Startups winner first: Paperight, CartoDB, Borne Digital,
Paperight is allowing copy shops to print books legally, they are pretty successful in South Africa.
CartoDB is a vizualization tools for showing interactive stories on maps.
Borne Digital is a tool to bring adaptive reading to children. The better they read, the more difficult it can be.
Yes, Content Is Still King
By John Tayman (Byliner)
Hailed as “One of the 10 Most Innovative Media Companies in the World” (Fast Company), start-up publisher Byliner is putting a whole new spin on the development and delivery of content.
Byliner is a 18-month old startup. They deliver the world’s best authors to the world. They sell short stories you can read in 1 to 2 hours. They have roughly 5,000 authors so far. They clean the data and apply semantic and social analysis to push more content to this user. It sounds like iTunes Genius for books to me.
Reinventing Comics And Graphic Novels For Digital
By Mark Waid (Thrillbent)
Visit the real thing, it does not render “statically”
Comics and graphic novels are print relics in a digital world. Thrillbent.com publisher Mark Waid, a 30-year veteran in the comics field, demonstrates how he and his team have reinvented the comics medium from the ground up for tablets and mobile devices in jaw-dropping ways.
Based on responsive design
What are the challenges of comics to go to digital. Comics have codes including the layout like its mostly (if not all) portrait. Some authors use 2 pages. Reusing the real estate is not easy. Check FreakAngels, the pioneer in web comics.
Motion comics are not comics: they give some kind of time limit which is not something you like when reading comics. The reader should remain in control.
Mark has launched Thrillbent to bring a new experience in comics reading in the digital world. I love comics, you should really give a try to the site.
The traditional comics main cost is printing. His strategy is to make the comics available as strips for free. Then, they bundle the whole set is sold though ComiXology as a bundle.
The Library as Ebook Discovery Zone: More Lessons from *Library Journal’s* Public Library Patron Research
By Meredith Schwartz (Library Journal)
Now in its second year, Library Journal’s Patron Profiles: Understanding the Behavior and Preferences of US Public Library Users, offers key insights into library patrons’ rapid, enthusiastic adoption of the ebook format.
Libraries have to evolve to eBooks too. In the US, 89% (2011) of libraries offer eBooks. There is about 8 times more libraries in the US than bookstores. eLending is really a new challenge and a lot of patrons (consumers in the librarian language) are not understanding why not everything is as easy as getting books from Amazon. Publishers are not always “playing the game as well”.
Maria Popova
By Maria Popova (Brain Pickings)
Maria Popova, Founder & Editor, Brain Pickings.
What is the future of revenue making in the press? Soon in a future post…