great writing by women and taking it to a wider audience than ever before are the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-02-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pocket Gems, the San Francisco-based mobile gaming company, has launched Episode, a new mobile gaming platform, that includes a writer’s portal that will enable anyone to utilize the platform to create their own animated story. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-02-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Since Valve released the first stable version of Steam for Linux a year ago, the number of Linux-supported games has grown more than fivefold.Valve's digital game distribution service now hosts 333 games for Linux, compared to 60 games last February. (Strangely, Steam's store page claims that... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2014-02-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Currently soliciting crowdfunding, scheme hopes to transpose website's 2.6bn words onto paper for touring exhibitionIt would run to over a million pages, featuring more than four million articles by 20 million volunteers: an "record-breaking" new project to turn Wikipedia into 1,000 books has... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#successful eventually
When it comes to online publishing, building an audience organically with compelling content and monetizing it successfully with ads from big-name brands is extremely hard work. Luckily, there's a much easier way to make money: Arbitrage.The post Tricks of the trade: How to game the publishing... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2014-02-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Crime writer Lynda La Plante has launched a new company, La Plante Global, which will control all... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-02-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Marie Claire is a highly polished magazine; its recent foray into digital video was not.The Hearst-owned title live-streamed its first dating show "The Love Match" on Friday, where three women "looking to find love" were paired with one of three eligible bachelors. Marie Claire staffers... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2014-02-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Forbes Media is drawing interest from acquirers including China's Fosun International Ltd. and Singapore's Spice Global Investments Pvt, with final offers for the magazine publisher due Monday,... To view the full story, click the title link. Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2014-02-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Gaming @ LBF is designed to connect the "creative and commercial talents of gaming developers, publishers and distributors with their publishing counterparts." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-02-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Microsoft caught everyone's attention back when it introduced ID@Xbox. Now, nearly six months after the indie developer program was revealed, we're finally seeing the first titles to come out of it: Worms Battlegrounds and Nutjitsu. At this point,... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2014-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Interactive Advertising Bureau primarily exists to help grow the pie of digital advertising dollars. So, as it kicks off its annual leadership meeting this week, it's focusing on where that growth is expected to occur: mobile.Today, the IAB -- along with a group of publishers including AOL,... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2014-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Rubicon Project, a digital advertising platform for buyers and sellers, has revealed its plans to sell its shares publicly. The LA-based company follows a number of ad tech firms that have tested public markets within the past year, including Criteo, RocketFuel, Tremor Video, YuMe among... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2014-02-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Orchard Books is teaming up with marketing agency Mostra to distribute copies of The World of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-01-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The company has experienced success with its 'exclusive editions' program, in which B&N will release versions of popular tween and young adult titles with never-before-seen content. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-01-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Blackboard, a learning management system that provides the online educational environment for many higher educational institutions, plans to launch an online bookstore for its platform. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital versions will be available simultaneously with the release of print editions. Libraries can license the titles for a one-year period. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The president of the non-profit investigative journalism website on measuring impact, team work – and Edward SnowdenRichard Tofel has had a dream. It came upon him the night before we meet and he is still a little rattled by it. In it, he found himself performing his old role at Dow Jones, where... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Claiming famous artists operated under the auspices of modern scientific thought ignores what art is all about."Art does not have winners." This is the argument William Deresiewicz makes as he skewers political scientist Michael Suk-Young Chwe's latest book, Jane Austen, Game Theorist in The New... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2014-01-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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