First of all, the only physical manifestation of the publication is the file of data that resides on a server. When users view it they receive this data, but only transiently, and generally they do not choose to save it for use offline. Viewing a WWW document is a little like watching television, you can record the program if you really want to, but most of the time you don't bother because you know that you can always find again on the web when you want it.
The publisher of a WWW document can simply be someone who places files of hypertext markup language, graphics, video and audo on a WWW server. The remarkable thing about the WWW is that the document is then instantly visible to anyone in the world with web access. No copy needs to be made, nothing needs to be delivered, no one needs to be asked or notified. Anyone can see it, all they need to know is the address of the document or, and this is very important, the address of a LINK to the document. What then is the publisher's real role? See, the interesting thing is that just putting a document on a server does not really make you the publisher. What if nobody sees the document? Has it really been published? I don't think so.
On the WWW a publisher is someone who gets people to view a document. They are, in the truest sense, the publicists of the document. A good WWW publisher gets viewers to see a document by having LINKS to it posted all over the internet and spreads the word about the amazing new document they've pubished - or they've established themselves as the publishers of high quality or at least popular information.
Getting people to view a document is all that's left of the distribution function. The main thing that a pubisher has to offer is visibility. And that has value that can be translated into cash. A publisher can sell visibility to an advertiser and use that money to pay an author - and authors, too, crave visibility. On the WWW there is, as yet, no way to make money directly from the sale of access to information. Paying for information has always been anathema for internet users. Though it will soon to be possible for WWW users to use credit cards in a secure version of Mosaic to buy things online, it seems likely that the tradition of free access to information will continue.
Among the most popular advertising supported publications we have Wired Magazine a print publication with a WWW version, but, oddly, utterly unlike the print original, there are no ads in the WWW version. I always thought the ads were the most interesting part of Wired.
One of the most interesting new publishers of original material on the web is
Cybersight
created by
distributed content.
Which brings us back to the question of just what constitutes being a publisher. The key is making the LINK. The publishers of Cybersight don't have any of the articles they publish on their own server, and yet they are the legitimate publishers of these documents and even sell advertising on them. The reason they can do this is that they provide the links to these documents that a large number of viewers use to find them. The publisher is, in this context, the entity that provides the pathway to viewers, the doorway into the information.
I should also mention the existing web publications that are supported by grants or academic institutions. Among the best institutionally supported publications are Postmodern Culture. Both of these publish original material written in the hypermedia form - which is itself only now beginning to be experimented with as a literary/multimedia form.
There are some remarkably creative things being published on the WWW - things that would have obtained cult status in print - and yet it's doubtful that their authors have received much if any monetary reward for them.
One rather remarkable fact about the WWW is that it is possible to know exactly how many times particular pages have been seen and even the number of unique computers that have looked at them. What you probably won't know, however, is what pathway those viewers took to get to your document. In other words, you can know how many readers you've had, but not necessrily which "publishers" brought them to your document.
What rights should authors of hypermedia documents value? Since there is no such thing as a reprinting of a document when it is "republished" in the sense of being linked to a new publisher's table of contents page, an author should demand a right to refuse or demand payment from a publisher who seeks to create a link to their work. I practice, it may be difficult to enforce this right. On the other hand, just as with unauthorized print republication, the success the greater the success of the unauthorized republisher, the greater the chances of his being caught. The 'word of mouth' publicity will do him in.
With regard to pricing, I've found WWW advertisers to really be all over the may with prices. Many don't even have established rates and will negotiate with a prospect according to their perceived ability to pay.
One of the most publicized WWW marketing ventures - and I should say they don't consider themselves to be the sellers of advertising - is
Similarly, Internet Marketing, Inc. places links to sponsor created material inside editorial content of Cybersight. They cater tp a wider range of clients and are more consumer and youth oriented with a specialty brewer, an international college study abroad service and a cosmetics company.
Most WWW marketing services are more like shopping malls, offering collections of "store" in various product areas. The mother of all these types of sites is Commerce Net which is partnering with MecklerWeb and developing a secure http that will make on-line purchasing less problematic.
Some of the other more interesting ones are:
The only major advertising agency with a WWW presence is Ogilvy and Mather which is designing the look and feel of a the MecklerWeb.
The Rights of Authors
At this point we should consider what the position of the author of a hypermedia document is. If the publisher is not making copies of your work and selling them to people how can you hold them accountable for paying you something accountable? How can you even know who has made a link from their pages to your document, and maybe some bastard is even selling advertising on the doorway to your information without even telling you - let alone paying you some percentage.The Price and Value of Advertising on the WWW
In relation to publishing, I want to comment upon the business experience of several WWW advertising companies. Among the more interesting questions in the area of WWW advertising are: (1) What is the right way to price advertising? (2) What is a reasonable measure of ad's value? (3) What is the value added to an ad by having it embedded in other information - i.e. advertising in publications like those we've been discussing?
Distributing Audio and Video via the WWW
Most of this article has been devoted to analogs of the print media. What can be said about the future of audio and video on the WWW? There are now a number of video archives like the live video on the Web. But this is not a commercial enterprise either and one wonders when someone will try to make money selling access to digital video on the Internet.
Of course, no discussion of the media industry on the WWW could be complete without mention of the Internet Talk Radio, both creations of the Internet's own Citizen Kane, Carl Malamud. The only person who actually seems to be making a living providing either audio or video on the Internet. How is he doing it? Corporate sponsors are part of it. Can others emulate his success or is it primarily due to the current novelty of his enterprise?
I will wrap up by observing the combination of my themes of WWW periodical publishing and video in the new hypermag the catalog and advertisements from video product manufacturers. The ads are free now, but they expect to start charging in the near future. Does this presage the development of a desktop video industry on the Internet?
email: gary@setn.org