Disruption in Educational Technology and Publishing Will Happen Faster and with Greater Impact than People Suspect

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Disruption in Educational Technology and Publishing Will Happen Faster and with Greater Impact than People Suspect

I’ve been focused on models of disruption this week, and looking at trends in the broader technology/media space that portend the coming changes to educational technology and educational publishing. As I finish the week, I want to list a couple of examples illustrating the swiftness with which change can happen and seemingly dominant paradigms can shift.

A prime example can be seen in Facebook’s evangelizing of HTML5 to social game makers. Social gaming is the last real stronghold for Flash and now it looks like the Adobe product, which has already lost out to AJAX and and other languages for Web interactivity and video superiority, could also be replaced by HTML5 in the online gaming sector. The impetus for this change was the release of the iPad and the public beratings by Steve Jobs for Flash’s reliability, battery life impact and lack of openness. However, the actual demise of this once dominant product has occurred with staggering swiftness.

In less than one year, Flash has gone from the top of the mountain to a questionable future. Disruption Quotient — High

Another powerful example of rapid disruption can be seen in e-books. Yesterday, as part of its earnings call, Amazon announced that Kindle e-book sales had surpassed paperback sales. “Since the beginning of the year, it has sold 115 Kindle books for every 100 paperbacks sold (not including free books). A year ago, no one predicted this kind of growth for e-books. The outlook was positive but people calculated a decline in print titles wouldn’t happen for at least two more years. At Digital Book World this week, the general consensus among publishers was that print is already declining and that e-books across the entire industry will represent more than 50% of their sales within 3-4 years (although it will likely happen faster).

In one year, e-books exploded to garner approximately 10% of the U.S. trade book market and signaled the demise of brick-and-mortar bookstores and the decline of print. Disruption Quotient — High

In both instances, the trends for these changes were visible and the evolution of the industries was apparent to many of us tracking the variables. What is surprising about both is the eventual force of the disruptions and the speed at which they have occurred.

More than ever, it seems, companies and institutions must realize that they will have less time to respond to disruptive change cycles, and that they must spend more energy watching trends and anticipating new developments. Failure to do so will result in lost market share or relevance.

Here are a few brief examples of how different companies/groups are addressing disruptive change:

AT&T is making money through tablets now — One of the most interesting things AT&T noted in its latest earnings call is that in the previous quarter, the growth of its tablet-based subscriber business was growing aggressively. “In general, the number of “connected devices” AT&T had rose by a “record” 1.5 million, with iPad- and Android-based tablets up 442,000. That was another “best-ever” moment for AT&T’s wireless net adds, with a more than 2.8 million increase in total wireless subscribers to reach 95.5 million subscribers in service. For 2010 in total, wireless net adds totaled 8.9 million. The carrier also pointed to 27.4 percent growth in wireless data revenues, up $1.1 billion compared to the same period last year.”
Blackboard and McGraw-Hill are merging course management and content — These two companies have developed a special integration that makes moves BlackBoard more into the digital content distribution space while, at the same time, making it easier for McGraw-Hill to find success at an institutional level. “Currently, 20 colleges and universities are running pilots tests, and an additional 100 instructors are expected to participate. The offering combines the latest version of Blackboard Learn, a learning management system, with McGraw-Hill’s Connect and Create. Connect is an application to help faculty create digital course content and assignments and do automatic grading; Create lets faculty compile textbooks that use their own materials as well as content from the company’s publishing portfolio.”
The transition to e-books is a challenge for agents and publishers — Many publishers are longing for the old status quo while other folks in the business process, like agents, are trying to manipulate the change in their favor. Not surprisingly, “Agents and publishers have very different ideas about what royalties for eBooks should be. Agents think that 50% is a fair royalty, while publishers think that 25% is a fair royalty. This finding is according to research from Mike Shatzkin, CEO of the Idea Logical Company and Constance Sayre, principal at Market Partners International. The two presented their survey at the Digital Book World conference yesterday afternoon. Despite the discrepancy, a third of agents claim to have negotiated deals for 50% royalty rates. According to Sayre, a few years ago Random House was offering a 50% royalty rate which may have influenced these numbers. According to their survey, half of agents think the overall impact of eBooks is favorable for authors on backlist titles and 25% think eBooks are favorable for new books. Publishers aren’t so sure and have yet to answer the question.”

Student Trends to Watch

Throughout this week, I’ve been releasing a series of posts related to a survey MBS Direct-Xplana conducted in partnership with Eduventures last October/November. This is part of a longitudinal study MBS began four years ago, and focuses on student trends related to textbooks, digital content, and online study tools. The survey was administered to 1000 students at two and four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. The demographics for this study are traditional students (ages 18-22) with an accurate representation of the female/male ratio in Higher Education (55%/45%).

In case you haven’t seen or had the chance to catch up with the series, here are the first four posts.

Suggested Reading

Facebook Will Help Social Games Ditch Flash for HTML5 | Liz Gannes | NetworkEffect | AllThingsD

Amazon Says Kindle Book Sales Have Overtaken Paperback Sales | Tricia Duryee | eMoney | AllThingsD

Agents And Publishers Have Differing Opinions About eBook Royalties | eBookNewser

Tablets Emerging As A Signifcant Growth Area For AT&T | paidContent

Blackboard and McGraw-Hill Test New Course System in 20 Pilots | Campus Technology

eMarketer: Apple Will Soon Lead The US Smartphone Market | But Not For Long