http://www.blackplasticglasses.com Musings on Publishing and life in the Digital Age by Evan Schnittman Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:07:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2011/08/01/the-day-digital-died/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2011/08/01/the-day-digital-died/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:12:31 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=605 Things started innocently enough – the usual suspects began to chime in (I am shamelessly unable NOT to talk in a group). As I spoke I began to feel a strong sense of familiarity. And that feeling grew and grew as the conversation rolled forward until I felt I was having a deja vu on steroids moment. It dawned on me that I was in the exact same discussion about the exact same conference in the...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2011/08/01/the-day-digital-died/feed/ 5 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2011/01/05/amazons-newest-bff/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2011/01/05/amazons-newest-bff/#comments Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:18:40 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=583 http://bit.ly/dOL8AQ) Triangulating this news with an insider rumor insider claiming that Amazon sold over 8 million Kindle’s last year puts the Kindle in the same sales range as the iPad.  One has to wonder what the reaction in Cupertino to this shocking bit of news. This is important for a few reasons; first it demonstrates that there isn’t just one company out there able to launch and sell an entertainment device. In fact, it demonstrates that there is an incredible appetite in the reading world for a single use device. Giving customers the right business model and device/platform...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2011/01/05/amazons-newest-bff/feed/ 2 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/05/05/ipad-digital-learning/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/05/05/ipad-digital-learning/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 10:46:40 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=464 In my last post, What's Next in Digital Reading I explored my notion that there are three kinds of reading; extractive: immersive, and pedagogic. Extractive reading works in digital form as finding and extracting data and information is optimized by the power of digital. Immersive reading struggled to flourish in digital form until the e-ink screen went mainstream with the release of the Kindle. Pedagogic reading, the kind done when learning from a textbook, has yet to take hold as there hasn’t been a device and/or business model for delivering lesson-based reading that has gained any traction. However, this is all about to change dramatically because of the iPad. The iPad has been the...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/05/05/ipad-digital-learning/feed/ 10 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/03/23/digital-reading/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/03/23/digital-reading/#comments Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:15:02 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=445 This was brilliantly summarized in 2003 by Niko Pfund, OUP’s VP of Academic and Trade Publishing, when he referred to this kind of reading as “extractive, as opposed to immersive.” Extractive reading is an extension of search – its primarily purpose is to “extract” information from searched databases. Extractive reading is easily done...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/03/23/digital-reading/feed/ 5 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/18/net-pricing/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/18/net-pricing/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:07:21 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=335 Innovation is not exactly something the book-publishing world is known for, so ebooks are a breath of fresh air...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/06/18/net-pricing/feed/ 3 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/05/19/kindle-iphone-textbooks/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/05/19/kindle-iphone-textbooks/#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 09:13:03 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=209 To be perfectly clear, this blog is not sanctioned by, endorsed by, or even remotely associated with Oxford University Press, my fantastic employer. What I say here is my opinion and my opinion alone. The preview of the Kindle DX on May 6th was a smart tactical maneuver in the preparation for the next front of the ebook reader wars.  Even though Amazon invited the NY Times to the stage to help pump up the volume, newspapers are not the primary raison d’être of the new Kindle. The university or higher education market is the Holy Grail for the ebook reader market for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it’s a huge, global, highly important market that has...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/05/19/kindle-iphone-textbooks/feed/ 1 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/05/11/disintermediation/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/05/11/disintermediation/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 10:28:06 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=183 Disruption and Generation On-Demand, explored my own personal content consumption disruption and traced it through the seismic shift in my reading, listening, and watching habits. My experience seems to align with the generational experience of content at one’s fingertips, on-demand. I called this phenomenon Generation On-Demand because this generation has grown up with and expects that everything and anything (content) be available to them, however, whenever, and wherever they want. I traced the dramatic decrease in my own immersive reading, music listening, and TV and movie watching in the last few years and cited my ability to work and play whenever and wherever I want as the primary reasons. Accessing...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/05/11/disintermediation/feed/ 4 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/05/05/content-disruption/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/05/05/content-disruption/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 09:58:18 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=133 Disruption is the first part of a 3-part series on the zeitgeist of the digital era and the significant impact it has on publishing and all other content businesses. Disruption is personal as I look at my own content consumption over the years and document its transformation. There are no answers in part 1, just the facts as I understand them and the questions they spur. I grew up watching TV. Born in 1963, life in my era was, in many ways, controlled by the TV broadcast schedule. Before school was Looney Tunes and after school hours and hours of crap like Gilligan's Island, Green Acres, and the Brady...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/05/05/content-disruption/feed/ 7 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/15/ebook-discounts/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/15/ebook-discounts/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:41:18 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=85 To be perfectly clear, this blog is not sanctioned by, endorsed by, or even remotely associated with Oxford University Press, my fantastic employer. What I say here is my opinion and my opinion alone. In my inaugural post, Why Ebooks Must Fail, I promised to follow up by exploring a variety of business models I believe could work in the long run for publishers of all sizes and shapes. This is the first part of a 3-part series in which I propose changes and new initiatives for ebooks that, I believe, will help ensure that ebooks don’t fail. I theorized that the book industry relies too greatly on advance sales and billing and that the predominant model of ebooks,...]]> http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/15/ebook-discounts/feed/ 12 http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/06/drm/ http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/06/drm/#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:47:58 +0000 Evan http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/?p=24 All Things Considered I had a brief sound bite about DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the music industry. What you didn’t get to hear was the larger point I was trying to pull together – which is that DRM is not bad, nor is it good. It is like any tool, only as good (or bad) as it is implemented. DRM has gotten a lot of press over the years as there is a quite vocal group who are politically/philosophically, perhaps even morally opposed to any restrictions on the use of content once disseminated. I call them the “Anti-DRMers.” They come in many forms – from scholarly archivists to Swedish anarchists. http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2009/04/06/drm/feed/ 9