O'Reilly Radar » Allen Noren

Safari Books Online Goes Mobile

Allen Noren — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:04:34 +0000

Like much of the publishing world, I’m eager to hear about Amazon’s latest version of the Kindle. But that’s not the only news today. I’m sitting here at TOC and talking to John Chodacki from Safari Books Online and, with a smile on his face, he’s showing me beta version of m.safaribooksonline.com. (In full disclosure, Safari is a joint venture between O’Reilly and Pearson.)

The smile is well deserved. It looks great, it’s fast, and I love the stripped-down navigation and lack of clutter. It’s got a couple of bugs, and I don’t like that I can’t read our highly designed Head First books, but it’s a Beta.

The mobile version will be released on 23 February, and if you’re a Safari subscriber and have feedback, send it to safarimobile AT safaribooksonline DOT com. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can get a free trial.

Last chance – BISG survey on experimentation closes on Thursday

Allen Noren — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:58:04 +0000

Michael Healy, Executive Director of the BISG, is offering publishers one last chance to take their Experimentation and Innovation Survey. I took it, and I can say it’s not only worthwhile as a way of benchmarking where the industry is on this important topic, but it provides a context for thinking about innovation within your own organization. Here’s the email Michael sent out today:

We will be closing our survey on publisher experimentation and innovation on Thursday afternoon, February 21. We would very much like your participation, so please don’t miss the opportunity to contribute to the survey. The link to the survey is as follows:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ttAYUp778M0QmwPd7yOHtQ_3d_3d

Harlequin as Innovator

Allen Noren — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:39:20 +0000

Did you know that Harlequin, the romance novel publisher, is one of the most innovative when it comes to embracing and developing Web 2.0 technologies? And did you know that their readers are driving early adoption of ebooks and social networking? Brent Lewis, Director, Internet & Digital for Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., is in the midst of discussing many of their bold experiments, including their global online community, impressive author outreach and engagement, social networking in Facebook and SecondLife, including a huge costume party held in-world. On top of that they’re one of the few publishers who realizes that the phone is a major platform for book publishers. (Hello, publishers! As one Nokia exec told me, “The US is a Third World country when it comes to cell phone use.” And he didn’t mean just for yacking.)

An truly impressive talk, and I hope we can convince Brent to speak at the next TOC. Do yourself a favor and visit eharlequin.com. Study what they’re up to.

The Future of the Book

Allen Noren — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:52:17 +0000

Ben Vershbow’s talk at today’s TOC Conference titled Books as Conversations reminds me that I need to visit The Institute for the Future of the Book more often. Ben is going through some of the fascinating, and successful, experiments being conducted there, such as Gamer Theory, The Googlization of Everything, Without Gods, and several more. Most impressive is the visualization of information and flow that they’re experimenting with, as well as the ease with which readers can comment and participate in the works. (I love Ben’s comment that through tools like these “The margins are now public,” meaning that notes in margins that used to be private are now exposed to all. Of course, many sites have done this before, including our own Safari Books Online system that included a public notes feature when we launched it in 2001.)

There are also some clever marketing and community hooks embedded within the “books,” such as the “stay in touch” feature towards the bottom of this page. Small things like this are the often overlooked but necessary features required to encourage ongoing participation.

If you’re thinking about experimenting with books online, check the above sites out.

New Publishing Models

Allen Noren — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:32:32 +0000

I spend a fair amount of my evening time searching for and studying new publishing models, most of which are unfortunately not being created by traditional publishers. Bill Burger of the Copyright Clearance Center talked about some excellent sites that we as publishers should be studying. They are:

Wikitravel: Though there are a plethora of travel sites available, this one is built on the very successful Wikipedia model. And now users can purchase a book through it, no traditional publisher involved.

Encyclopedia of Life: A dense and gorgeous site that comes to us without the involvement of a traditional publisher.

Sermo.com: A members-only site for doctors in the Boston area that publishes medical information, without the involvement of a traditional publisher.

I could add a bunch more to this list–Knol, 101 Cookbook, Baby Center–but the trend is clear, and if publishers aren’t willing to participate in this new world, really participate, then alternatives will be created.

Will Publishers matter?

Allen Noren — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:31:33 +0000

That’s the title of Stephen Abram’s keynote at TOC this morning. It’s an important question as a number of studies and trends have made abundantly clear, including the NEA’s overly pessimistic To Read or Not to Read study. So much of Stephen’s rapid-fire message is both contrarian and hopeful, but in a working class, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-to-work kind of way. As head of O’Reilly’s online presence, several of Stephen’s points stood out for me:

More people are reading now. They are just reading differently.
Facebook is the new threat to publishers, not Google.
Publishing and writing, the sharing of ideas, is fundamentally a part of Web 2.0 technologies.
Old formats die. The novel as we know it has only been around since the 1800s.
To be relevant, publishers have to be available at the point of need.
University of Alberta library doing all referencing in Facebook, and has 5000 visitors a night in Second Life.
Syndication is increasingly important. If you’re still trying to create a destination site, you’re messing up.
User intention paths. Have to adapt to your users, and not create barriers. Otherwise, they’ll bypass you.
Phone is the dominant global device. Is your content ready?
85% of Stephen’s colleagues in China read books on their phones.
Do you want to help create the world, or let it happen to you?

There’s way more I could write about Stephen’s talk, but Bill Burger from the Copyright Clearance Center is up next.