The OPLIN 4cast

Before you start worrying, we’re not talking about people who read together in “social” book clubs; today we’re talking about social reader apps on Facebook. These apps let you read news items and blog postings, as well as comment on them, without leaving Facebook. Some choose news items for you based on your Facebook information or on topics that are trending among your friends. Many also share what you’ve been reading with your friends. They’ve been around for about a year and have been most widely offered by newspapers, which use them to boost readership. But now some data suggests that their popularity is falling rapidly.

• How to save social readers from extinction (Fortune/Alex Konrad)  “Like a twenty-first century version of the loud-mouthed newsy on the corner, readers from the likes of The Guardian and The Washington Post allow users to peruse articles while sharing their literary habits with friends and contacts on Facebook. That’s all well and good when you’re reading a sober, in-depth analysis of super-PAC financing, for instance. But broadcasting that diversionary gallery of Lindsay Lohan’s evolving locks? Not so much.”
• Facebook social readers are all collapsing (BuzzFeed/John Herrman)  “My brain already associates those little blocks of auto-fed stories with second-class content. I mean, I know my friends didn’t really mean to show it to me. Why would I click? And god, why would I sign up for the thing that seems to have tricked its way into my timeline? It’s an app that broadcasts internet illiteracy for everyone to see.”
• Privacy perils of social reading (KurzweilAI News)  “[Privacy law expert Neil] Richards notes that the work of the American Libraries Association and its Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) offers an attractive solution to the problem of reader records. ‘The OIF has argued passionately and correctly for the importance of solitary reading as well as the ethical need for those who enable reading – librarians, but also Internet companies – to protect the privacy and confidentiality of reading records,’ he says.”
• Data shows social readers have mixed results, but aren’t ‘collapsing’ (Inside Facebook/Brittany Darwell)  “Many users have complained about social reader applications, mostly those that require users to authorize the app and share their activity in order to read any article. We recommend developers add clear controls for users to decide what to share, when and with whom. There also seems to be a lack of explanation of what users gain from enabling this type of sharing.”

Popularity fact:
The Washington Post social reader was one of the first available and once had 17 million monthly users, but now has less than 10 million.

In the past 10 days or so, all kinds of interesting things have been happening with big companies and ereaders. You’ve surely heard about Microsoft buying the Nook from Barnes & Noble, which seems to be a punch thrown at either Apple or Amazon (or Google?), depending on your point of view. You may also have seen that Target has decided to play hardball with Amazon over the Kindle. There’s probably much more than meets the eye in these developments, but one thing is certain: when major corporations start tussling over ereaders, it’s a sure sign that ereading is here to stay.

• Target will yank Kindles–why? (GigaOM/Laura Hazard Owen)  “Target may simply not want to carry a product from a major competitor. After all, this reasoning could go, why should Target serve as a store showroom for Amazon products? Somewhat similarly, Barnes & Noble has refused to carry Amazon Publishing titles in its stores.”
• B&N and Microsoft: Why it’s not about ebooks (Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog)  “It remains to be seen whether Microsoft can create the same sort of buzz or ROI in their stores that Apple has managed to achieve, but why go to the trouble and expense of creating a larger standalone presence when a store-within-a-store might be even more effective? What if B&N stores added mini Microsoft Stores in each of their locations? The foot traffic is already there and what a great place to showcase and sell that new Windows 8-based nook they’ll undoubtedly create.”
• Microsoft + Nook: It just got (more) interesting… (Wired/Felix Salmon)  “Barnes & Noble no longer needs to sell Nooks, or persuade people to download the Nook app on their iPad: everybody with a Windows 8 device will have the Nook reader built-in. The e-book market is still young; if Amazon continues to be seen as the enemy, there’s no reason in theory why the Nook shouldn’t become just as popular, if not more so.”
• Barnes & Noble marries Microsoft (The Future of Publishing/Thad McIlroy)  “Skip to the end of the official announcement and you find out what $300 million really means to Microsoft. Barnes & Noble gave Microsoft something it desperately needed: an agreement to honor (and pay fees on) Microsoft’s key anti-Android patents.”

Windows 8 fact:
A couple of these articles mention Windows 8 devices, which are generally expected to become available in the fourth quarter of this year, just in time for Christmas.

The continuing explosive growth in the amount of data being transmitted to and from mobile devices is causing headaches for wireless carriers. One option for dealing with this demand is to offload as much data as possible onto Wi-Fi access points, which are more efficient than connecting devices through 3G, 4G, LTE, or other cell phone technologies. This year, the Wi-Fi Alliance is working to develop a standard called Passpoint that would let mobile devices connect automatically to Wi-Fi hotspots, possibly including hotspots in public libraries, just as they now automatically connect to cell phone towers. How this would work is not exactly clear yet – would carriers pay libraries for handling some of their customer traffic, for instance? – but it’s a development that certainly bears watching.

• How Passpoint could make Wi-Fi hotspots more like cellular data services (Network World/Brad Reed)  “Known as the Wi-Fi Certified Passpoint program, the initiative essentially creates a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and allows you to access any in your area that take part in the program. What’s more, any hotspots that take part in Passpoint will allow you to connect without entering in any login or billing information since the program supports Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)-based authentication that cellular networks currently use to grant users seamless handoffs between cell sites.”
• Wi-Fi Passpoint standard could end hotspot sign-on hassles (Computerworld/Stephen Lawson)  “The most obvious advantage of the Passpoint standard may be doing away with the browser ‘splash screens’ that greet visitors to most public hotspots. Instead, admission to the network will happen in the background, through a variety of mechanisms that can include an SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card and certificate-based methods.”
• Passpoint: a recipe for wider Wi-Fi (CEA Digital Dialogue/Rob Pegoraro)  “There’s a precedent for this: over the past few years, AT&T has been shifting a steadily increasing amount of data to Wi-Fi, thanks to the ability of iOS and Android devices to switch automatically to its hotspots whenever one’s in range. But that is a single-company effort. Passpoint/Hotspot 2.0 would widen the scope of participating access points – and it shouldn’t cost you extra.”
• With new standard, Wi-Fi could become as widespread as cellular (Popular Science/Stewart Wolpin)  “In a Passpoint and Super [long-range] Wi-Fi world, a user within a short drive of a city or town could have instant, ultrafast Internet access without having to rely on cellular service. Business travelers could use their laptops without cellular USB dongles, tablets wouldn’t need power-hungry 3G and 4G radios, and a Skype account could practically replace a phone line.”

Traffic fact:
According to a recent study [pdf] by Informa Telecoms & Media, over 80% of smartphone data traffic in Britain already uses Wi-Fi instead of the cellular networks.

It’s been more than a year since we took a look at the technologies behind making payments (such as library fines?) from mobile phones. Meanwhile, Near Field Communication (NFC), one of the technologies we described, is becoming a standard feature of many new smartphones, and mobile payments look like they’re poised to become very common. The Pew Internet & American Life Project just released a report on The Future of Money in a Mobile Age, which has prompted a spate of recent articles and varying opinions about mobile payments.

• What is the future of mobile money? (ReadWriteWeb/Dan Rowinski)  “…real, noticeable change of user behavior is between two and three years away. That is the time it will take to separate all of the options that are emerging for mobile payments and determine which dominant systems will emerge.”
• Paying with smartphones to outpace credit cards by 2020, experts say (IDG News/Cameron Scott)  “But there’s little doubt, according to Chris Silva, an analyst with Altimeter Group, that ‘NFC is going to play a much more prominent role, a major role in m-commerce,’ or mobile commerce. Google Wallet already employs NFC technology.”
• Mobile payments won’t replace cash or credit for another decade (AllThingsD/Tricia Duryee)  “It’s unclear whether the 2020 date is optimistic or seems too far out given that so many companies are investing aggressively today. PayPal and Google are the two most notable technology companies going after the opportunity, but so are the incumbents, including Visa, MasterCard and American Express.”
• Mobile payments may replace cash, credit cards by 2020 (Mashable/Samantha Murphy)  “‘The 2020 date might be a bit optimistic, but I’m sure that this will happen,’ said study participant Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. ‘What is in your wallet now? Identification, payment and personal items. All this will easily fit in your mobile device and will inevitably do so.’”

Contrary fact:
Don’t switch your circulation desk to all mobile payments just yet. Another Pew study released just a few days ahead of the mobile money survey found that since 2005, the percentage of U.S. adults who do not use the Internet has stayed stable at about 20-25%. They’ll probably be paying their fines in cash.