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Who has exorbitant prices, other than scientific, academic, and professional publishers?
Publishers Marketplace scoops world! One major aspect of Edition not yet reported is that it will allow online retailers to sell the digital books directly from their site, with Google playing the role of electronic distributor. The selling feature is linked to Preview, the program that already lets retailers present the ability to browse inside Partner books. via Publishers Lunch Deluxe: Closer Reading of Google Edition. Is Google Editions the death of e-books? I don’t think so … sitting upright at a PC will never be the best way to read a long complex document.
I’ve started working on a project called Book Kismet. The initial seed for the idea was this message I posted to a Google Group devoted to an innovative “social books” project housed at the University of Toronto, and it’s my hope that BK will wind up being a useful tool for them. The functionality I want to see in version 1.0 is as follows: user supplies author name, book title or ISBN system provides list of ISBNs & titles from one of:
user selects either author or book (by ISBN) system provides (some of):
etc. I have been thinking about the challenge of integrating physical and digital worlds via [social books] and I have a suggestion. I think you need to be designing at a higher level of abstraction: really, designing a standard instead of a device. Think about it this way. Class of bibliographic entities:
Class of physical Enablers
Class of entity-level citation schemes, e.g.
Class of “pinpoint” citation services, e.g.
Class of web resources
Class of web services
Right now, we have a variety of entities pursuing efforts to connect all these classes with single threads e.g. Amazon connects e-book documents with Kindle with the Amazon catalog with recommending. Kindle is a closed system so that thread is the only you one can follow if you own the Kindle class of Enabler. the proposed sBook would connect codex books using a custom-built Enabler with some undetermined citation format with purpose built websites and offer Discussion and Recommending services. What is really needed, IMHO, is an open, platform-agnostic architecture that allows mix and match of all these classes. I believe Kindle is eventually going to be a limited success (not a failure, just a 10% of the market type thing) because it locks the reader into a single thread of classes. I’m more optimistic about Google Book Search because I think their physical enabler will be any device that can read a PDF and I think they will eventually ave a good citation standard and robust discussion services at GBS. As I remarked last month, the most frightening thing about the current state of newspapers is that even someone like Rupert Murdoch, who has made billions of dollars by accepting (and creating) brutal realities that others were to shy to to embrace, is now in denial.
From an email to a guy who’s got a project to integrate the world of physical “codex” books with electronic resources. I have been thinking about the challenge of integrating physical and digital worlds via tools like the sBook and I have a suggestion. I think you need to be designing at a higher level of abstraction: really, designing a standard instead of a device. Think about it this way. Class of bibliographic entities:
Class of physical Enablers
Class of citation services, e.g.
Class of web resources
Class of web services
Right now, we have a variety of entities pursuing efforts to connect all these classes with single threads or paths, e.g. Amazon connects e-book documents with Kindle with the Amazon catalog with recommending. Kindle is a closed system so that thread is the only you one can follow if you own the Kindle class of Enabler.
Tthe proposed sBook would connect codex books using a custom-built Enabler with some undetermined citation format with purpose built websites and offer Discussion and Recommending services.
What is really needed, IMHO is an open architecture that allows mix and match of all these classes. I believe Kindle is eventually going to be a limited success (not a failure, just a 10% of the market type thing) because it locks the reader into a single thread of classes. I’m more optimistic about Google Book Search because I think their physical enabler will be any device that can read a PDF and I think they will eventually ave a good citation standard and robust discussion services at GBS.
Clear as mud?
Hastily,
Headline overstated. What the story actually said is that a group of authors (most notably, the estate of John Steinbeck) filed a motion asking for a 4-month delay. Google finessed them by agreeing to a 2-month delay. Big deal! The asteroid is still on its way…
via Delay Looming For Google Settlement Deadline? – 4/27/2009 11:49:00 AM – Publishers Weekly. According to Maureen Dowd, Google’s CEO thinks that in the transparent society of the future
I totally disagree. Heroism is not how about having others see us as flawless. Heroism is about doing the right thing, even in the face of your own flaws. Maureen Dowd (one of my heroes) missed the lead here. |
Gallery Sam Colt Hi Res.jpg "(25) Sam Colt Hi Res.jpg")
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