- Gallery: Digitizing the Past and Present at the Library of Congress (BoingBoing) — amazing pictures and stories about preserving and protecting the Library of Congress, it’s papery past and its pixellated future. We can’t afford any damage to anything,” said Eric Hansen, chief of the Preservation Research and Testing Division. “Never take a sample; be completely nondestructive. … We know there will be advances in technology and that current techniques will become outmoded.”
- Mark Frauenfelder on The Colbert Report — It’s great to see Make and DIY culture getting an articulate outing on national television, but I’m entranced by the useless device. Its motion is so emotionally evocative, I’d swear it exhibits shyness. Reminded me of EJ Park’s work.
- Copyright Elephant in the Middle of Glee — if the TV show Glee were real life, the characters would have racked up millions on penalties from their infringing actions. In one recent episode, the AV Club helps cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester film a near-exact copy of Madonna’s Vogue music video (the real-life fine for copying Madonna’s original? up to $150,000). Just a few episodes later, a video of Sue dancing to Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit Physical is posted online (damages for recording the entirety of Physical on Sue’s camcorder: up to $300,000). And let’s not forget the glee club’s many mash-ups — songs created by mixing together two other musical pieces. Each mash-up is a “preparation of a derivative work” of the original two songs’ compositions – an action for which there is no compulsory license available, meaning (in plain English) that if the Glee kids were a real group of teenagers, they could not feasibly ask for — or hope to get — the copyright permissions they would need to make their songs, and their actions, legal under copyright law. Punishment for making each mash-up? Up to another $150,000 — times two.
- Sikuli — a visual technology to search and automate graphical user interfaces (GUI) using images (screenshots). (via liza on Twitter)
"digital content" entries
How one publisher uses "aggressive marketing"
Open Road gets aggressive with adaptation and real-time marketing.
Being digital isn’t the novelty it once was, so some publishing companies are shifting focus to competitive differentiation within digital. Jane Friedman’s company Open Road Integrated Media believes aggressive marketing is the key to digital success.
Part book, part film, part website
A web-based documentary creates a new kind of reading experience.
Peter Meyers has been writing about and helping create digital books for about 15 years, and during that time he hasn't seen anything as innovative, as well executed, and as plain lovely to look at as "Welcome to Pine Point."
Marginalia is still alive in the digital world
Joep Kuijper on the Openmargin marginalia platform and iPad app.
It's time to stop lamenting the death of marginalia at the hands of digital publishing and actually do something about it. Openmargin, a startup in the Netherlands, has done just that.
An era in which to curate skills
Amidst disruption, publishing still relies on research, sales, authoring, and curation.
Three days of intensive discussion about the current state of publishing at TOC 2011 revealed that research, sales, authoring, and curation are all still important skills.
Want to succeed in online content? Get small, be open, go free
Formation Media CEO Sam Jones on how fading publishing brands can be reborn on the digital side.
Formation Media CEO Sam Jones discusses his recipe for online content success: It has to be free, it has to be widely available, and publishers must operate at a web-appropriate scale.
Don't forget the readers
Bethanne Patrick on how digital is shaping the reading experience and where ereaders come up short.
There are all sorts of statistics and tech reviews related to digital publishing, but what do readers think? Bethanne Patrick, book critic and owner of Book Maven Media, brings us up to speed on how consumers are responding to the digital shift.
Nearly 1,000 additional O'Reilly and Microsoft Press ebooks now available in Kindle Store
Nearly 1,000 additional O'Reilly and Microsoft Press ebooks are now available in the Kindle store, and include a special upgrade offer for access to additional formats and free lifetime updates through oreilly.com for $4.99.
Ruminations on iPhone 4, iOS and mobile video
We're on the cusp of the post-PC era, and Apple is pushing us there.
Follow the path that Apple has forged in creating a 100-million-device-strong iOS platform and ecosystem (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad). Next, watch the seamless flow of tens of billions of consumer downloads from an iTunes and App Store marketplace that is backed by 150 million active credit cards. Whether you consider the emerging "it" a phone, a computer, a media player, a netbook or a gaming device, is it even a stretch to argue that Apple is on the cusp of completing the last mile to the Post-PC era?
Four short links: 10 June 2010
Adventures in Digitization, DIY on TV, Copywrongs, and Web Testing
Streamlining craft in digital video
Digital video streamlines the craft of filmmaking and makes a professional look available to the amateur film maker. It's a very cool time to be a visual storyteller on a budget.