Lou describes how he is using social networking to build Rosenfeld Media's brand image. While much of the information that might be contained in a book can be freely found on the Internet, readers will pay for high editorial standards and packaging in a form they understand.
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In this jam-packed 13 minute segment (download iPod compatible, 67MB), Lou Rosenfeld discusses two seemingly contradictory features of Rosenfeld Media: its open, social networking marketing model and its revenue model based on proprietary book sales. The two ideas seem contradictory because much of the work developing the books relies on open communication on the network. However, when it comes time to purchase the book, Lou might appear to be effectively asking people to pay for what was so freely communicated.
Lou answers this dilemma with the value of packaging, an idea he brought up in the very first segment of this interview that we published. Rosenfeld Media is using the network to establish an authoritative brand and providing the books in a format where people will find the information most useful. In essence, people are paying for presentation and editorial insight, not the reams of information that are freely available on the Internet.
Some additional highlights from this conversation:
- Lou uses a home-brewed analytic system to figure out how people are networked together based on how they pass discount codes along.
- Much like Linda Girard, he views networking on the Internet as just an extension of networking in the physical world. Google's algorithms for determining relevance are in fact based on analytic techniques long used to discern the structure of social networks.
- Packt Publishing may be attempting to use a strategy similar to Lou's but in the open source software arena.
- Lou would be interested in going to a subscription model like that used by Lynda.com, but feels he needs to build up inventory first.
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