While the pace of growth in technology can certainly present challenges, there are also some golden opportunities for booksellers. In her recent 21st Century Bookselling post, PW blogger Josie Leavitt talks about her experience using mobile payment technology for an off-site event.
Seeking a Made-in-Canada Solution to Library Ebook Lending
A Closer Look at 360
Yesterday, HarperCollins Publishers announced a new “global publishing program”, called HarperCollins 360. In their press release, HarperCollins said: “The goal of the initiative is to ensure that all books published by any division of HarperCollins around the world are available in print or digital format in all English-language markets.”Native Apps vs. HTML5: To the Victor Go the Users
Should Indies Sell E-Books?
Chris Tabor, Michael Neill, and Christoph Kapp entertained an audience of about 40 on Monday at the Store2012 conference. I had the pleasure of moderating this opinionated panel and I think—bias well in place—that it was a very good panel discussion on how independent retailers can participate in the conversation around digital books.
Mind-Control, Conscious Consumption, and Big Data: Caught in the mesh 2012 Conference
The mesh conference is a must-attend conference for tech people in the GTA who don’t have the budget to attend the TED conferences. mesh looks to provide a platform for people to explore the latest trends in society, technology, and emerging business models across a number of disciplines. The audience is as diverse the presenters. Here are some of the highlights and the whirlwind of ideas from day one.
Turning a Paywall into a Bridge: Is It the Right Time to Sell Content Online?
The book industry’s digital toolbox is still relatively underused, and there are some truly powerful gizmos in there. At Tech Forum 2012 we heard how eager readers tweeted favourite chapters of PressBooks’ Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto. At the most recent CMPTO we learned how Small Demons is changing browsing forever by hooking books into the web of things. And that’s just to name two. With more and more readers carrying tablets and smartphones around with ever-improving data plans, maybe the time ia ripe to look at new models for selling books in browsers.
CMPTO: A Bookish Vision of the Future (A Newbie’s Account)
If you’re like me and my publishing pals, nothing incites more tech titillation than an evening with other bookish folk chatting about technology and publishing. Enter CMPTO (Code Meet Print Toronto), a gathering of print people and tech people in an unholy union to talk about innovations, challenges, and everything in between. Basically, throw a bunch of writers, publishers, and tech geeks in one room, add a few interesting speakers, sprinkle with drinks and snacks, then let simmer.
This week’s event was my first foray into the CMPTO meet-ups, so here’s a recap from the virgin eyes of a CMPTO newbie.
Data (Big and Meta) at MIP
Yesterday, a few of us attended BISG’s Making Information Pay 2012, a half-day conference in New York with a tightly focused program packed with excellent speakers. This year, MIP turned its attention to data, big and meta. Naturally, this piqued our curiosity. Here’s a recap.
The Future Is Now #CMPTO
Imagining the future of books and literate culture is a great pastime these days. Can we picture books as being anything other than what they are? Even though we see the disruption of digital all around us we still wear blinders and imagine e-readers as analogs for paper books. But really the book and its attributes have been under constant reimagination from the beginning. Which begs the question: where to next?
