idiomag

I never blog about general tech news here, because most of our readers are pretty up-to-date from other sources, but I thought this one was worth it.

I have been chatting with loads of people recently about mobile app development, and with idiomag in mind, the restriction of mobile phone screens have often been quoted. The iPhone obviously moved things forward in terms of screen format, bringing the laptop and mobile formats closer together, but there seems to be a perception that mobile browsing will always mean squinting and peering close to the screen. I have been keeping an eye on the development of mobile projectors, and over the weekend I saw that the NYT picked up on this innovation, and ran a good article explaining it.

Basically, there are already 16 manufacturers working on tiny projectors for mobile phones, and by 2012 the market is predicted to be $2.5bn for companion projectors, and $1bn for projectors built in to phones in the same way that cameras are now. So very soon, you will be able to get a big-screen experience from a small-screen device by pointing it at any flat surface. With this in mind, mobile app developers should totally change their thinking about interface design constraints.Best online deal for phentermine
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Just a quick post for now…

We have signed up loads of new contributors over the past week. These include the (self-proclaimed) “world’s premier music publication” - Billboard.com. Well, perhaps we are the “universe’s premier music publication”… ha.

The web design tyrannosaur, .net magazine, who have featured us on no less than 3 occasions, are holding their annual Awards. So please click here and vote for “www.idiomag.com” in the following categories:

Best New Site
Web App of the Year
Interactive Award
Innovation Award

If you are feeling suitably generous and want to go the extra mile, you could also vote for “www.thrusites.com” as the best Design Agency of the year. They have done a great job helping idiomag develop.

Now relax with that warm fuzzy feeling, knowing you have helped us. Thanks!

In the last 2 weeks we have driven 3000 miles, visited 16 universities, and talked to over 100 representatives from student music and journalism societies across the country. Lots of fun!

We had a superb response, with almost 200 students signing up to be associate journalists with idiomag. So now, in addition to the great content we are syndicating from top publications, we will soon have local articles about your local music scene.

So now the fun stops and the hard work begins (yeah right!)…

If you want to get involved, whether contributing some articles, or helping us get the word out about idiomag, just drop us an email. Our new about page has those. And I have been warned that team photos will be uploaded there soon. Ouch.

Well, a lot has happened since we last posted here. The big players have been buying up the online advertising market, Facebook has allowed external apps in its social network, and last.fm has finally been bought by CBS (last.fm: please don’t change - we love you as you are!).

We have some very exciting developments in the pipeline for this month. We have been working hard on tweaking idiomag’s algorithms and content-base, as well as making the magazine more readable. Also, at some point in the next month or so, we will jump on the (very appealing) bandwagon and create some groovy Facebook applications.

We have had a good range of new contributors come on board, including JunkMedia, Ground Up Hip Hop, Losing Today and Chronic Magazine. This will really help deepen our content-base, enabling us to deliver a more relevant and interesting magazine. In addition, we are now broadening the content beyond gig and album reviews, to include interactive competitions, feature articles and some podcast-style sections.

One major improvement that we are just completing, is that readers will soon be able to join idiomag using their last.fm, iLike, MOG, or MyStrands username. From this we can immediately create a very relevant magazine, from their past listening habits. Much simpler and quicker.

Its also nice to see that idiomag is still picking up some great press, with recent mentions in WebUser magazine and Precision Marketing magazine.

Well thats about it for the moment. As usual, let us know your thoughts and suggestions.

Google can track our ideas and interests from conception (search patterns) to conversation (gmail) to commerce (google checkout). All great products… and I congratulate Google for lining up such a deep range of products that compete well as stand-alone services, but also can collect such valuable advertising information.

They have conquered contextual ads, they have moved into TV and radio adverts, and now bought DoubleClick’s superb technology and client base. DoubleClick’s reporting systems will certainly be useful as formats become larger and more rich-media focused - especially as TV and online continue to merge in terms of formats, targeting and reporting.

Tim O’Reilly seems confident that Google doesn’t pose much of a risk to privacy, and states that Google is being held to a higher standard than other information owners. Well, as a certain wise man once said, “To whom much is given, from him much will be required.”

Just a quick post to let you all know about idiomag v1. We had lots of great feedback on the beta version, most of which we have included in our development roadmap. The new version is now live at www.idiomag.com

Basically, the new version is more powerful (better personalisation engine), sexier (UI redesign), more robust (it doesn’t break when there are more than a thousand users reading it), and “more full” of great content!

For those who are interested, the key improvements from the beta version are outlined below.

Content
We have used the beta period to hand-pick the best contributors for idiomag. Now numbering around 70, our content providers range from respected bloggers, to mainstream publishers - all providing quality feature articles and reviews in the music subject area. The biggest names at the moment are Blogcritics, Music Emissions and SoundFires.

Tagging
We were very aware that the beta version’s tagging system was not very usable or scalable, and we have redesigned this so that the emphasis is placed on the magazine learning your interests, rather than you teaching the magazine. The interface should also be much easier to use.

Multimedia player
For v1 we have built a robust audio and video player, so that more engaging content can be easily included in the magazine.

Magazine layouts
We have ‘prettified’ the magazine interface and improved the automated page layout engine, so that magazine pages present the content in a more visually pleasing manner - including the use of automated colour themes.

Magazine interaction
In v1, readers can comment upon any article, share it with friends, and save it in a personal archive. We didn’t want to head down the networking route too quickly, but these features start to build in that direction, and set the ground for future releases. Watch this space…

Content delivery
Although idiomag doesn’t directly follow the “wisdom of the crowds” doctrine (we want to deliver to you what you want, not what your friends want), we have added a rating system for quality to complement the current relevancy rating system. After selecting the articles that you will most probably like to read, idiomag takes into account whether other readers have rated the content’s quality positively.

Content upload system
idiomag has been described as “glossy RSS” and we have vastly improved/streamlined the process by which content is transformed from RSS feeds (basic text) into a glossy magazine page. This makes the whole publishing operation a lot more scalable.

Those are the main improvements, but there isn’t enought space to mention all of them here. Anyway - if you like what we are doing, do tell all your friends to sign-up at www.idiomag.com. As always, please drop us an email if you have any comments/suggestions.

I just came across a great article by Olivia Hemmings, a post-graduate at Cardiff University. Entitled “Mags online: It’s getting personal“, Olivia explains that the public has a short attention span online and yet is demanding ever more quality content. She then summarises the movement towards personalised online publishing by the large publishing houses, in order to try and meet this demand.

The article contrasts what idiomag is doing with what IPC Media is trying to build into NME: myNME, a feature for registered users of NME.com, asks users for their favourite bands and then fills the myNME page with relevant content. The ‘personalisation’ system seems to be quite simple, just displaying the most recent articles that include the user’s favourite bands name as a keyword. Therefore it doesn’t contain the learning ability of idiomag, or the discovery aspect (where content is suggested based on specific genre interests rather than just band names). However, it certainly is a great step in the right direction.

The article contains a good quote about idiomag from Kim Hollamby, head of electronic media at IPC Media:

“I like the idea (of Idio); IPC is building this technology at the moment, although there’s no business plan for it yet. Magazines work because they have a focus, but I’m aware that our readers have mixed interests. In essence I think this concept could take over but ultimately that will be dictated by the user.”

Although I am admittedly biased, I believe that the true innovation in this area will have to come from startups like idiomag - simply because we don’t have to worry about continuing to please millions of existing readers, whilst coordinating the integrated development of a myriad of leading national titles. In the same way that TV production/distribution companies stood seemingly powerless whilst YouTube advanced into their domain, many digital publishing startups have been moving into the glossy magazine domain - the best of which are innovating in at least one area, whether it be personalisation, community, interactivity or media blend.

Sramana Mitra’s post at Read/Write Web got me thinking about how idiomag fits in with her ‘Web 3.0 formula’ that predicts the direction of the web.

So first the formula: Web 3.0 = Content, Community, Commerce and Context + Personalisation + Vertical Search

Sramana’s main point seems to be that the web is moving into a phase where services (Content, Community and Commerce) will be bunched around contexts, with the context providing a value-added foundation to the other C’s. And as a summary that describes the biggest players, I wouldn’t disagree. The large ‘Web 1.0′ companies do need to work hard to meet the very varied needs of their mass of users. The underlying value of content, commerce and community is inherent to its context, as it is this that draws together relevant content, a focused community, and related commerce.

As Yahoo is finding out to its cost, a lack of clear context causes revenues (advertising in particular) to be constrained. On the other hand, within a given context, personalisation and vertical search are both means of providing users with relevant (and therefore more valuable) content, commerce and community, also enabling relevant (and therefore more highly-priced) advertising.

With less mature services, the formula seems more descriptive than predictive. Most of the more recent offerings are built specifically for a context (e.g. LinkedIn is built around networking specifically for business gain, and Last.fm is built around personalised music for music lovers), or have not developed to the point at which content, commerce and community have overtaken context. It will surely be the natural progression for many of the successful ‘Web 2.0′ startups to mature into a position of providing all of the formula’s elements.

I am not sure that Sramana’s formula defines Web 3.0, but instead it seems to put a good framework on the immediate progression within ‘Web 2.0’. My comment being really that the next phase of the web, as described by the formula, does not seem different enough to be a next phase!

Now I will use it to explain what idiomag is doing…

idiomag = 4C + P + VS

Context:
idiomag’s context is the personalised magazine. It is for creative people who regularly read music magazines and have specific likes and dislikes.

Content:
Being a magazine, idiomag’s content is fundamental to the service. It is a range of text articles, videos and audio that analyses, describes and comments upon subjects relevant to each reader.

Commerce:
The methods of commerce will be more clearly defined in our v1 launch in March than they have been previously. Firstly, we enable advertisers to target very specific segments, based on their interests as well as their demographics. Through their rich-media formats, advertisers can choose to seek the response they most desire from relevant readers, whether that is a direct sale, a click-through, or brand recognition being built. In addition to advertising, idiomag’s initial focus on music content will allow users to buy the tracks they are listening to (or reading about), and concert tickets, with more commerce options opening as the content subject areas expand.

Community:
Although it won’t be available for everyone immediately, idiomag can connect readers based on their likes and dislikes, geography and demography. This will allow networks of readers to be created, allowing readers to publish pages to their network on an opt-in basis.

Personalisation:
I am glad Sramana mentioned this, and not just because it is idiomag’s strong point! In order for users to use more of, and make better sense of, the incredible resources on the web, companies will start to use more effective methods of personalisation. This will make using the web radically more efficient, and more useful for more people, because searching/browsing time will be dramatically reduced. Of course, idiomag delivers personalised content and advertising to every reader – with the magazine becoming increasing relevant over time as readers rate the content they view.

Vertical Search:
This is an interesting one, because idiomag’s initial premise is that our system delivers such personalised content that readers do not need to search for it. However, we realise that even when personalisation has effectively reduced the need for search, that functionality must be there. So in v2 (don’t even ask me when that will go live…) we are aiming to integrate some ‘vertical-search-like’ options for the more proactive users. For example, we are working to identify the functional classifications of articles, so the content type and structure is identified. For example, some readers will prefer shorter newsy content, where as other prefer a more in-depth analysis. And some don’t mind what structure the content follows, as long as it is written with a sarcastic/comedic edge.

So there we go… an interesting exercise!

Read/Write Web has recently published an article explaining how niche technology services, such as digg and del.icio.us, are now being recognised by the mainstream media. For example, the New York Times and Time Magazine have digg and del.icio.us buttons beside their online content. As Alex Iskold rightly point out, this has huge implications for the usage of these sites - and therefore their value to advertisers and potential buyers.

The fact that traditional publishers are essential to the mainstream adoption of online services (and that this dependency seems odd) epitomises the current state-of-play in the media industry. We are nearing the tipping point, when online becomes the new offline and when traditional publishers must go beyond simply using “Web 2.0″ services, and actually become them. And of course, Web 2.0 publishers (and their VCs) are betting that the payback will be swift, as advertising money follows the masses onto these services.