Publish on Demand

Publish On Demand Touchscreen

What insights about people and technology are needed to ride the sea change of publish-on-demand into the future?

To help answer this question, mediaX sponsored six research projects (led by Stanford faculty) exploring new insights to help optimize user experiences and business infrastructures in the publish-on-demand media landscape of the future. The projects were launched in 2012 and span a wide range of topics, including: elementary and secondary education to higher education, scholarly work, and consumer content.

Overview

The world of media had been experiencing a big wave of innovation. The way content was created, consumed and curated changed dramatically over the course of the last few years. In publishing, this innovation erupted in what some call the “mass amateurization” of media and extended to how traditional content creators and distributors are restructuring new business models. There was a big need for personalization of content and portability. New devices, including mobile phones, were changing the way content was created. New data flowed and data management models in self-publishing and open publishing are changing the way businesses think about educational, research, trade and leisure content.

Background

Across media ecosystems in both education and entertainment, new technologies and new uses of them are creating a “sea change” in publishing. Interdisciplinary approaches are needed to understand how overlapping factors will influence publish-on-demand. To explore “signals of change,” the following research initiatives were funded with the support of mediaX’s strategic partner Konica Minolta International.

Research Initiatives

Jeffrey Heer: Transparent Social Footprints

Ramesh Johari: Content on the GO; the Economics of the Market for Mobile Apps

Scott Klemmer: TweakCorps: Retargeting Existing Webpages for Diverse Devices and Users

Robert Laughlin: Decision Products and Their Long Term Integrity

John Willinsky: Smarter Scholarly Texts

Sam Wineburg: Recasting the Textbook