Aqute Research Blog

Google Maps UK adds Panoramio photos, YouTube, user maps

Google Maps UK has added more new features, at last taking a step towards the community-enhanced Google Maps UK that's been promised for a long time.

Google Maps UK has also added a "view in Google Earth" link, which had been tested before but I don't think had gone live in the UK.

BBC Dawn Chrous - web 2.0 features without the fanfare

The BBC is asking everyone to wake up early and listen to the Dawn Chorus (officially now over, although the birds are probably unaware of that). The website combines web 2.0 elements in a way that adds value, does not attract more attention to the technology than the content and will seem natural to people for whom such features are new. Tags (made to look simple and natural), map mashups and podcasts (well, nearly), for example. As well as the usual BBC array of video ... they're not being precious either, including old school screensavers and wallpapers. And a mini Oddie, surely in a class of its own. Particularly impressive is this new fangled video/audio/text map mashup which crams in a tonne of advanced features but again looks seamless and simple to use (as an aside, the map is the most interesting mapping of local data that I've seen outside news/weather/traffic). Dawn Chorus is probably missing a message board element, but is a great website nonetheless.

Google Maps adds London Underground details

Google Maps UK now shows you which tube lines (labelled "subway services") run through a particular station:

The occasional details of bus services remain random and often incorrect. My local bus stop is shown as serving Fishguard and Holyhead, which is a little odd.

ITV's excessive pre-roll video advertising

The video clips from Britain's Got Talent on itv.com are  each preceded by a 30 second preroll from general advertisers and a 5 second preroll from the main programme sponsor. For video clips that are 1.5 minutes long, that is too long - enough to drive a man over to YouTube, despite my knowing that most of the YouTube videos are stolen. Moreover, the YouTube video clips are longer, some over nine minutes. So if I have around 10 minutes to waste watching these clips:

• On YouTube, I get 10 minutes of actual content.
• On itv.com, I have to watch 5 clips, giving me 7.5 minutes of actual content. And I have to endure 2.5 minutes of (the same) ads.

ITV's real killer is that they don't recognise that I already watched the ad on my first clip, and that I shouldn't be forced to watch it for every clip thereafter. 

The irony is that the most popular BGT clips on YouTube belong to ITV. That's an interesting dual strategy - I'm all for ITV being on YouTube to catch that traffic, but getting rid of the ads on its own website would stem the "pre-roll frustration" traffic that's going to YouTube in the first place (and helping to add value to a competitor's property).

How much money is ITV making from those ads? The YouTube videos have been watched 2.5 million times, so let's assume the same for the itv.com videos (a completely random guess). What's the CPM rate? For such a new medium, it depends on the negotiating skills of their sales team, but based on £35, $50, $25, video websites I know that are getting £10-£20, and a perhaps not so comparable $1 and $5, let's say ITV are getting £20 CPM. And 2.5 million views, so about £50K in revenues. Every little helps, but hardly a game changer.

What UK book publishers are (not) doing online

When I go to a bookshop, I scan the shelves for the black spines of the Penguin Classics range, knowing that I will probably like anything in that series. With travel books, the distinctive Lonely Planet coloured spines are another safe bet. When I visit second hand book fairs, I am always secretly on the lookout for Ladybird books. Online, however, I have never visited a UK publisher's website and I don't know anyone who seeks them out more than once (even once is generous). I have a lot of goodwill towards some of these publishers, but they don't give me much of a venue online to pour my goodwill onto...

What are the major UK publishers (i.e. names that sounded familiar to me from this list) doing online? Not a lot. Most of them have moved online to sell books, which is fine but a bit unimaginative. Sell books online, by all means, but beyond that, UK publishers are not taking advantage of three basic opportunities:

1. The social network elements of reading, that have long preceded the internet. A number of startups are trying to succeed in this space (some of these I got from James Cridland): Shelfari, AllConsuming, anobii, GoodReads and LibraryThing. Some publishers do have readers' group websites which range from decent (Penguin) to just holding pages but none has gone further.
2. Notably, given how little UK children's content there is on television, there is very little that UK publishers offer children online (children are avid consumers of advanced online content, so two screensavers and some ecards do not good children's content make). From publishers such as Bloomsbury, Puffin and Dorling Kindersley, that is disappointing (the latter two have made a bit of an effort, but nothing given that they should be huge online children's brands).
3. The content itself! Other than John Wiley and Penguin, UK publishers seem very reluctant to put the content of their books online, even the books that are no longer within copyright. If you don't want to make the book itself available, what about all the content that goes round it? Maps, quotations, explanation of places, detailed biographies of the authors, audiobook podcasts ... I could list so many things, because books are such a fun area! It doesn't need to be complicated - think of the Gutenberg Project's wonderful texts in their rudimentary formats.

Here are the highlights (no one gets credit for standard ecommerce features or difficult-to-find microsites). Only Penguin and John Wiley & Sons acquit themselves well.

Bloomsbury

• A lame Harry Potter website and a lamer children's book section.
• A special interactive section which I imagine was cutting edge in 1999.

Bloodaxe

• Basic book descriptions.
• Interactive magazine/book guide which is cool but useless in adding value beyond what HTML could do. I hope they got this as a freebie from the software vendor rather than paid for it.
• Poetry videos. Nothing too fancy but very much what such a small publisher with poetry content should do.

Cambridge University Press

• Basic book descriptions.

Dorling Kindersley

• Some "look inside" stuff.
• Some interesting clip art - there may be intellectual property issues here but surely they could have done a lot better.

Faber

• Nothing.

Folio Society

• Some glimpses of "look inside" but nothing too complicated. Not that one would expect more from a club selling expensive books to people who like to touch and smell their books.

Hamlyn

• Nothing.

Harper Collins

• Cheap-to-implement features such as book charts, "other books you may like", staff picks and tags elevate the basic book descriptions into a more attractive package, slightly closer to an actual community.
• Readers' Corner, an online panel for soliciting reader feedback about books.

John Wiley & Sons

• Interscience. Over 5,000 books online for free, mainly of an academic bent. For example Adhesives and Adhesive Tapes or Advances in Chemical Physics (no prizes for guessing whether I clicked past the letter "A") .
• Frommers.Decent travel content, nothing revolutionary, but solid. Good enough to attract the book's loyal offline readers (including me).
• Dummies. Basic. Some articles in a style reminiscent of About.com.
• CliffsNotes. Excellent resource, although mainly targeted at US students.
• Blackwell has basic features such as look at a book's table of contents.

Methuen

• Nothing.

Mills & Boon

• Nothing.

Open University Press

• Nothing

Oxford University Press

• Some apparently good online subscription services for librarians, but nothing very booky and nothing for normal people.
• The OUP blog has some quizzes and interactive features but overall a bit lame.

Penguin

• Downloadable first chapters of the latest Penguins.
• Experimental microsite using innovative online technologies to tell stories.
• Podcast and a good blog.
• Good readers' group website.
• Discussion forums for Penguin Classics although with very few entries.
• Ladybird Books has limited resources for educators and children (including small games). Not bad were it not for the high expectations I had of Ladybird.
• Puffin Books has some microsites, a very few games and some other interactive features.

Usborne

• Some microsites for children and an interesting collection of URLs that are referenced in Usborne educational books.