"toccon" entries
An expert view of unicorns and digital rights management
Kirk Biglione is a digital rights management (DRM) historian who brings a clear-eyed perspective to an inflammatory topic. While others jump on soapboxes, he actually does the homework. Case in point: Biglione’s in-depth look at the music industry’s stormy history with DRM.
Author, sell thyself (but in a good way)
Authors who want to jump into Twitter, Facebook and all the rest should pay heed to Chris Brogan. He's spent years — more than a decade — carrying on a conversation with his audience. Take a look at the sheer number of @ replies in his Twitter feed and you'll see how seriously he takes this stuff. In the…
Web community is messy in all the right ways
When you run into Richard Nash, founder of Cursor, you're encountering the embodiment of TOC enthusiasm. He's the anti-curmudgeon. As you'll see in the following interview, Nash is passionate about the web's ability to connect audiences and authors with the topics that excite them. His thoughts on tagging are particularly compelling (1:57 mark) because he really hits at the…
The chaos and the opportunity in Arab publishing
Egyptian publishing is far more chaotic than its Western counterparts. ISBNs are used fleetingly and book rights are a moving target. But that same chaos also breeds opportunity, particularly in the mobile and digital publishing spaces. Ramy Habeeb, director and co-founder of Kotobarabia, sat down with us at TOC 2010 to discuss the current state of Arab publishing as well…
The e-reader growth spurt of 2010
As TOC 2010 is held this week in New York, it’s clear e-reading devices are hitting their stride. This once-niche category is growing quickly. Publishing expert Liza Daly discusses the current e-reader market — Apple vs. Amazon, iPad vs. Kindle, etc. — in this video interview.
TOC Preview: The Future of Digital Textbooks
Technology is driving change in the way people teach, learn, and create. The impact of technology on teaching and learning in K-12, higher education, and professional learning has been profound, and, while no one can predict the future, it's safe to say this transformation has only just begun. At next week's Tools of Change for Publishing conference, a session titled…
Video: Seth Godin on New Media and New Marketing
I got a note from our Conferences Web team saying that video from Seth Godin's 2008 talk at the TOC Conference is "generating more than normal buzz" over on our Blip.TV channel I was in the audience for this one, and it's worth a watch:…