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Possible generation-gap-type issues for digital educational publishing for colleges: "Today, the college assumes all students not only have computer skills but a plethora of high-tech devices and services. The class schedule and registration procedure is entirely online-even if you're in the registrar's office....In the first class, the professor handed out her e-mail address and the URL where the syllabus could be found--instead of her office phone number and a copy of the syllabus. Unfortunately, the college sites are full of graphics and animations and download very slowly on my dial-up connection. (Even if I could afford a broadband connection, my ISP doesn't provide it in my area.)" "At least one exercise in each chapter requires accessing the publisher's textbook Web site. Many of these exercises could just as easily be put on the computer disk also sold-at an increased profit (I used to work for a textbook-preparation company)-with the text....Again, a dial-up connection won't download the videos. The audio files are .mp3; I can't open them, don't have the skill to know what program I need, and have no access to free technical support....So once every chapter I head for either the heavily used public library or the equally heavily used computer lab in the college's suburban learning center (branch campus)--and hope that a computer is available."

Newspaper circulation is down 10.6% in America, but it's not the death of the industry

Google has quietly launched its music search service. Speculation over whether this will affect iTunes or not. More of Google's expansion.

Pulling media sites out of Google search results is a bold idea, but there are many reasons to think it's not the future of the web.

Web traffic only gets publishers so far in their quest for digital ad dollars. After a certain point, actually, traffic may not even matter.

Owners of new Amazon Kindles are about to get two improvements to their e-readers. They won't have to do anything; indeed, they might not even notice the upgrade.

Other things that led to Borders' demise -- not just their "the Internet stole our lunch money" argument.

Interesting opinion piece from an author who has written both ebooks and books, and crowdfunded a book, and done all sorts of neat things from a publishing angle, calling for a "back to the content" sort of movement. Not sure what I think of this, but thought it was worth pushing out to you all since I know for a lot of us, a love of books is what got us into this field to begin with.

"When your Kindle is wiped by Amazon without explanation, refund, or appeal, it's time to wake up and realize the truth: ebook readers treat you as a tenant-farmer of your books, not an owner. You have no rights, only a license-agreement that runs to thousands of words, and that you'll never fully satisfy."

Popularity of eBooks has soared to unprecedented levels. Paper-bound books are getting replaced by numerous technologically enhanced e-reader devices like Kindle or Nook. Following digitalization of books and changing preference of readers, many book publishers have gone or are planning to go digital.

10 Crazy and Unusual Book Designs

Those were awesome, though I was a little surprised to not see Snoop Dogg's new book that can be...ahem...smoked: http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2012/4/3/rolling-words-snoop-doggs-smokable-book.html

hahaha! that's unbelievable!

Is the KindleFire really that great? Has anyone used one yet?

I haven't played with the Fire yet, but I'm always very dubious of the "tech analyst". Let's face it, dominating the Android tablet market isn't all that difficult right now, as there is a dearth of poorly built, poorly performing Android tablets on the market today. My own personal opinion is that the OS offers a lot of promise, but ironically the real value of the Fire is its connection to Amazon's own "walled garden" of products and services, which flys directly in the face of Android's selling characteristic of "openness".

Randomly, my friend won a Kindle Fire at an office holiday function and I got to play around with it last night. Here are my impressions: First, it's very simple to use though it has that same noticeable lag that all Android tablets seem to have, though I will say not as pronounced as others. It has a rubber-like backing in the same style that the NOOK Simple Touch employs, so it feels good in your hands and won't slide around. Here's one thing that I was surprised about; it's a bit of a brick, meaning it's a lot heavier than I expected. For an eReader, weight seems like a big deal, so I would definitely take one for a test-spin before buying if you can, especially if you're going to use it for long reads. My friend only had one copy of a book, and I thumbed through pretty quickly, and the Fire seemed to handle it well. It had a lot less lag page turning than it did starting apps. On the web, the Fire did pretty well, it downloaded and ran pages smoothly for the most part. Though I will say I went to one of my favorite sites (arsenal.com) to watch some video highlights of yesterday's game, and even though it has a 7 inch screen, the video "wasn't optimized" for the Fire, so the playback size was smaller than it would have been on my iPhone (postage stamp size). On ESPN.com though it seemed to handle video there much better. My other complaint was that the Fire didn't seem to recognize page widths very well, so you have to do a lot of pinching to get the right view of a page in portrait view. So, I'll put down my pocket-protector, ease off the dork-pedal a bit, and just say for the price it's a solid tablet that runs pretty well.

Prior to the September 11 attacks and the stock market slump, one of the hottest policy issues debated by technology scholars was the so-called racial "digital divide," a term concocted to portray "haves and have nots" in the world of the Internet.

An interesting post about the future of self-publishing and "literature."

Conventional wisdom says that entrepreneurs who start a Web-based business will do so with VC money. Read enough stories of Internet ventures that enjoy lucrative exits in the millions (in some cases billions) of dollars, and it's easy to assume that the only path to success is to begin by securing deals with investors who are far less interested in helping a start-up build a substantial brand as they are in realizing a return as quickly as possible. Bootstrapping simply isn't sexy anymore. But for many start-up publishers, bootstrapping is a way of life, and VC money isn't an option.