- Pearson, one of the largest textbook publishers, is looking at technology to improve its business.
- By moving to blockchain and NFTs, Pearson will be able to generate some revenue from resold textbooks, the company’s CEO said.
- The company currently has no plans to use NFTs, but is interested in NFTs and other technologies.
Buying and reselling textbooks is a common practice for students, and Pearson hopes to get some of those resales.
Andy Bird, CEO of Pearson, one of the largest textbook publishers, recently said he is looking at blockchain and NFTs as a potential way to give the company a portion of the sales of used textbooks. said.
According to Bloomberg, Byrd told reporters this week, “In the analog world, Pearson’s textbooks have been sold up to seven times and only attended the first sale.”
“The shift to digital will help reduce the secondary market, and technologies such as blockchain and NFTs will allow us to participate in every sale of that particular product throughout its lifetime,” Byrd added. rice field.
As NFTs, textbooks have unique identifiers that can be tracked as they are passed from owner to owner. The cryptocurrency and his NFT market has taken a nosedive recently, but those in the industry are still hoping to recover.
“At this time, Pearson has no specific plans related to this technology,” a Pearson spokesperson told Insider. “But we are certainly interested in ways to improve student learning and bring more value to other stakeholders.”
However, a spokesperson said technologies like blockchain “provide transparency for everyone and could be good for authors and students.”
Byrd told reporters the company is looking at other ways to digitize textbooks.
“We have a whole team working on the impact of the metaverse and what it means for us,” he said.
A Pearson spokesperson said the company has made digital textbooks more affordable than print and will continue to do so to make them more accessible.
“NFT is no exception, because we can offer higher quality content at a lower price than paper books,” said the spokesperson.
