"digital content" entries
Palm's webOS Represents Major Shift for Syncing and Data
In an article covering the Palm Pre mobile device, Ars Technica makes a very important point about how devices utilize network connectivity, and what the assumptions are underlying their models of data storage and access: Users just make changes to their data (contacts, calendar, mail, etc.), and Palm's webOS handles committing those changes to whatever canonical data source it…
iPhone App Outperforms Most Print (Computer) Books This Holiday Season
Conventional wisdom suggests that when choosing pilot projects, you pick ones with a high likelihood of success. It's hard to argue that iPhone: The Missing Manual was a reasonable choice for testing the iPhone App waters. But while we knew it would do well, we've been quite pleased with just how well: If the iPhone App by itself had been…
Newspapers Pursued New Tech with Wrong Intentions
In a column at Slate, Jack Schafer says newspapers' overcommitment to form and content lock-in led to the industry missing Web opportunities: From the beginning, newspapers sought to invent the Web in their own image by repurposing the copy, values, and temperament found in their ink-and-paper editions. Despite being early arrivals, despite having spent millions on manpower and hardware,…
Conversation is the New King
Kate Eltham calls out publishers who blog through a PR lens and points the way to publisher blogs that fully embrace the medium: It used to be common wisdom that content is king. But the popularity of social media has demonstrated that what internet users are really seeking is connection. A blog may be a cheap and easy way…
The Realities of Big Web Traffic and Advertising
Major news sites that rely on advertising as their primary revenue stream need to log hundreds of millions of page views per month to attract significant attention from advertisers, according to a new report from Lauren Rich Fine, research director of ContentNext. From Advertising Age: "Based on our research, the conversation [with advertisers] gets interesting at 200 million page views…
New Tech Mixes Book Experience with Sensors
A new form of hybrid book is coming on the market — and the inventor consults with Apple. From the Guardian UK: Lyndsay Williams — who has already developed the PC sound card, SmartQuill, and SenseCam — is now working on SenseBooks, and the first of a series will be published next year. SenseBooks are a hybrid of paper…
The Inevitability of Newspapers' Downturn
In a post at Boing Boing, Clay Shirky takes issue with the newspaper industry's slow adaptation to digital and its propensity for playing the victim: I'd only arrived on the net in '93, a complete newbie, and most of my opinions about newspapers came from talking with Gordy Thompson of the NY Times and Brad Templeton of Clarinet. Instead,…
Magazines Now in Google Book Search
Google is adding back issues of magazines to its Book Search index. From the Official Google Blog: Try queries like [obama keynote convention], [hollywood brat pack] or [world's most challenging crossword] and you'll find magazine articles alongside books results. Magazine articles are tagged with the keyword "Magazine" on the search snippet. Over time, as we scan more articles, you'll see…
History Repeating with Book Publishing's Mobile Efforts
A Computerworld blog post from Mike Elgan looks at recent mobile announcements from book publishers. From the perspective of technology, watching book publishers slowly grapple with the tentative migration of books to mobile platforms is painful. Interestingly, the comments attached to the piece are almost all more conservative. The music industry was holding on to physical CD sales so tightly…
Book Publishing's Scale Issue
In a post looking at the future interplay of content, gatekeepers and consumers, David Nygren touches on a key issue for large book publishers: scale. Mega Publishing Conglomerates Go Bye-Bye: Or at least they will look very different than they do today. Their scale is not sustainable. The partial implosion we saw in the publishing industry last week was just…