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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Suzanne Collins says she 'sort of completed' a goal of hers this fall by releasing her children's book 'Year of the Jungle,' which examines war from a child's point of view. Collins wants to write a book about war for every child age group, she says. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-11-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tribune Co. announced a restructuring of its publishing business Wednesday to focus on its digital efforts and streamline operations, resulting in nearly 700 job losses across the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and six other daily newspapers. Continue reading at Baltimore Sun
[ Baltimore Sun | 2013-11-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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With one of Slovenia's two major publishing conglomerates up for auction, the industry fears the worst; readers, meanwhile, have rallied around a surprise bestseller. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-11-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Washington Post Co. announced Monday that it will change its name to Graham Holdings Company, acknowledging the Oct. 1 sale of the company’s flagship newspaper and several other publishing businesses to Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bez ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fashion legend says: 'The living deserve respect. The dead deserve the truth... this will be my story'Doyenne of British fashion Dame Vivienne Westwood, credited with inventing punk style then bringing it to the catwalk, has sold rights to an autobiography. It will be co-written by Ian Kelly,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Forbes Media LLC, the closely held publisher founded by the family of former U.S. presidential candidate Steve Forbes, is exploring a sale after getting interest from potential buyers.The New York-based publisher of 96-year-old Forbes magazine and Forbes.com is working with Deutsche Bank AG on... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2013-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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On Thursday, Contently, a hot little company, held a buzzy conference at the Bowery Hotel on a very of-the-moment topic. The conference, the Brand Publishing Summit, included clients, agencies and publishers, with a lot of chatter about brands goi ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-11-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New community may come from a publisher, but it's starting with digital media rather than books. By Stuart DredgeStuart Dredge Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It’s an odd week when you follow up a review of a movie about a homophobe—Jean-Marc Vallée’s excellent Dallas Buyers Club—with a review of a movie by a homophobe, or, rather, based on a best-selling book by a very prominent one. Before the release of Ender’s Game, an adaptation by... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2013-11-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A small number of job losses will occur as Bonnier moves UK publishing businesses to Surrey.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When Vice first appeared on Ad Age's Magazine A-List in 2010, it raised more than few eyebrows among industry stalwarts. For one thing, it was the first free-distribution magazine Ad Age had ever honored. And another thing—OK, the main thing—Vice is a cheerfully irreverent, quasi-rude... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2013-10-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the Oct. 21 issue of Advertising Age, you'll find the closely watched annual Magazine A-List, which honors 10 glossies that are doing really, really well. I'm part of the editorial team that, each summer and fall, works on the list (which involves a lot of in-depth research and... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2013-10-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When Vice first appeared on Ad Age's Magazine A-List in 2010, it raised more than few eyebrows among industry stalwarts. For one thing, it was the first free-distribution magazine Ad Age had ever honored. And another thing -- OK, the main thing -- Vice is a cheerfully irreverent, quasi-rude... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2013-10-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The writer Carl Bernstein has struck a deal to write a memoir of his early years as a cub reporter in Washington, his publisher, Henry Holt & Company, said on Monday. Rather than focusing on his famous tenure at The Washington Post, where wit ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-10-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Could this be the global data plan of our dreams? A fan site for Shakira, the artist set to perform at T-Mobile's UnCarrier event tonight, published a teaser on its Facebook page today. The image above suggests that the carrier will announce data plans that include global roaming in more than... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Four months after introducing video, Instagram took the natural next step today, telling its over 150 million users their streams would soon include ads too.The company, acquired by Facebook for $736 million in 2012, announced the development in a short blog post it published Thursday afternoon.... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2013-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The U.S. Department of Justice has opposed requests by Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other companies to publish the number of surveillance requests they receive from the National Security Agency and other agencies. Requests from five Internet companies, also including Yahoo and LinkedIn,... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The New York Public Library recently discovered a treasure trove of video games in its archives created by psychedelic evangelist Timothy Leary. Over 375 floppies (talk about flashbacks) containing a "dozen or so" games developed by the LSD-advocate in the '80s -- some are playable via emulation... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Storify, a digital storytelling tool used by journalists to surface conversations that originate on social media, has been acquired by the Web publishing services company Livefyre. Livefyre plans to fold Storify into its StreamHub product, which offers Web publishers tools for commenting, live... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2013-09-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Taboola, a company that powers content recommendation and monetization for Web publishers, is now offering users a chance to reject and even weigh in on stories that the company suggests. The company's content recommendation tech appears on all sorts of sites on the Web, often in the form of... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2013-09-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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