GW ePublishing

This bill was passed by the House of Representatives regarding American authors' and publishers' First Amendment rights.

Free and shared cost models for academic publishing. Cites other organizations that, like NAP, have sustainable models with free content.

Former Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget runs the numbers on newspapers making the migration to online delivery.

Just thought I'd post this article since we were talking about it in class last night.

Free podcast from the Copyright Clearance Center focusing on issues in our industry. I discovered this while on the SSP site. It's worthwhile to take some time and explore.

This has more to do with last night's class than the epub class, but I thought this tiny tidbit was interesting considering one of the last things we heard last night was about the demise of a verification process.

This is a great site that can incorporate reading books into your RSS Feed. The idea is that you get a book sent to your Reader in installments that are a few paragraphs long each. I think this is pertinent to both our classes.

This is article is worth looking at because it is a counterpoint to claims about younger generations being hyper-technical. This author cites Jeff Gomez's book Print is Dead and asks us to re-examine our assumptions about people's abilities and access to high-tech resources. It also warns us against adapting systems too quickly to this 'one-size-fits-all' digital system that might not meet the needs of a group because the group may be more diverse than we think.

In class we talked about making things catchy or coming up with inventive strategies for attracting customers that are constantly bombarded by "cool." I tihnk this relatively new search engine might be on to a way to give customers a reason to use their product over the other guys that are trying to do the same thing.

Big news -- interesting to imagine how publishers will respond to this -- and how this will affect the Long Tail, in particular

The high price of e-readers ($650) is going to be too much for many. I haven't seen any content incentives and I think that might be able to lure a few people in. For example, with the purchase of an e-reader you get a yearly subscription to a magazine and newspaper of your choice.

A successful example of the Long Tail Theory, Oak Knoll Press, publisher of rare, out of print books, managed to increase its sales this year-despite catering to a niche audience-by focusing on what loyal customers ask for instead of what doesn't sell.

Starting from a study that finds different reading practices for online content and print (or scanning vs. slow reading) the author argues against the trend of increasing technology investment in education. I think the argument would profit from a publisher's perspective, one where it's vital to evaluate how the content fits (or doesn't fit) the format. Like the author, I don't want to read Middlemarch ( my favorite novel) online, nor can I imagine anyone who would or who require it read in that format. Bottom line for me - publishers have much to offer the educational establishment.

WSJ.com and social networking--new experiment (started Tuesday, September 16).

The ad on Craigslist was from an Oakton company called Zirdland.com. Zirdland claims it has developed a software system that can electronically analyze the quality and commercial viability of a work of fiction and prompt changes that will make it better.

Thought this article might be a good place for people, like myself, trying to understand NIH Open Access Research Rules

Is Amazon's Kindle the new iPod? The end of book publishing as we know it? Or one too many in a pile-up of trendy gadgets and gizmos?.Anne Thompson, news from the entertainment source: Variety.Amazon's Kindle gets fired up.