
Hiptype (YC S12) Launches A Google Analytics-Style Service For E-Books - sohailprasad
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/31/hiptype-launch/
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jaysonelliot
I'm just trying to imagine how a book like Catcher in the Rye, Finnegans Wake,
or To Kill a Mockingbird would have been changed if it were subjected to these
sort of analytics by its publisher.

I can easily see future books being edited and re-written from edition to
edition (not that "edition" will continue to have any meaning) in response to
analytics on reader behavior.

30% of readers failing to finish a book, and dropping off near the same place?
_Let's rewrite that chapter to keep people turning the pages._ Lots of people
highlighting a controversial passage, then not buying any more books from that
author? _Tone it down, smooth out the "problem areas."_ A surprising number of
young women reading a particular book? _Let's "pink it up" and throw in some
romantic subplots that tested well in focus groups._ How about embedding some
multimedia into the book, and some product placement while we're at it?

Literature will survive this latest attempt to measure the creativity right
out of an industry. Good movies still make it on the indie circuit despite the
focus-grouped blockbusters, good games still get made by small shops. I just
can't help but feel a tinge of sadness as I watch books and literature get
consumed by obsessive measurement and cold-blooded analytics.

~~~
jameslevy
Jayson, thanks for your feedback. You raise an important issue.

A huge proportion of the eBooks downloaded are educational, trade, and
reference. Cookbooks, for example, are incredibly popular and these "cold-
blood analytics" can be very practical for determining what content is working
and what content is not engaging readers.

It gets more tricky when it comes to literary fiction. But I think it's safe
to say that measurement and creativity aren't mutually exclusive. Measuring
something in and of itself doesn't compel you to make changes.

But it would be interesting for us to do some research by getting into an
edition of a classic text and seeing what types of changes our analytics would
suggest making. This would mostly be an exercise in figuring out how to
improve our analytics, rather than taking it at face-value that a classic text
should be edited based on some data points.

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tseabrooks
I expect to be a lone voice in a sea of positivity...

The very notion of A/B testing a piece of art disturbs me profoundly. The idea
that publishers would say, "Our analytics show readers engage with these types
of passages so you need to increase your usage of X passages by 50% and use
50% more words from this list", paints a fairly dim view of the future of
artistic expression in a world that is concerned with profitability over
substance at an increasing rate.

Publishers already have a far heavier hand than I'd like them to or most
people know about. Giving middle manager types data when it comes to artwork
can only lead to place where self expression through authorship becomes a dead
art-form.

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jameslevy
We find it very fascinating that people either love Hiptype or are profoundly
disturbed. What we're doing is not different than what occurs on the websites
and mobile apps you already use, so the difference is one of culture.

What I'm most curious about is the extent to which these cultural norms will
shift as it becomes more common for books to contain analytics like ours.

~~~
tseabrooks
Preface: I hadn't considered technical books and all comments are about
stories, both fiction and non fiction.

As someone who has grown up on the internet for the last two decades there is
something decidedly different between a website, a blog, and a mobile app when
compared to a book. It's something ephemeral I can't put my finger on.

There is magic in books. From a child's earliest days books provide a window
to other worlds and realities. Some of these worlds show us glimpses of
greatness and happiness others show us the darkest depths of human sadness and
despair. We are given characters to love and hate along side characters to use
as reflections of ourselves. In all of this there is a certain magic to books.
They provide judgement free escapes for the outcasts and loners; Later in life
they provide the community for those very same outcasts and loners to come
together.

I realize I sound naive and possibly unrealistic. Also, I acknowledge that
this community in particular tends towards efficiency and has a tenuous
relationship with the humanities. However, all that aside, this feels like it
cheapens the reading experience.

I hope this doesn't become the norm for authors telling stories. While perhaps
a bit more hyperbolic than necessary this all feels akin to A/B testing The
Sistine Chapel. Let's not go around letting MBAs and Middle Managers fuck with
art.

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smoody
Of the companies I've read about so far, I believe this is _the_ one to watch.
I'm expecting this to be a big deal (I don't know the founders or anyone else
even remotely involved). If they can get the right deals (be where authors
sell the books and readers read the books), then writers will quickly become
addicted to this service.

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mitjak
Ok, the "Hip{something}" naming madness has to stop.

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sheff
I hope they allow a mechanism for people to opt out. I can't really see this
helping the reader, or even proper publishers. It will just aid the Demand
Media equivalents of the publishing world in churning out crap.

~~~
jameslevy
There is a privacy notice in every book with Hiptype that allows readers to
opt-out. We want to make sure that we make it easy for readers who do not want
their anonymous usage statistics tracked to disable Hiptype.

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hammock
I find it interesting that they call themselves the "Google Analytics for
e-books" since, while it is true that often the out-of-the-box analytics
offered by big publishers is extraordinarily basic (number of downloads,
number of opens), the one I have worked with - Adobe DPS, used by Conde Nast
and others - does allow you to directly bolt on Google Analytics to your
publications, in addition to their own Omniture offering.

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pasbesoin
Analytics. Another reason to use alternative channels.

(As for anononymization, as they say in security communities, once you create
a means of access, who knows how and by whom it will end up being used?)

I'm glad to see someone from the business actively participating here;
however, I remain unassured, in the larger context and perhaps also
specifically.

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noelwelsh
A great idea but there is no information on their site about what data you
actually get. Maybe innumerate literature types don't care, but us data heads
certainly do. I would want to know what sections people read, what they don't,
and critically I want to know what the distribution looks like, not just the
mean.

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kirillzubovsky
Great service and I am really looking forward to see where it goes. When I am
ready to write a book, I am going to use Hiptype, no doubt. Will you let me do
all the writing+publishing on Hiptype too? That would be really nice!

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2arrs2ells
Congrats James & Sohail!

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jameslevy
Thanks! It's incredibly exciting for us to finally share Hiptype with the
world and start getting more authors and publishers using the product.

We've been particularly interested with what the HN crowd would think about
things made possible with Hiptype, like A/B testing or beta testing versions
of a book.

~~~
tstegart
Could this work in a hybrid app for iOS? Specifically, we publish a hybrid
iPad app using an open source framework called Baker
(<http://bakerframework.com/>). I know a lot of people publish books using it
as well. Only problem is, Google Analytics doesn't track HTML pageviews inside
an app, and most in-app analytics are geared towards native apps. Setting up
analytics is painful.

~~~
jameslevy
We might be able to help, even if we don't currently support this environment.
Feel free to get in touch at james@hiptype.com

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adeejay
Congrats guys! Analytics for books. This is such a great idea...I'd thought it
would have already been created. Good luck at Demo Day.

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StavrosK
Hmm, I visited the site, but it appears you haven't actually launched? It asks
me for my email to register for an invitation.

~~~
jameslevy
We're inviting users in weekly batches. We're using a fifo system so signing
up earlier guarantees earlier entry.

We appreciate your patience, and you can get in touch directly if you'd like
us to get your account activated more quickly.

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sabalaba
Grats on the launch guys

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flexie
How do they determine the income of the readers?

~~~
jameslevy
This is a good question. None of this data is available from the book itself.
We've invested a lot of effort into our analytics backend, and our ability to
derive demographics info from a very small amount of uniquely identifying
information on the eReader or multi-purpose device.

There are a few reasons why we're not explaining how we get all of the
demographics and insights data shown on our dashboard, but we can vouch 100%
for its accuracy, and it's all data that is publicly available.

~~~
tstegart
How does the developer get your code inside their book? Also, you might want
to consider an intermediate plan. We're over 1000 readers (after a few
months), but I'm guessing we're years away from 500,000 readers.

~~~
jameslevy
Adding our plugin to books is easy - you just upload the book file (using
filepicker.io from our batch) and it is automatically modified to include the
plugin.

Also, thanks for the feedback about pricing! We're looking into some changes
that would address your concerns.

~~~
tstegart
I'm guessing this info isn't on the website because you haven't got around to
it yet, but knowing how things work is what attracts me to services. I'm wary
of companies that claim to do things but don't say how it works, so you should
consider putting up a "How-it-works" page. Do you have a list of supported
formats? Just another comment about the pricing, 500,000 is a LOT of readers.
Very few indie publishers (at least single authors) are near that number for a
single book. Having a range for authors between 5,000 - 100,000 might be a
better sweet spot.

