Open and Commercial Content Future: Competition or Co-operation? Artur Dyro Managing Director, Co-founder Young Digital

Open and Commercial Content Future: Competition or Co-operation? Artur Dyro Managing Director, Co-founder Young Digital Planet SA artur.dyro@ydp.com.pl www.ydp.eu Washington, DC June 10-12, 2009

Different perspectives

Where are we?

YDP Facts at a glance Based in Gdańsk, Poland 350 employees Operational in 20 countries across four continents ICT partner for leading educational publishing houses and Ministries of Education Part of Sanoma, a large European media group Scope of activities • Math & Science eContent publisher for K12 Education • Language learning software publisher • eLearning Platforms developer and provider • eContent Publishing Suite provider • Educational software and content developer

Publishers give it away to increase sales of printing copies Electronic publishers / IT providers give it away to sell services and software Hardware providers give it away to increase sales of hardware (computers, IWB) Governments disappointed with the results of educational system looking for innovative solutions trying to provide free resources for everyone IT Giants disappointed with the adoption pace of technology in education trying to produce and give away content to speed up technology adoption in schools Web 2.0 culture among teachers and students produce vast amount of content Non educational web content can be easily used in context of education Sources of free content

Decreasing value of the textbooks unable to serve very diverse student population New initiatives to create free, ”open source” type of textbooks New legislation to equalize electronic and paper based textbooks Decentralization of the decision centers (from governments / local authorities / districts to individual teachers and students) Expectations to introduce ”iTunes” model for textbooks (much more granular offer) From ”CD” to ”song” From ”software” to ”resources” From ”textbook” to ”pages” (?) Other trends that challenge textbooks

What to do? Massive amount of free content is on the market There are clearly a lot of trends that seem to change textbook based business in the nearest future Threat or chance? "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay

Really accept the fact that selling textbook is not a sustainable strategy (neither on paper or as an e-book) Give our customers reasonable commercial alternatives to the free content Supporting rather than fighting Web 2.0 culture among teachers and students Include free content into our offer and philosophy Build up the value perception of electronic content (to be able to sell it at all) Possible actions to be considered

Textbook as a ”backbone” and navigation tool

Free content values No payment hassle Variety Immediate Granular Easy download Simple format Easy to re-use License to change How to compete with free content Commercial content disadvantages • Hard to find it (Google proof) • Decentralized (many providers) • Hard to evaluate • Had to pay for part of it • Difficult to adapt and change • Difficult to mix it with other content Free content disadvantages • Does not support any proven instructional program • Non-searchable through subjects, grades, curriculum • Non-guaranteed links • Risk of copyright infringement • Only specific type of content available • Low or medium quality • Big effort needed to collect critical mass of content

Carefully matched to 50 states standards (relatively easy for eContent) Advanced search through subjects, grades, curricula, abilities Focus on accessibility (”searchability”) rather than protection Granularity in using and purchasing(micro transactions) Open and reusable for users editing Possible to compile with other content objects (with the trace of the copyrights and respective payments) Centralization (competitors) New features of our eContent

Are they real danger for our offer? In all cases people were overoptimistic about it Only specific type of content can be created Teachers are rather not eager to share their work Active and creative authors will work with publishers Can supporting of teachers Web 2.0 community be beneficial? Capitalize on traffic Build up services on top Sell services helping teachers to structure this content into proven instructional program Use services and tools to promote and sell commercial offer Can we use active users as a resellers of our offer? User generated content – threat or chance

New Offer! My Playlist Whiteboard Playlists My Playlist

New Offer! Content re-usage (re-selling) My content My question • Answer A • Answer B • Answer C

Domestic market stimulating changes on the market to compete effectively with traditional publishers in the future (lowering textbook value, increasing value of the eContent) UK market acting as a central platform for publishers providing technological solution (www.yTeach.co.uk) that takes into account most of the conclusions of this presentation International market helping partners to achieve one of the above How does YDP see its future?

Thank you for your attention Artur Dyro Managing Director, Co-founder Young Digital Planet SA artur.dyro@ydp.com.pl www.ydp.eu Washington, DC June 10-12, 2009

Open and Commercial Content Future: Competition or Co-operation? Artur Dyro Managing Director, Co-founder Young Digital