iPad, shmiPad "students remain big fans of printed books"

In today's Wall Street Journal there's a story about most of the big textbook publishers getting religion . . again. The silly meme is that Print is Dead. This time it plays out with the iPad. Full story:

Major textbook publishers have struck deals with software company ScrollMotion Inc. to adapt their textbooks for the electronic page, as the industry embraces a hope that digital devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPad will transform the classroom.

Not surprisingly, the usual cast of characters are moving together.

"People have been talking about the impact of technology on education for 25 years. It feels like it is really going to happen in 2010," said Rik Kranenburg, group president of higher education for the education unit of McGraw-Hill Cos. and one of the publishers involved in the project.

Other publishers include Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, which is a unit of Education Media & Publishing Group Ltd.; Pearson PLC's Pearson Education, and Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Inc., known for its test-prep and study guides.

But there is an inconvenient truth.

Maureen McMahon, president of Kaplan Publishing, said a recent Kaplan study showed that students remain big fans of printed books but that they would be more receptive to e-textbooks on portable digital devices.

The problem with textbooks is not that they are printed. The problem is they are too slow and expensive. Like many globals, they ignore the facts and buzz substitutes for reality. Best guess is that Kaplan will figure it out first. They generate most of the profit for the Washington Post anyways.

Consider study guides with QR codes instead of textbooks.
Plus you can get all those great analytics. Plus you can print it out on your MFP and take it to the local coffee shop to discuss with your friends.

Clickable Print and the evolution of the print medium

30,000 feet
It's pretty clear that print will start growing as QR and other 2d codes are incoporated in print product. One might say that clickable print is both a table of contents for content on the web and the off ramp to present web content in physical space.

10,000 feet
The view changes depending on the focus. My focus is education with a side focus on health and government. I think there is much to learn from marketing, but advertising and marketing are still too competitive and disruptive. It's hard for printers to add value. Education and health need the insights of marketing and the technology we provide.

On the ground
It's too complicated for any general statements or insights. That's where each PSP has to figure it out for themselves.

I've started a twitter persona to store various use cases from 10,000 feet. You can follow @clickableprint

Use Cases from 10,000 feet
PD | refers to Professional Development. It's the low hanging fruit in K-12 education.

PD | Education 2029 ? Compare and contrast: vid Kaplan Univ. http://ilnk.me/1657 View from Natl Assoc of Scholars Http://ilnk.me/NAS .

PD | "rather than try to train better leaders (teachers) we need to reboot the concept" http://ilnk.me/1662 - Poughkeepsie Day School

PD | Education 2029 ? Compare and contrast: vid Kaplan Univ. http://ilnk.me/1657 View from Natl Assoc of Scholars Http://ilnk.me/NAS .

Edu | Worst Idea To Promote Parent Involvement Ever" http://tinyurl.com/ydzaeer || ClckPr to send Mom an SMS when non compliance occurs.

'Meet the Press' transcript for January 24, 2010 http://ilnk.me/165e || Could be great in clickable print for civic class.

Another consolidation? Quad to Buy World Color. RRD gets a run for the money.

Printer Quad Graphics Expected to Buy World Color Press - WSJ.com:

"Privately held Quad/Graphics Inc. of the U.S. is expected to acquire Canadian rival World Color Press Inc. for roughly $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion, said people familiar with the matter, in a deal that would create North America's second-largest commercial printer by sales, behind industry giant R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co.

Under the plan, these people said, shareholders of Toronto-listed World Color, which prints such magazines as Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone, as well as the Crate & Barrel catalog and Yellow Book directory, would get a 40% stake in the newly combined company. The new company would then list on a U.S. stock exchange, they said, in effect bringing Quad/Graphics, whose clients include Newsweek, GQ and the L.L. Bean catalog, to the public market for the first time since its founding in 1971."

Now that we know where Print fits, what's next?

It's become pretty clear that Print fits into the emerging communication ecology as being the on and off ramp to Web Squared. As the web becomes the internet of things, Print is the table of contents.

Now it's just a matter of following who is going to get what in the ensuing land grab. But that's for a different post.

Today, visual search got back on my radar. My bet is that is the end of game of the next 10 or 15 years. It will be fascinating to see how that plays out. Imagine what that could mean for education, health and government. It will probably also be pretty neat for marketing.

It started yesterday with a couple of tweets between me and Ricoh Innovations Labs.

jamois RT @jasonpinto: Excellent application of QR Codes described by @ToughLoveForX: http://ilnk.me/1698

@jamois http://aha.sh/U - scan, author qr codes. Plus analytics. Social networking. iPhone, Mac, Windows. oh & FREE || pretty cool.

jamois @ToughLoveforX "http://aha.sh/U -...qr codes....FREE || pretty cool." - thx but check out what comes next: "visual search" http://aha.sh/VS

Me:
@jamois brilliant! --->http://aha.sh/VS | Until it's ready for prime time QR? BTW "clickable paper" check @clickableprint Great minds:-)

Me:
Ricoh Rocks! Check out visual search post..vids and links. http://ilnk.me/16a1 The next step to @clickableprint

RicohInnovation RT @ToughLoveforX: Ricoh Rocks! Check out visual search post..vids and links. http://ilnk.me/16a1 The next step to @clickableprint

Moodstocks RT @ToughLoveforX: Spend 4:57 min with @RicohInnovation video on QR, Visual Search and Social Networking Mind blowing ! http://ilnk.me/16a3

Did you know that @Moodstocks "specializes in visual search on the Internet"

Me RT
Moodstocks RT @delunna: A must read! Visual Search, #AugmentedReality and a Social Commons for the Physical World Platform http://bit.ly/7pRP9r

The Money Tweet:
#QR ers MUST read for state of the art on where it's all going. AR and the "no click interface" http://ilnk.me/16aa Smart & Lots of links.

http://ilnk.me/16aa will take you to:
Visual Search, Augmented Reality and a Social Commons for the Physical World Platform: Interview with Anselm Hook

A response to Jim Lyons post on QR. It's about compliance, not marketing.

I tried to post this at Jim's post, but it got complicated. As readers of this blog have probably figured out I don't like complicated.

The original post, most definitely worth the click is at Jim's blog. The post is January Observations -- From the QR Code sandbox — will It help printing?

My comment

Jim,
Thanks for the kind words. Just wanted to share a thought about
"the question remains whether this technology is good for printing."

I have commercial print experience and dna. But I have been following the conversation about MPS and MFP every since Greg Walters, Art Post and You got on my RSS and email notification.

Another under appreciated fact of QR is that it is possible to encode a Purl - a personalized url. This might turn out to be a big deal for MPS because it allows the capture of when a particular person either clicked on the code, or when to the human readable URL.

The issue is not advertising, it is compliance. Just one use case to give you an idea of what I mean:

A large organization is required by law to inform their employees of X. And they are required to be able to produce proof that the employee was appropriately notified.

By using a Personalized Url, changing into a human readable URL - through link shortening - and also embedding that Url inot a 2d Code, one could print out a notification at the MFP.

Then one can capture in a colud based data base whether that person went to the URL to read the document. Even more important, it will give management timely information about who didn't yet click on the document.

Once the manager has that info, she can send an email the next day, "Dear X, I asked you to look at the document yesterday. Please do so today."

My own interest is in high school education. The same process could be very useful in that context, especially in addressing the problem of students who get lost.

At any rate, if this process proves out, it's a very low cost - high value addition to any MPS contract. As the margin on boxes keeps getting slimmer and slimmer, I would think it would be an interesting proposition for Independent MPS.

What if an MFP were a news output device?

In the States, a new form of journalism is emerging. As of today, it's gotten on my radar in Texas, California and Connecticut.

CT Mirror is nnother new business model for Journalism at the State level http://ilnk.me/166e It seems similar to @texastribune

California Watch: The latest entrant in the dot-org journalism boom http://ilnk.me/166f

There are different business models for each outfit. But each a web only. Web only is a niche market. Only print and TV are mass market medium.

Consider and A4 or A3 with human readable URL's and QR codes, that takes the headline and the lede from the XML on the newspaper site. Or takes a twitter stream with HR URLs and QR code.

Or if not an MFP, then a PDF as a newspaper insert or supplied to print with the run. Or if not a PDF, then a 24 page newspaper.

Then earn some revenue with ads from NGO's and Government Social Service.

Just when the smoke was clearing, a new player cames to the States. MGI and they speak Twitter!

If all the globals could learn to speak twitter it would be so much easier for everyone to figure out how to get from here to there.

It started about 15 hours ago. I came across an interesting post at @mbossed.

I'm @ToughLoveforX . He is @MGI_USA .

I said:
Did you know that @socialprintexp is built on the MGI press. Convo going on now at @mbossed http://ilnk.me/1637 || Ain't Fridays grand?

@Socialprintexpo Any thoughts/ links? to why did 15 customers buy an MGI press over an #HP Indigo?" Digital Print 360 http://ilnk.me/ed0

Then I got an email notification that @MGI_USA was "following".

I said:
@MGI_USA Thanks for the follow and welcome to the States:-) Maybe you can explain why what's so cool about MGI? http://ilnk.me/ed0

He said:
@ToughLoveforX Sure! 1.Substrates (paper, plastics, ENVELOPES) 2. Up to 13 x 47" size 3. Laser-safe 4. No click charge 5. Outstanding color

I said:
@MGI_USA " 4. No click charge" 13 x 47 ? very, very cool. Got anything EZ on TCO? inkjet not toner? Needs conditioned air space?

He said:
@ToughLoveforX presses are dry toner, although an inkjet press for card apps is out late 2010 - std climate & hum. control, no chiller req.

@ToughLoveforX that's just our Meteor DP60 Pro digital press - we also have the JETvarnish digital inkjet spot UV coater + other finishing

I said:
@MGI_USA got a vid anywhere?

He said:
@ToughLoveforX check out our Web site for vids: http://tinyurl.com/yem49a2

I said:
@MGI_USA thanks for link I really like "MGI’s My PhotoBook Shop" http://ilnk.me/1639

Then I RT'ed.

The City of Cincinnati talks about their MGI Meteor DP60 Pro in the Nov issue of In-Plant Graphics: http://tinyurl.com/yh586bz

MGI USA adds 3 more dealers to US network: http://bit.ly/4iREF2

Custom Textbooks Created on HP Equipment

By now it's no longer a new story. But here's another data point on the opportunity for versioned print in education. Soon someone will scale personalized (in addition to the versioned) Then someone will add QR or other 2d codes.

Then some high school admin somewhere is going to see the value of personalized print + QR to increase attendance and behavior compliance with a minimally invasive intervention.

Then we can all move on to even more interesting problems.

The full story is at Global Print Monitor

"Making the grade in educational publishing

As public schools across the US strive to improve education for all students, the needs of individual states, districts and schools become apparent. Mercury Print Productions found a way to address these needs by creating customised textbooks with the new HP Indigo W7200 Digital Press.

'Because of the No Child Left Behind Act, a school's funding is somewhat dependent on students' test scores,' explains Christian Schamberger, vice president of operations, Mercury Print Productions. 'The ability to customise textbooks to ensure students learn what they need to can help improve test scores and secure the school's funding.'"

Screen to launch Indigo rival at Ipex

Just when I thought I had the players figured, here comes Screen with an inkjet to go against the Indigo. I keep looking for stories about the Screen Inkjet at AlphaGraphics printing American editions of the Daily Mail newspaper. None have gotten on my radar since the first stories many months.

If anyone has some info, please leave a comment.

Anyway's here's the snippet from Proprint. Details at the click:

ProPrint:
"Screen will use Ipex 2010 for the commercial launch of the Truepress JetSX – a B2 inkjet press that has already attracted 'a fair bit of interest' here in Australia."

It's time to Stop Evangelizing and Start Selling.

From the inside it seems that the job is to "convince" and "educate" end users about the value of print and 2d codes. As usual, if you take a glance outside it seems that "convincing and education" are no longer needed.

This morning I found this one. I don't want to turn this into a long post, so I won't belabor the the point. If you're interested follow me at twitter @toughloveforx . In between my relentless pursuit of those who are going to fix high school dropouts, I tweet examples of QR and other 2d codes being used in the real world.

It's the beginning of a land grab. No "education" or "evangelizing" needed in a land grab.

Mobile provides instant interaction with consumers - Mobile Marketer - Advertising:
"Bar code branding
Text-message opt-ins are far from the only way to engage consumers. Another option? Mobile bar codes.

Scanbuy Inc. has launched a number of products for brands such as American Airlines, Volkswagen and Sprint with the use of bar codes.

“Mobile barcodes are an extremely easy and trackable way to mobilize any traditional media from print to packaging,” said Jonathan Bulkeley, CEO of Scanbuy, New York. “In our experience, the keys to getting results are to give the consumer something of value and communicate clearly with a strong call-to-action."