Andrew Savikas
Andrew Savikas is the CEO of Safari Books Online. Previously he was VP of Digital Initiatives at O'Reilly Media and the program chair for O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing conference.
Andrew holds a B.S. in Media Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from Northeastern University in Boston. He is a frequent speaker at publishing and content management conferences, and is also the author of "Word Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming your Text".
Scenes from a Very Quiet London Book Fair
Some photos snapped yesterday during the first day of the London Book Fair. Crowds have picked up on Day 2, but still an eerily quiet show….
Why iPad Adaptation is an Uphill Battle for Incumbent Publishers
I heard quite a bit of buzz the past few days about the Popular Science+ iPad app, a "reimagining" of the magazine for the iPad (for the low-low price of $4.99 per issue), so I took a look at it last night. And while it's slick, the problem is that it's … a "reimagining" of the magazine. When someone…
NYT Web Piece on Mobile Outperforming Web Demonstrates Own Conclusion
NYTimes.com has a piece from Wednesday about several popular mobile apps that are better than their "parent" websites (using Zillow and Yelp as examples). What struck me when I first opened the page on my laptop after following a link to it on Twitter was how the NYTimes.com web experience stacks up to their own mobile app. Many critics of…
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…
Got Tips for TOC Newbies?
This week I'll be posting some preview highlights about next week's (nearly sold out) TOC Conference in New York. While there's plenty of familiar faces on the attendee list for TOC (welcome back!), there's also a lot of newcomers who can learn from your advice and experience about how to make the most of their time at TOC. We've posted…
TOC Preview: Ebooks Are Here (But Print Still is Too)
This week I'll be posting some preview highlights about next week's (nearly sold out) TOC Conference in New York. Much of the conversation in publishing today revolves around ebooks, digital reading, and the exploding mobile web. As it should. But of course print books are still the cash cow for most publishers, and will remain an important revenue stream and…
TOC Preview: Getting the Reader's Perspective
This week I'll be posting some preview highlights about next week's (nearly sold out) TOC Conference in New York. One of the concerns we heard loud and clear from last year's conference (and has been echoed since more broadly in a variety of blogs, Twitter, and email conversations) is that publishers aren't paying enough attention to how things look from…
Lightning Demos and Ignite!: Micropresentations at TOC 2010
At the first three TOC Conferences, we held evening "Lightning Demo" sessions for brief product pitches and short-form presentations. The constraints of a brief time slot often spur impressive creativity among speakers (and for the audience, the clunkers are mercifully short!). This year, we're putting the Lightning Demos right in the main program (on Wednesday morning) with a great list…
Why Mobile Will Win: eReaders are Sustaining, Mobile is Disruptive
In one of the comments to a recent post about The Tablet, Scott Lewis sums up one of the most common objections to the viability of smartphone-based reading: the screen is too small. And Scott is correct that a 3.5″ screen offers an inferior reading experience compared with a paperback when measured using the attributes that define a quality print reading experience. But people who are reading on smartphones are choosing to do so based on new and different attributes.
The Unicorns are Here, They're Just Not Evenly Distributed Yet
I really didn't want to do another post about The Tablet. But then I saw this piece from Fortune (via @jafurtado — does he ever sleep?) and this sentence drove me to it: [S]ome publishing industry watchers think that if a deal were to go through, it could lead to an Apple-enabled selling platform that would allow publishers to sell…