Commentary on various aspects of publishing and marketing, primarily focused on books, magazines, and social media.
It reminds me of 2003, the year I started blogging, and how some people were able to attract large audiences for their writing, and the mainstream media scoffed that they would ever be taken seriously. Fast-forward, many of those early bloggers are now considered "real" journalists, some because they went to work for traditional media brands, others because they attracted a significant enough audience on their own that they couldn't be ignored.
Not quite one year to the day it was announced, Seth Godin is shutting The Domino Project down, offering the awkward explanation that "it was a project, not a lifelong commitment to being a publisher of books," instead of, perhaps, admitting that publishing is harder than it looks if you want to swim at the deep end of the trade pool in the middle of a dramatic transition, as he obliquely acknowledges in many of his noteworthy takeaways.
It will be interesting to see what other publisher can successfully go the Marvel route; with a $2B+ worldwide box office already in for the Avengers' on-screen storyworld (one that still bizarrely lives in total isolation from the comics), I'm guessing several will make the attempt within the next 2-3 years. Two gaming franchises I think have some serious transmedia potential are Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls and Activision's Skylanders, though you might be surprised by which one I think has the most potential.
We are not anywhere near the digital future yet with comics. There is so much exciting ground to be staked out! We just need a new publisher, or a collective of coders, comic writers, and artists. I think the latter is more likely than the former.
I casually followed the transition for a couple of months before losing interest, and was disappointed to check in last week to find an uninspired website and social media presence, and PDF-only digital editions. I also realized I hadn't noticed the magazine on the newsstands in months.
Nash took an honest shot at something he believed in and, more importantly, maintained his integrity throughout the process. While neither Cursor nor Red Lemonade ended up being the "game changers" some thought they might be, one could argue (and so I will) that the publishing industry overall is stronger for the attempt, and what *did* work shouldn't be lost in the discussion.
Therein lies the real problem with Klout. While its Topics feature is an intriguing attempt to add a much-needed contextual layer to its linear scoring and might have some long-term potential (most likely as acquisition bait, to complement PostRank or Radian6?), overall, it's a pretty useless, Foursquare-style gamification of the worst aspects of Social MEdia.
