Johannes Gutenberg’s New Business Model

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Johannes Gutenberg’s New Business Model

Imagine the publishing world in and around 1440, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press. Perhaps “world” is too large a term for pre-Gutenberg publishing. In Europe, after all, literacy was largely restricted to some members of the clergy and those few ruling class members who felt it had value. Publishing thus existed for the few who could and wanted to read.

Books were written, slowly, by hand. Consequently, there were not many to be had and those that could be obtained were worth their weight in diamonds. In 1424, Cambridge University—already more than 200 years old—held only about 120 books in its library, each of which was said to cost the equivalent of an entire farm.

But then the printing press came along, and suddenly everything was different. Sure, some scribes continued producing books by hand for years. That’s what they knew how to do, and they were darn sure going to keep doing it (muttering all the while, “I wish I knew where all this was heading”). But change was inevitable. The Renaissance had arrived. A middling class was emerging, and it valued learning. The cheaper, easier-to-produce, press-printed books fed (and in part created) this new literacy, which in turn created a rising demand for more books.

Scribes eventually dropped away, but different—and many more—jobs came on the scene: typesetters, printers, publishers, editors, book sellers and distributors, agents, salespeople, lawyers, authors. New business models emerged and fell into place.

Well, surely you can guess what’s on my mind here…

Those in publishing today are at the vortex of enormous change—change of Gutenbergian proportion. Substitute newspaper/magazine for “scribe,” and Web for “printing press.” Throw in tens of thousands of dazed journalists, authors, and publishers asking each other where it’s all heading. Some wait, like the scribes of old, for everything to return to “normal.” Others are running hard, keeping a sharp lookout for those new business models.

Actually, there aren’t many new business models yet in this uncharted landscape. But a few are emerging.

Last week, for a business article, I interviewed the CEO of Pictopia, a company whose unique concept allows media organizations (magazines and newspapers) to tap into a potentially lucrative revenue stream. Pictopia’s proprietary reproduction technology and streamlined fulfillment processes make selling a digital photo directly to readers as easy as ordering a book from Amazon.com. And the service requires no investment from participating companies in expensive printers, no supply hassels, and no maintenance.

Here’s how it works: Newspapers and magazines, in the normal course of their business, develop huge photo archives. Traditionally, after photos are used in a publication, there wasn’t much call for them. But just think of all the people who might want those photos. Small-town papers could have sold them to proud parents who wanted a memento of their child zipping past the goal line or winning a spelling bee, to a husband who wanted to surprise his wife with a centerfoldl photo of her standing beside her prize-winning strawberry pie, to local residents who had the perfect spot on the living room wall for that beautiful front-page photograph entitled “Sunday in the Park.” Larger media organizations could sell historic, nationally-recognized, and/or prize-winning photos. The reason this was never done is that it was just too difficult and costly for an organization to get into the business of selling, printing, wrapping, and mailing photographs.

That’s where Pictopia has stepped in. The company started in 2000 as a high-end online photo lab, and soon expanded into selling the photos it developed at the request of its own media-company customers. Pictopia helps develop an online gallery for a magazine or newspaper’s photos (the gallery is part of that media company’s website). The photos can be browsed and purchased by readers. They can be ordered framed or unframed, and in various sizes. The transaction is handled by Pictopia, which also prints, packages, and ships the photos direct to the purchaser. (See a typical Gallery.)

“Pictopia is a solution for real pain,” says the company’s founder and President, Mark Liebman. “And there’s no up-front money involved. Organizations already own the pictures, which have been taken and organized in the ordinary course of business. What we do is take that collection of images and give them a brand new use. For no added cost, we can bring a company thousands of dollars a year for something that’s already been paid for.”

Pictopia’s partner galleries include large media companies such as the Associated Press, the Washington Post, National Geographic, Newsday, and the European Pressphoto Agency, as well as small companies ranging from British Columbia’s Abby News to the Zanesville (Ohio) Times Recorder. This just seems like a great win all around, doesn’t it? Anything that brings money to cash-strapped media companies in today’s economic climate gets a thumbs up from me.

If you know of other new business models emerging in the publishing world, we’d love to know about them. Please leave a comment.

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