ENTRIES TAGGED "iPad"
What devices and formats do your customers prefer?
Your future content plans can be shaped by asking these questions
Most publishers create ebooks in all formats figuring it doesn’t matter whether mobi is more important than EPUB or if the content is read on an iPad more frequently than on a mobile phone. That approach means these publishers have no idea how their content is being consumed. It also means they probably don’t have a direct channel to their customers or some other way of polling them on their preferences.
How can we redefine the book?
Where does the "book" stop and the "application" begin?
A book may no longer be a physical object, but its ordinary definition remains straightforward as a “written composition that is intended for publication”. Traditional or digital, we feel confident in our ability to recognise a book.
We barely remember today that early electronic platforms offered fewer visual options than the printed page, and encouraged the release of text-only editions from which even the original covers had been removed. Four short years after the launch of the original Kindle, LCD screens were becoming quite popular in mainstream readers. Today, they are almost everywhere, some of them brighter and sharper than their desktop counterparts.
Book Publishing Unbound
Adventures in Publishing – a new industry report from Brand Perfect
Brand Perfect’s new report looks at how traditional publishers are contending with the challenges being brought about by increasingly fragmentary digital publishing, and highlights some of the most successful commercial projects that are responding to them.
Ebooks and the future of research
Society cannot afford to lose its distributed knowledge backup system
Knowledge cannot progress unless it is aware of its past: a knowledge-seeker must reference the works of previous generations. Literary scholars return to manuscripts, musicians to partitions, artists to museums…
The continued availability of reference works underpins our entire research system. It has become so ingrained in our methods that it barely registers on our list of values to uphold. Yet, that very availability has dissolved into a mirage, to surprisingly little protest.
Next Issue: Why I recommissioned my old iPad
Their $14.99/month all-you-can-eat option is a winner
I had to take my first-gen iPad out of mothballs for this one. I’m talking about the Next Issue service and app. Like most of you I’ve let my print magazine subscriptions lapse over the past several years. I spend less than $150/year on my remaining subscriptions and more than half of that is just for one, The Week, which is highly recommended, btw. So why would I sign up for an online magazine subscription program that will cost me $15/month, or $180/year? Because it’s terrific.
Kindle Fire vs iPad: “Good enough” will not disrupt
Horace Dediu addresses the Amazon-Apple threat level.
With its recent release of the new Kindle Fire HD tablets, some have argued that Amazon has declared war on Apple and its iPad. But how serious is the threat? Are the two companies even playing the same game? I reached out to analyst Horace Dediu, founder and author of Asymco, to get his take. Dediu will speak on all this and more at TOC Frankfurt on October 9, 2012. Our short interview follows.
How disruptive is the Kindle Fire to the low-end tablet market?
Horace Dediu:The problem I see with the Kindle is that the fuel to make it an increasingly better product that can become a general purpose computer that is hired to do most of what we hire computers to do is not there. I mean, that profitability to invest in new input methods, new ways of interacting and new platforms can’t be obtained from a retailer’s margin.
Also, there is a cycle time problem in that the company does not want to orphan its devices since they should “pay themselves off” as console systems do today. That means the company is not motivated to move its users to newer and “better” solutions that constantly improve. The assumption (implicit) in Kindle is that the product is “good enough” as it is and should be used for many years to come. That’s not a way to ensure improvements necessary to disrupt the computing world.
Lastly, the Amazon brand will have a difficult time reaching six billion consumers. Retail is a notoriously difficult business to expand internationally. Digital retail is not much easier than brick-and-mortar. You can see how slow expansion of different media has been for iTunes.
Current State of the iOS Platform
Apple isn't a major ebook player today but the iPad Mini will bolster their position
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
We’re focusing on platforms this month and Apple’s iOS is still the one to beat. Android has momentum but recent reports indicate it’s still not a serious threat to iOS, at least not on the tablet front. The much-rumored iPad Mini will only reinforce Apple’s position and potentially eliminate consumer interest in other tablets.
Is the iPad Mini for real? What does the future of the iOS platform look like? I recently sat down with John Brownlee, Cult of Mac’s Deputy Editor to discuss.
B&N’s Results Point to Larger Industry Concerns
What's next if device sales from the two market leaders have plateaued?
I was disappointed to read that B&N’s Nook business was basically flat year-over-year. How could that be in such a red hot market? Ebook sales are skyrocketing and everyone seems to be buying new devices.
The more I think about it though the more I realize that B&N’s results are consistent with other data points we’ve seen this year and part of a broader industry trend.
Why I haven't caught ereader fever
Platform lock-in and questionable longevity make the iPad a better investment than an ereader.
Ereaders may have their place now, but shifts toward the web and HTML5 make the iPad a wiser and more enduring choice for digital reading.
Kindle Fire: Three pros, five cons
The good: Form factor and content. The bad: Lock in, auto updates and the Silk browser.
Joe Wikert says the Kindle Fire gets good marks for form factor and meeting basic consumer needs, but its lock in, auto updates and lack of a killer app are detriments.