Black Plastic Glasses » iPod

The iPad: Gateway Drug to Digital Learning?

Evan — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:46:40 +0000

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...

Quo Vadis, Amazon?

Evan — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:20:51 +0000

Reading Nicholson Baker's long piece in the August 3^rd New Yorker while on the beach last week, got me thinking about the role of Amazon in the future of print book publishing. Mr. Baker, a novelist, is coming to terms with his new Kindle - its benefits and as well as its drawbacks. While I don't get a few of his observations (especially his preference to read on the much smaller and much harder-on-the-eyes LCD screen of the iPhone), one comment made about the Kindle struck me as particularly eye opening.

“If I looked up a particular writer on Amazon—Mary Higgins Clark, say—and then reached the page for her knuckle-gnawer of a novel “Moonlight Becomes You,” the top...

Demand Pricing for Ebooks

Evan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:18:25 +0000

A stir was created recently when Sourcebooks announced the delay of the ebook version of a brand new title for fear of cannibalizing print sales. CEO Dominique Raccah said, "Hardcover books have an audience, and we shouldn't cannibalize it," adding, "It doesn't make sense for a new book to be valued at $9.99." Is Dominique Raccah making a smart decision? There are a lot of factors to consider. Amazon has claims that sales of ebooks are 35% of the same print titles on Amazon.com. If the hardcover is priced at $25 and the ebook $10, then one can see Dominique’s point quite clearly – delaying the ebook version could mean that demand for 35% of the...

Coming to a Campus Near You…

Evan — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:13:03 +0000

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...

There Will Be Disintermediation

Evan — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:28:06 +0000

The first two parts of this series, 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...

Disruption

Evan — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:58:18 +0000

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...

Tommy

Evan — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:07:40 +0000

In 2006 The Smithereens did something really unique – they did a covers album. Actually, they covered an album. The Smithereens recorded the Beatles breakthrough album, Meet The Beatles, from the first track through the last. Meet the Smithereens is a fun romping and wonderful re-imagining of the spirit of the early Liverpool Beatles as heard through the power-pop chords and Marshall amps of New Jersey’s Smithereens. On May 5th, the Smithereens are back at it again with the release of the Who's Tommy. As much as I was ready to roll my eyes at the thought of it – in listening to...

Bang the DRM Slowly…

Evan — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:47:58 +0000

Two weeks ago on NPR’s 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.