Almost Live, From the Cutting Edge of Publishing

The reports I'm getting indicate that the Publishing Business Conference today in New York was bubbling with new ideas, new ventures, and even a few new words.

"Content is king-er than ever," several tweeters quoted one speaker as saying. Others tweeted "re-assetizing" and "transclusion" as additions to publishing's language. Or should I say "languages," since the conference is a mashup of book, magazine and web publishers?

Here are some of the most insightful tweets I've plucked from conference goers who used the hashtag #PBC13:

• Hearst email database has 10 million addresses. Do any traditional book publishers have even 1 million?
• Near full screen mobile ads interspersed every few pages get 10-12x click thrus than web
• Today, everyone is a publisher. And, everyone is a marketer. It's how well you do each that differentiates you from the pack.
• You can't collaborate effectively with Word files and email
• Brook's Law: Adding people to a late project makes it later
• We're making a transition to mobile. Sometimes we're dragging advertisers with us.
• Both HuffPost and Livingly reporters are writing, video, coding, If you had to wait for engineer, too late. 
• "We're in the midst of a renaissance for content" publishers. "This gloom & doom stuff is BS."
• the "network" book - the book is dynamically, incrementally updated as people add notes to it
• Authentic, personal, and live event video cuts through the noise. Nothing longer than 2 min.
• “If you're looking to make money, your point of purchase shouldn't be covered in barbed wire."
• Ebooks a stalking horse for print. How much sell b4 go to print? $1,000
• The more you narrow yr focus, the more people you reach. No one book is for 'everyone'
•  "Don't do what everyone else in your industry's doing." 
•  no such thing as a solo entrepreneur or innovator hire/partner to complement your weaknesses - true true true!! 
• Successful innovation is solving a problem in a new way. 
• What My Mom Wants To Know About #eBooks: Why are there errors in the eBook that aren't in the printed copy of the same book? 
• When will publishers realize they don't make books anymore? They make content destined for containers" (books, #eBooks, web, apps). 
•  "The future is knowing about your customers and giving them what they want." Data helps, but it's not the future, always been true. 
• Most of us judge reliability of info by how good it looks. We're moving back to traditional sources. 
• While Google is one of the biggest polluters with all those servers, digital has the appearance of being green 
• "Irony: most successful magazine ever was focused on what's on television." (That's a reference to TV Guide, I assume.)
•  "A newspaper reader who dies isn't replaced by a new reader. 
•  "Reading no longer linear nor static" good mantra for the future