On January 18th, Google brought together "thought leaders and publishing industry veterans who are taking advantage of our increasingly digital world—from blogs and social networks to print-on-demand and online access." It was an "all-day love-fest for book publishers", as Kevin Newcomb over at Search Engine Watch notes, with Google "trying to persuade publishers that [it] could be their friend, and not a book-stealing upstart that just won't follow their antiquated publishing standards." There is a lot of fear in the mainstream publishing industry of Google's BookSearch.
The conference included many luminaries of the new media, including Chris Anderson (author of "The Long Tail"); author and marketing guru Seth Godin, Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing (and according to Godin, the Michael Jordan of data overload skill, and Tim O'Reilly. The innovators from the Institute for the Future of the Book, who blog at If:Book, thought that through the conference Google was taking a sort of a carrot and stick approach, telling them that giving away content will, in the end, lead to more sales, while making it clear to mainstream publishers that that if they don't embrace this change it will happen without them. As Seth Godin closed during the conference (based on one account): "In five years you're either going to be the center of the universe, or you're going to be ... Pluto."
I've found a few more links out there discussing the Unbound conference. I'm sure there will be more, but thought I'd collect those I found for you here (with some money quotes):
- Publishing Unbound, Google-Style over at Galley Cat.
- "...what especially hit home was how publishing is not best served by a conglomerate approach - because how can one model be applicable for education, science/technology/medicine, non-fiction and fiction? Answer: it can't.")
- Google opens dialogue with book publishers over at CNET News.com.
- "At "Unbound," the tech-savvy authors, publishers and analysts more or less agreed that to grow and profit in an increasingly digital world, the publishing industry will have to expand its boundaries."
- Free is the New Paid over at On the Turning Away.
- "As befitting the zeitgeist, the power of the user will dictate the future of the publishing industry. Three segments are emerging in today’s publishing world – printed works, print-on-demand and inventive entertainment – in which authors create personas through multimedia channels, all of which are marketed by search, social communities both on and offline and workflow. The challenge for publishers will be to leverage these channels to create books that users will engage."
- Change is Now, and Free Sells over at The Long Blonde Tail.
- "The time for (big) change is now. For an incredibly conservative, slow-to-adapt, traditional industry, this is no small feat."
- Four posts over at WebMetricsGuru, who blogged about each session here , here, here (Seth Godin) and here (Cory Doctorow).
Comments