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Wowio founder’s reply: ‘Freedom: A response to David Rothman’
August 5, 2008 | 5:31 am
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By William Lidwell, WOWIO Founder
Moderator: I’m still grumpy about Wowio‘s new site. But meanwhile I thank William Lidwell, founder of Wowio, for taking time to present his side. – D.R.
A favorite quote of mine has always been, "He who knows only his side of the case, knows little of that." So, in the spirit of J.S. Mill, I would like to offer the following seven points for TeleRead readers’ consideration regarding David Rothman’s recent article, "Ad-cluttered Wowio e-book site: The uglier side of globalization—minus those classy free PDF downloads":
1. WOWIO’s mission has always been to make books available for free to everyone in the world—not just to people in the United States—while ensuring fair compensation for authors and publishers. The previous model could not achieve this mission for two reasons: (1) many publishers have rights restrictions that prevent international distribution, and (2) we could not realistically have local sponsor sales in every country in the world. The new model addresses these challenges by giving publishers the power to selectively distribute their files on a country-by-country basis, and by giving everyone on the planet the ability, at minimum, to read our books for free online.
2. The "classy free downloads" that David refers to in his title have not been discontinued. When sponsors are available, users can still download books for free just as in the previous model. When sponsors are not available, users can buy e-books ad-free at a price set by the publisher. Since sponsors can target by demographic profile, region, and book category, not all readers will see all sponsorships all of the time. Additionally, we have dedicated the Articles & Essays section of the site to be a permanently sponsored category for a worldwide audience. The sponsors for this category will be worthy non-profit organizations seeking to increase awareness for their causes.
3. In the section titled, "Retraction! Huckerster (sic) alert," David suggests (perhaps sarcastically) nefarious motives regarding the ads in the online preview, stating: "The ads must be part of the plan. [Moderator: Thanks for the typo catch, Will. Fixed. - D.R.] Just torture you with them until you buy the books." He goes on to state: "Platinum’s advertising is so intrusive that I almost wonder if it’s part of a conspiracy to discredit ad-supported books." A less sensationalist interpretation of the design would be that the changes seek only to actualize WOWIO’s mission of making all of its books freely accessible to everyone in the world sans barriers of registration and cost. It would also be the correct interpretation.
4. David states that advertisers ought to be ashamed because their ads appear on the preview of e-book pages, helping make these works free to the world. Ads from companies such as these appear on all manner of blogs and Web sites with far less redeeming missions and contents than WOWIO’s. David may not like the presentation, but alienating the companies who are trying to increase access to copyrighted works just because the implementation offends his sensibilities strikes me as undermining the greater cause shared by both WOWIO and TeleRead—i.e., getting people access to books.
5. To bolster his claim that the ad frequency is excessive, David poses the question: "Is an ad almost always in sight when you watch television?" The obvious answer to his question is "no," but the question is a straw man. A more appropriate question would be: "Is an ad almost always in sight when you read mainstream news and information on Web sites?" Here you get a very different answer.
6. David offered several reasonable and constructive suggestions on ways to improve the service. This kind of input is certainly appreciated. We are always looking for ways to improve and we have logged his suggestions for consideration in future releases.
7. David expressed an interest in an email as to my feelings about Platinum, so I would like to say a few words in this regard. Since my very first meetings with Platinum, I have been consistently impressed with their intensity, integrity, and professionalism. They have been great partners and have offered us nothing but support in advancing our mission. If I had one frustration, it is that I have aligned WOWIO with a partner who generally opts not to defend itself publicly against false claims and misinformation. This is in part due to SEC restrictions, but it is also due to their inclination to try to seek the high road when people start throwing mud.
I would like to close by sharing a memory that was triggered when I saw David’s title, "Ad-cluttered Wowio e-book site: The uglier side of globalization—minus those classy free PDF downloads." In teaching a design seminar several years ago, I recall a class discussion around urban aesthetics. Of repeated mention in this discussion was the prevalence of advertisements in America—billboards and such—and how this was leading to the aesthetic (and moral) decline of its cities. The discussion became increasingly animated and impassioned as one egregious example of a garish billboard from one city was followed by another example from another city. This cycle continued to escalate until an otherwise silent exchange student from Iran managed to interject that where she came from they had very little if any public advertising. In fact, she noted, that the level of visible advertising in cities she had visited around the world seemed proportional to the level of freedom in their societies. A long and awkward silence followed, and I resumed my lecture on some obscure design topic.
Bio
William Lidwell is the founder of WOWIO. He is also the founder of several successful startup ventures and author of the books, Universal Principles of Design, Guidelines for Excellence in Management, and The Thoughtful Leader.
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Comments:
In fact, she noted, that the level of visible advertising in cities she had visited around the world seemed inversely proportional to the level of freedom in their societies.
If this were true, then the most free societies would be those with the least visible advertising… is this the point she (or William Lidwell) was trying to put forward? If so, it seems to go against the rest of his argument.
The author of one of the webcomics I read, Alien Dice, is very upset by the changes in Wowio. She feels that Wowio is competing with her, and taking ad revenue away from her, by showing the pages from her comic book compilation PDFs on-line and taking half the ad revenue. She gets to keep all the ad revenue from her own comic page, and her comics are her day job—she relies on advertising and reader donations to get by day to day and take care of her family.
On the other hand, I well remember the old dot-com boom and bust. I remember writing for Themestream, a blogging-for-pay site, that paid its readers first a dime, then a nickel, and eventually only a penny or two per hit before going under altogether. And more recently, Talkshoe has stopped paying its show hosts the way it used to because they haven’t been able to get enough ad revenue to keep it up. So I suspect that what you aren’t telling us is that Wowio was actually paying out more money than it took in under the old system, and this change was necessary to stay afloat.
Jon Ingram is correct. It should read “… the level of visible advertising in cities she had visited around the world seemed proportional to the level of freedom in their societies.” Thanks for the noting the error.
[Will: I've fixed the copy. I, too, should have noticed. - David]
Since Mr. Lidwell was so kind to defend Wowio, I thought I might as well provide one person’s (hopefully constructive) criticisms about ad placement.
Like David, I recognize that everybody’s got to eat; I agree with the idea of placing ads between chapters (and I think that would be ideal from a reader’s perspective.) However, if Wowio (and other publishers following a similar model) do increase ad frequency, I suggest the following:
Try narrowing the page of text and adding ads on the side margin. I strongly suggest that they should keep it a clusters of 3 or less, but pepper such clusters within a chapter (perhaps at the beginning and at the halfway points?)
These locations are arbitrary, but my rationale is that I do not read the long columns of ads that are found on the side of the page (such as on this very blog page). I might, however, scan the first couple of ads as I automatically skim the first screenful of the web page to map out content and prioritize my reading for the rest of that page.
I also suggesting refreshing ads. Isn’t there anyway to embed codes such that new ads can be inserted in those locations? Almost all my books from the previous incarnation of Wowio are sponsored by Verizon. That’s nice, and I thank Verizon, but the ad is useless to me because I am locked into a Sprint family plan, and I doubt I’d change out anytime soon unless I can get my in-laws to change their family plan (which won’t happen.) Shouldn’t you have secondary sponsors for every book?
If you can’t rotate the ads you have in a book, then may I suggest adding links that refer to Wowio? I envision these links taking me to Wowio, which will then display, a la Pricegrabber, a list of various companies selling that item and their prices. Thus, I can go through Wowio to drive ad-directed revenue to you.
Unfortunately, this plan has the drawback of not paying the author or his estate (as Chris Meadows points out for the comic Alien Dice.) Clearly, Wowio should have links embedded to point back to that author’s website. But of course, Wowio might also have information about which books are driving traffic back to Wowio and can split revenues with those authors. Again, it seems advantageous for authors not to use the Wowio model, since they can get 100% of the revenue if the traffic came from their page, and I am not sure how to make this more attractive to everybody.
I have a feeling that the number of ads will only increase. Heaven forbid ads are inserted between every line, but I suppose the only way to limit the total number is to help companies like Wowio figure out how best to use ads (placement/location, frequency, rotation, static/animated, targeted/general audience, etc.)
I say this as an academic researcher working in neurosicence. I am not, nor does anyone I know, work for publishing/content companies or ad/marketing agencies. With all due respect to Mr. Lidwell, I detest ads in novels, and I am one of those people who gladly pay to remove ads (I have a rather full fictionwise library of paid ebooks that were bought at the time of first-run release. Yes, that’s right, I paid full, hardcover price for some of my ebooks.)
But I do hope that Wowio and readers arrive at some mutual understanding of book enjoyment vs book-derived revenue. Please, take from this comment the idea that reader enjoyment can be balanced with profit making models. The precise features of how to achieve that balance isn’t important at this point (such as my suggestion of placing clusters of ads at specific points in each chapter and changing the text flow.) The point is that everyone seems to think increasing ads is the solution. I think it is time for companies to think less about how ads can please their sponsors and focus on making ads useful for the consumers (which should increase interest for sponsors.)