The OPLIN 4cast

Surely you’ve heard about QR codes by now, and maybe your library is even exploring ways to put them to good use. Public libraries don’t seem to be as advanced in their QR experiments as academic libraries, which is logical when you think about it – the college students that use academic libraries would seem to be the prime demographic for QR codes. So far, however, QR experiments overall, even among college students, have had mixed results as you can see from the recent surveys cited below.

• Using QR codes in the library at Leeds Metropolitan University [pdf] (SCONUL Focus/John Bottomley)  “The survey results showed that c.75% of those interviewed knew about QR codes, had a phone that could read them and thought that adding them to the floor plan key would provide extra benefit. However, about half said we should also publicise what QR codes were and how to use them before we added them to library materials, so perhaps knowledge about QR codes was not as ubiquitous as it appeared.”
• QR codes go to college (Archrival/Don Aguirre)  “QR codes do enjoy a high-level of awareness among college students yet only a fraction (21%) could properly scan and activate the code. Why the discrepancy? According to our findings, students simply struggled with the process. Some didn’t know a 3rd party app was needed, many mistakenly assumed it could be activated with their camera, and others just lost interest, saying the activity took too long. This could be why 75% of students said they were ‘Not Likely’ to scan QR codes in the future.”
• Week 46: QR or not QR (Urbanscale/Adam Greenfield)  “A strong theme that emerged – which we certainly found entirely unsurprising, but which ought to give genuine pause to the cleverer sort of marketers – is that, even where respondents displayed sufficient awareness and understanding of QR codes to make use of them, virtually no one expressed any interest in actually doing so. As one of our respondents put it, ‘I’ve already seen the ad, and now I’m going to spend my data plan on watching your commercial? No thanks.’”
• QR in the New Year? (Brooklyn Museum/Shelley Bernstein)  “Of the visitors that scanned the code on the entrance tags, an average 3.37% of those users (.059% of total visitors) scanned the codes that were placed on objects. That may seem very low overall, but finding the codes we had placed on 30 objects out of the 3000+ on view, was a bit of a task – I’m honestly surprised the numbers were as high as they were.”

Fail fact:
You may get a chuckle out of some of these 11 dubious uses of QR codes, but there are also some good lessons here. Learn from others’ mistakes.

One of the nifty things about ebooks is their ability to transcend plain text. Illustrations and graphic design have always been recognized as an important component of print books, especially children’s books, but digital publishing opens up the possibility of doing much more with a book. “Enhanced” ebooks can manipulate and present content in ways and formats that are impossible in print books. At what point does the e“book” become something other than a book? And what will that mean for the ebook business?

• Coliloquy launches interactive e-books that let readers choose the story (ReadWriteWeb/Jon Mitchell)  “Authors can adjust their future offerings based on what they learn about their audience from the choices they make. It’s in-story analytics. And the readers get the satisfaction of influencing the outcome not just of one story but of a whole series.”
• NBC News is launching a Publishing arm to bring video into the e-book format (The Next Web/Anna Heim)  “Many e-books will be based on NBC News’ own material, including its coverage of current events and trends, but also biographies and documentaries. […] For NBC News, this represents an innovative way to monetize its content on e-readers.”
• The e-reader, as we know it, is doomed (The Loop/Matt Alexander)  “They are cheap, lightweight, have long battery life, and operate well in direct sunlight, but they do little more than present traditional literature in an electronic package. And while that might be enough for some, it is clear that e-ink is progressing towards a colorful, responsive, video-capable future, and that is certainly not what constitutes an e-reading device. That is a tablet.”
• How the long tail cripples bonus content/multimedia (paidContent/Seth Godin)  “Sure, there will be experiments at the cutting edge, but no, they’re not going to pay off regularly enough for it to become an industry. The quality is going to remain in the writing and in the bravery of ideas, not in teams of people making expensive digital books.”

Predictions fact:
Being the beginning of a new year, there is no shortage of predictions about ebooks in 2012. As for enhanced ebooks, pundits think they will either be “the next big thing” or won’t create enough profit to be viable.

Malicious attacks on websites continue to make the news. Whether it’s Anonymous exposing a whole country’s control and data systems or hackers stealing huge amounts of data last weekend from Zappos, the pace of malicious activity on the web has certainly not slowed down. While these big-news attacks generally use rather traditional hacking methods, the nasty people on the web have also been busy developing new attack vectors, and you might want to be aware of them.

• Developer sneaks fake apps into Android market (SecurityNewsDaily/Matt Liebowitz)  “Behind their innocent facade, the cloned apps hid a secret weapon – they compromised customers’ smartphones by using them to send premium-rate text messages to the tune of about $20. ‘The texts are notifications that the user has been charged around $5, but you end up getting 3-4 of them in one shot,’ DroidGamers wrote. ‘A free download just became a $20 purchase.’”
• Hackers spread malware via children’s gaming websites (BBC News)  “‘I believe that children’s computers are more vulnerable to attacks because they are usually in worse shape – in other words the owners are less likely to have the latest security updates installed,’ said Mr Vlcek [AVAST Software chief technical officer]. ‘The child may also be less suspicious that something wrong is happening than an adult would be.’”
• Cyber-criminals target mobile devices with QR codes (SecurityWeek/Brian Prince)  “‘This is the first time we have seen a QR code used in an active spam campaign,’ Patrik Runald, senior manager of security research at Websense, told SecurityWeek. ‘Because QR codes are the ultimate URL obfuscator, with the right social lure, QR codes can become increasingly more successful in driving users to websites hosting malware targeting the mobile device.’”
• Security flaw in printers could expose businesses to hackers (Huffington Post/Janean Chun)  “Keith Moore, HP’s chief technologist, also disagrees that the threat of security breaches through printer hacking could already be widespread. Moore points out that the researchers didn’t use passwords on the printers they tested and adds that no consumers have reported similar incidents. ‘There has been no data at all that any of this has been exploited. So we’re looking at the theoretic possibility, in a lab, to see if that can ever occur in a real world situation.’”

Cyber attack fact:
This sobering 11-minute video of a TED talk by Ralph Langner reminds us that cyber attacks may not always come from criminals.

Almost everybody would agree that 2011 was the year of the ebook, when they captured about 20% of all fiction sales. Almost everybody in the library world also seems to be upset with the large publishing houses, which apparently want to cut libraries out of their ebook distribution models altogether. But while libraries and publishers publicly battle each other, is Amazon relentlessly winning the ebook war? At the very least, they certainly seem to be stockpiling some scary weapons.

• Amazon publishing expands into children’s books (Publishers Weekly)  “The deal will also mark the first time a number of the titles in the purchase will be published as e-books. Amazon Publishing v-p Jeff Belle said: ‘We believe the children’s book market segment presents a unique opportunity to innovate in both print and digital formats. And since many of these titles are not readily available as eBooks, we see a chance to connect a terrific group of authors and illustrators with more readers.’”
• Cutting their own throats (Charlie’s Diary/Charlie Stross)  “Anyway, my point is that the Big Six’s pig-headed insistence on DRM on ebooks is handing Amazon a stick with which to beat them harder. DRM on ebooks gives Amazon a great tool for locking ebook customers into the Kindle platform. If you buy a book that you can only read on the Kindle, you’re naturally going to be reluctant to move to other ebook platforms that can’t read those locked Kindle ebooks – and even more reluctant to buy ebooks from rival stores that use incompatible DRM.”
• Secret of self-publishing: Success (Wall Street Journal/Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg)  “Amazon.com Inc. fueled the growth by offering self-published writers as much as 70% of revenue on digital books, depending on the retail price. By comparison, traditional publishers typically pay their authors 25% of net digital sales and even less on print books. For some established authors, these terms can make self-publishing a financial home run.”
• Amazon launches $6M ‘fund’ to boost Kindle Direct Publishing, Lending Library (TechCrunch/Robin Wauters)  “Dubbed KDP Select, the fund aims to let indie authors and publishers ‘make money in a whole new way’. Here’s how it works: if a KDP author or publisher chooses to make any of their books exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those books are eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and can earn a share of the KDP Select fund.”

2011 wrap-up:
The publishing industry faced numerous threats last year, which are nicely summarized in an O’Reilly Radar article by Jenn Webb, Five things we learned about publishing in 2011.