Friday, August 31, 2007

Tell Me Where I am, Please

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The new TomTom new high-end product, the TomTom GO 920 T, has voice recognition. The device also includes new enhanced positioning technolog...

Textbooks for Rent

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As US College students all prepare to return to campus, Bookrenter.com have launched a new textbook rental service. Why rent when you can bu...
Thursday, August 30, 2007

Disintermediation?

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We now hear about the coming wars between the iPhone and the new Nokia phone. Both will hit the UK market later this year but both differ in...

Not Waving but Drowning...

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I read with great interest Fred Newman’s piece on Bookselling in the Digital era which was featured in Publishing News this week. Many of th...
Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Helping Journalists Thrive, Network, And Collaborate On The Web

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In a thought provoking article, the blog Publisher2 raises the issue about the impact that digitisation is having on reporters, editors and...
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Kiosk Downloads

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Ripfactory’s CD squared is a retail kiosk which enables customers to purchase a CD in a shop and transfer the music onto their portable musi...

Watermarks – A DRM free environment?

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Watermarks have started to become the new buzzword. The name comes from the faintly visible watermarks imprinted on stationery that identify...

Publishers in push to sell direct online

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The Bookseller reports on publishers' moves to sell direct to consumers online. They reported on Random’s launch of their direct-to-cons...
Monday, August 27, 2007

'eBooks are Coming' - a response

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As I returned from my annual break where nothing was digital or remotely ebook to find some interesting news and some usual ‘August noise’. ...
Thursday, August 09, 2007

Who is Amazon?

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Amazon.com, has launched a new self-publishing service called CreateSpace which will make it easier for all budding authors to be published....

It has Finally Happening – SpiralFrog

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In the Brave New World report last year we wrote about SpiralFrog a free music download service whose business model is based on advertising...

NB Content is becoming Free

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The ability to charge for content especially in non-digital media like newspapers, magazines, and video was based on a limited supply of qua...
Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Skype moves ever closer

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Some may argue that we write a lot about VOIP services such as Skype and that this is not relivant to publishing. Maybe they are right and m...

AA Guides to London

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Travellers to London can now find their way around town using the new AA Smart Travel Guide which comes on a memory card and can be played o...
Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Keitai Novels

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There are many differences between Japanese and western cultures. The differences have always been fascinating to try and understand. Over 1...
Sunday, August 05, 2007

Eminem's music publisher sues Apple over downloads

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Eminem has filed a federal lawsuit against Apple for allowing music downloads onto iPods without permission. The suit, filed in Detroit by E...

Cheaper Journals?

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Cheaper journals? I had to read the article again as I must be dreaming. It was like listening to Gordon Brown giving us all a tax cut – the...

VOIP takes to the Skies?

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eMarketer reports figures from the Yankee Group which estimates that 9% of all US households subscribed to VoIP (voice over internet) servic...

First the iPhone now the gPhone

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As mobile phones become more sophisticated and mobile network speeds faster and Wi-Fi more pervasive it is clear that the computer connectio...
Friday, August 03, 2007

So how do you identify a digital fragment?

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Nielson informs us that the number of titles published in 2006 in the UK has grown from 110,925 to 115,000 and globally in the English langu...
Thursday, August 02, 2007

Fair Use versus Free Use

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The issue of copyright appears again today in the New York Times where they report on an association of computer and communication companies...
Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Digital Spin on Reverting Rights

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I read Oliver Brice’s opinion column in the Bookseller with great interest. Here was a legal man talking on the subject of rights in the dig...
Sunday, July 29, 2007

TV is about to change forever

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Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom are not new to this blog and no doubt they will appear again. But whereas their previous ventures are known...
Thursday, July 26, 2007

Welcome to Barbie World

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Barbie is being reborn — she’s got outfits galore — but the doll also has some unusual features as this Barbie, who is smaller, also functio...

Nevermind the Quality, Understand the Width

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Charles Aurthur’s report in the Guardian is very interesting in both what it says but also some of the messages it coveys. He talks about th...
Sunday, July 22, 2007

Think about the reader

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Facebook continues to grow and the Telegraph reported that some 150,000 people in the UK are joining each day! In 3 years the site has grow ...

The Dark Continent

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In places where hunger, AIDS and poverty are rampant, and electricity is often not guaranteed, is the internet really a priority? Last mont...
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Potter goes Pirate Viral

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Last week it was the complete transcript of Mr Campbell’s Blair Years that were being emailed around the internet for many to read, search a...
Monday, July 16, 2007

Riverdeep get deeper into education

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The FT gives us another twist in the story of the giants and changing hands that dominate global education publishing. Eight months Riverdee...

Different Cheap PCs

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A pay as you go PC will hit the US market this summer. The model is from Zonbu, is Linux-based, will be priced at $99 with a $12.95 monthly...

Are Your Files Safe?

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Imagine your hard drive crashes or a virus attacks it and you effectively loose all your photos , music and books. What would be the cost of...

Sign of the Times

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On 1st July we wrote about the new Prince album being made free with the mail on Sunday and yesterday it happened. I managed to get the last...
Friday, July 13, 2007

Who are You?

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Imagine clicking on a search result believing you were going to a Waterstones to find yourself at Borders, or thinking you were going to Wor...

DAPs, DADs and DARs

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Around 100 publishing folk gathered in London yesterday to hear the UK rendition of the Klopotek Digital Asset Distributor conference. It wa...
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

News or Noise?

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Two interesting articles from yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. Britons now apparently read more than they did 30 years ago. Social scientists fr...
Monday, July 09, 2007

Mine's bigger than yours

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The University of Berlin, Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Universita Politecnica delle Marche in Italy, have managed to ...

Shelfari Releases New Facebook Application

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New Shelfari Application Enables Facebook Members to Share Their Reading Lists, Discover New Books and Authors, and Participate in a Growing...
Thursday, July 05, 2007

Digital News or Digital Noise

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It is hardly surprising that we find ourselves scratching our heads when we read the news on digital publishing today. Are we reading real n...

Saga Silver Surfers

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It was interesting to read in the Bookseller this week that publishers are missing out on the Saga Silver Surfers. As Publisher potentially ...
Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Digital Erotica goes mainstream

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Between the sheets there is some new bedtime listening. Virgin Books has launched an erotic audiobooks joint venture with Audible who will d...
Monday, July 02, 2007

The Cat is out of the Bag

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The cat is out of the music bag and it will be hard to put it back in. First there was Steve Jobs who announced DRM-free downloads, then Ama...
Sunday, July 01, 2007

For a Princely Sum

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Do artists need traditional channels to market? Do they even need to play by the traditional rules? We have already written about Stephen Ki...
Friday, June 29, 2007

YouTube versus MySpace, Place your bets

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Video wars again but not betamax versus VHS but Google’s YouTube versus Murdoch’s MySpace. MySpace have taken the gloves off and recognised ...

Taylor and Francis Continue to Grow Digitally

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Whilst many edge their bets and make much noise, some take action. Both strategies may be right, but it is interesting to see the continued ...
Wednesday, June 27, 2007

We know where you all are!

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Imagine a birds eye view of traffic across the Uk and not only can you see the congestion areas but you know the speed of all the vehicles. ...

BBC iPlayer launches into the iWorld

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The BBC enters the "iWorld" with a beta version of its on-demand TV service, iPlayer on 27 July. It will be only available to UK ...

One Day to go to Lift off!!

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Forget Harry Potter there will always be crazes and next year there will be another. Live live the King! Its now only hours to the biggest a...
Monday, June 25, 2007

Espresso Books come to the New York Library

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It may appear to be a long way off from setting up shop next to more traditional vending machines,or the local bookstore but those in New Yo...

Bowker aquire Medialab Solutions

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R.R. Bowker, the bibliographic information management company, has announced that it has acquired Medialab Solutions by Amsterdam. Medialab ...

Four days to a New World

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On Friday it happens! The iPhone launches in the US and is set to be a landmark shift in the convergence of technology, content and design. ...
Thursday, June 21, 2007

Capture them Young

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Scholastic is launching BookFlix, an educational Web site pairing short films based on popular picture books along with nonfiction e-books t...

Second Life of a Book

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The Russian delegation at the IBF conference last week in Cape Town raised a few eyebrows with their latest book buying scheme. It certainly...