Abstract
As Web-enabled mobile device adoption has increased, publishers and librarians are looking to establish ways of providing access to journals to readers, wherever and however they need it. In late 2010, Nature Publishing Group (NPG) started trialing a range of access options for readers. A number of Nature journals are available for 24-hour-view-only access via the DeepDyve platform. A range of access models including monthly and annual subscriptions have been introduced for the nature.com iPhone application (app) and iPad app. NPG representative Grace Baynes reported on the early results of these experiments with new channels and pricing models, including user feedback and uptake, and views from library customers. She also addressed other emerging technologies and business models like the Flipboard app for iPad, pay-per-view licenses, and digital textbooks.
Serialists are well aware of the dynamic environment influencing the distribution of information once exclusively contained in print serials. As Web-enabled mobile device adoption has increased, publishers and librarians are looking to establish ways of providing access to journals, wherever and however readers need it. In her presentation, “Trialing Mobile and Article Rental Access Options for Journal Content,” Nature Publishing Group (NPG) representative Grace Baynes outlined NPG's experiments in expanding access to their portfolio of content via new models and their experiments in catering to new mobile technologies.
Baynes described NPG's motivation for expanding beyond its current site license subscription-driven business to look at new options. They appreciate that not all users are able to take advantage of personal or institutional subscriptions. NPG also recognizes that the revolution in mobile devices is creating new avenues of demand for content. In order to meet these demands, NPG decided to work on options allowing for low cost quick views of journal content. They created a trial offering of a product to gather evidence on the volume and pattern, and to gather feedback in order to make decisions on further development plans.
NPG first experimented with article rentals by working with the company DeepDyve that originated as a service aiming to make scientific research more discoverable to patrons unaffiliated with a research institution.Footnote 1 The company began offering a research rental service in 2009. A great number of scholarly publishers offer access to some content through DeepDyve. The service allows users to view a PDF for a set, brief time period. One cannot print, download, save, or annotate these PDFs. NPG imagined that the user community for the DeepDyve service would be individuals who needed brief, immediate access to journal articles.
NPG began to offer articles in mid-December 2010 and began promoting the option in January 2011. The original offerings were from Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Chemical Biology, and Nature Medicine. Although this was a small segment of NPG's portfolio, they felt it was a sufficient number of titles to begin to evaluate demand. DeepDyve allows publishers to set rental prices that vary significantly for various publishers' content. NPG set the rental price for their articles at $3.99 for twenty-four hours.
Users can access NPG content on the DeepDyve platform through the NPG website, through the DeepDyve website, or through Google searches. Despite the varied discovery routes, users do not seem to be taking wholesale advantage of the service. The largest monthly number of uses for a journal was 45 downloads of articles from Nature in March 2011, which is very low. As a comparison, the same journal got 2.2 million downloads of Nature articles from nature.com in the same month.
NPG also charted the referral routes to the rental articles. Thirty percent of users came directly from DeepDyve's site, while the other 70 percent accessed material either through Google or through NPG's site. These percentages match DeepDyve's overall use trend as well. DeepDyve has seen growing use overall, with 50,000 visitors in December 2010 trending up to 120,000 visits in March 2011 and 100,000 visits in April 2011. However, this is still a very small level of traffic when compared with site license use on nature.com.
Baynes shared some of NPG's analysis as to why traffic to their journals on DeepDyve has been so low. They question if there really is demand for rented articles and wonder if users want rented articles at all. While DeepDyve's business model assumes that there are many “unaffiliated” knowledge workers ready to pay for a quick look at content, NPG wonders if their primary audience already has access through site license agreements and therefore does not need this service. They are also considering the marketing aspect; as DeepDyve and rented articles are a new access model, perhaps most users just are not aware of the service. There is also a short lag before DeepDyve makes the latest articles available on their site, which may have an impact. Finally, Baynes posited that perhaps they had not put enough of their portfolio up on DeepDyve to attract many users. NPG believes that the rental model of article access is still in its early phases. They want to experiment with other variables beyond offering a few journals to see if there is any demand at all. Baynes did not indicate which, if any, variables NPG foresaw testing in the next phases of their experimentation with rented articles.
Next Baynes moved on to discuss NPG's work with subscriptions for mobile devices. She took a straw poll of session attendees and inquired how many have Web-enabled mobile devices, how many had multiple devices, and how many audience members use them for work. NPG believes the trend toward mobile access will continue. Baynes shared data that tablet sales doubled in 2011. She also indicated that mobile device sales are projected to pass those of laptop and desktop computers in 2013. The trends also show that while smart phone use will increase, the cost of phones and data plans will decrease, further accelerating the use of the devices.
NPG is interested to know what use was like in the academic setting, and Baynes cited two recent studies showing that a high percentage of students use mobile devices and that use is growing. The studies also show that fewer faculty use mobile devices, and that faculty demands for mobile device applications are currently less sophisticated than those of students. One of the studies, from Texas A&M, reveals that 60 percent of students read journal articles on their mobile devices.
NPG's early, experimental response to these trends was to provide access to their portfolio of journals through mobile applications (apps) for the iOS platform. NPG released an iPhone app in February 2010 and followed up with an iPad app in January 2011. The app is designed to allow a user to see new content, search nature.com, share content on Facebook and Twitter, and bookmark articles for later use. The iPhone app originally provided free content to Nature, and later an app subscription was introduced. The phone app has been downloaded over 100,000 times to date and use was growing until the subscription was introduced. Use has increased again with the issue of the iPad app. Eight titles are available through the app, representing a small fraction of the portfolio available on the website. Currently sales of the app subscription are low, and two-thirds of those are for the iPad app.
NPG has many areas in which they hope to improve their mobile presence. They plan to expand the number of platforms on which their apps work (currently they only support Apple products and no e-readers). Sometime in 2011 they hope to allow site-licensed IP authentication for smart phones and mobile devices through a mobile-optimized version of nature.com. They also plan on offering Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER)–compliant use statistics. They want to allow for the purchase of individual articles through the apps.
Baynes spoke briefly about some other areas where NPG wants to experiment, and some related developments. One relevant development from outside NPG that she mentioned was the Flipboard iPad app, which allows users to create their own magazine using Twitter and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. Although attractive to users who wish to customize, it takes the display of content out of the hands of publishers and libraries.
Baynes concluded her presentation by speaking about NPG's exploration of pay-per-view access for academic customers, for site license offerings. She also mentioned that NPG is offering an interactive, digital textbook with both mobile and site license offerings. Baynes' presentation engendered some lively discussion. Concerning the rental of articles, librarians suggested that one of the greatest reasons for the slow uptake of Nature titles was they had not investigated the price point of their rentals. Some thought $3.99 seemed quite high and it was suggested that a variable that NPG should test is the price point. Baynes responded to the suggestion that allowing a user to keep a PDF copy of what they accessed from DeepDyve would increase use by pointing out that article rental, in NPG's mind, is not a replacement for document delivery channels such as interlibrary loan. It was also suggested that an RSS feed alerting users when articles are available might improve adoption of the service.
Concerning the mobile apps, Baynes was asked to respond to Apple's announcement that they would take 30 percent of the profit from subscriptions offered through mobile Apple devices. She said that, along with many publishers, NPG did not necessarily like it, but they accept it as a reality and a cost of meeting user demand for mobile services.
This presentation demonstrated one publisher's efforts to meet new market demands and find viable revenue streams. NPG's foray into article rental has not demonstrated great user interest, but very few variables have been tested to develop this access option into a viable service. User interest in mobile apps is well established. It remains for publishers to provide services that meet user demands and to continue to keep the companies and their content viable.
Notes
1. DeepDyve, http://www.deepdyve.com/ (accessed December 16, 2011).