Entries tagged with “audio” from Tools of Change for Publishing

Is Print a Preference or a Habit?

Andrew Savikas
March 16, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (6) | Listen

Over on the O'Reilly Radar blog, Dale Dougherty posted on students increasingly prefering the sound of MP3 over higher quality music:

[Jonathan Berger] has them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality. He described the results with some disappointment and frustration, as a music lover might, that each year the preference for music in MP3 format rises. In other words, students prefer the quality of that kind of sound over the sound of music of much higher quality. He said that they seemed to prefer "sizzle sounds" that MP3s bring to music. It is a sound they are familiar with.

I remember wondering what audiophiles were up to, buying extremely expensive home audio systems to play old vinyl records. They put turntables in sand-filled enclosures with elaborate cabling schemes. I wondered what they heard in that music that I didn't. Someone explained to me that audiophiles liked the sound artifacts of vinyl records -- the crackles of that format. It was familiar and comfortable to them, and maybe those affects became a fetish. Is it now becoming the same with iPod lovers?

It sounds a lot like the complaints leveled against digital books, which often turn into litanies of the sensate qualities of print: touch, feel, smell, sound. I hear those comments all the time, unsurprisingly from people for whom printed books have been their primary means of reading for most of their lives. But in about 30 years, no one who's not eligible for AARP membership will remember a world without the Web. Print will always have a place, but by then I doubt it will be a primary format for many, many readers.

What do you think?

Related Stories:

• Ebooks and Print Books are Not Mutually Exclusive
• Reinventing the Book and Killing It are Separate Things
• Open Question: When Will Digital Books Overtake Print Books?

Audible CEO: Publishing Has History of Tech Ambivalence

Peter Brantley
August 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

In an interview with Fast Company, Audible CEO Donald Katz discusses the publishing industry's history of slow technological acceptance:

Publishing is an industry pursuing a noble cultural calling. But publishing has always had an ambivalent relationship to technology-driven change. In fact, the music publishing business spent a whole lot of time trying to kill off the phonograph. The publishing industry fought off the paperback and was skeptical of the book club -- which was effectively a technology-driven invention that used the new science of direct marketing and the mail to change the business. Now there are innovations like Amazon and Audible [Note: Amazon acquired Audible in January '08]

Effectively, from my perspective, these disruptions -- along with Superstores -- changed a relatively aristocratic product into a mass market product. A lot of these disruptions have allowed increasingly middle class and lower middle class people to have access to books, which were traditionally for rich people.

(Via Reading 2.0 list)

Related Stories:

• Amazon Acquires Audible
• Last Days of the Audiobook Cassette
• Tag an Audio Clip, Buy it Later
• It's Time to Accept an Ambiguous Digital Fate

Last Days of the Audiobook Cassette

Mac Slocum
July 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

In the wake of Hachette's last cassette-based audiobook, the New York Times eulogizes a format many thought was already long gone:

Cassettes have limped along for some time, partly because of their usefulness in recording conversations or making a tape of favorite songs, say, for a girlfriend. But sales of portable tape players, which peaked at 18 million in 1994, sank to 480,000 in 2007, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. The group predicts that sales will taper to 86,000 in 2012.

Related Stories:

• UK Service Brings Audiobook Downloads to Mobile Phones
• Tag an Audio Clip, Buy it Later

UK Service Brings Audiobook Downloads to Mobile Phones

Mac Slocum
April 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

UK-based GoSpoken has partnered with Random House to make 50 audiobook titles available for purchase through the GoSpoken mobile download service. GoSpoken is currently aimed at early adopter UK residents who have broadband-capable cellphones (specifically, HSDPA-enabled) and mobile data plans.

Managing director Tony Lynch describes the genesis of GoSpoken on the company's blog:

As I travel round London, I am staggered by the amount of people traveling with earphones attached and because I have a vested interest and never stop wondering what they are actually listening to. Now those people who have seen me staring at them through buses, trains and their daily commuter work will be able to download the audio version of best-selling fiction and non-fiction anywhere where their network gives them broadband coverage.

(Via Peter Brantley's read20 listserv.)

Related Stories:

• The Bookseller: "Mobile audio deal for Random"
• Tag an Audio Clip, Buy it Later
• Will Open Mobile Access Benefit Book Publishing?
• A Twist on Mobile Book Content

Tag an Audio Clip, Buy it Later

Mac Slocum
April 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Stick with me on this one. TWICE says HD Radio iTunes Tagging lets listeners mark a song for future listening/purchase. The process is clunky -- users have to hear the song, press a "tag" button on a special HD Radio, connect an iPod to download the tag metadata, then sync the iPod to a PC -- but I imagine syncing will improve as the functionality matures (ideally, the HD Radio should wirelessly transfer metadata to a PC or a mobile device).

Usability issues aside, the idea of "tag-then-buy" could extend to audio books. If publishers and radio broadcasters team up to air select chapters from audio books, HD radio users could tag the book for future purchase through an online retailer.

Or, if the technology catches up, consumers could make a direct purchase through a mobile service and download an audio book or ebook to a mobile device, in-car hard drive, PC, set-top box or server.

A system like this might be just around the corner. If the move toward DRM-free content continues to gain steam and consumers get comfortable with mobile-based buying, electronics manufacturers and content creators will look for ways to shorten the line between discovery and purchase.

Amazon Acquires Audible

Andrew Savikas
January 31, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

On the heels of news that Amazon is struggling to keep up with demand for the Kindle (I ordered mine three weeks ago, and still no word on ship date), comes word that they're acquiring Audible.

Along with the Kindle, this move makes sense for the online retailer as a bet that demand will continue to grow for books in non-print formats. I'm interested to see if Amazon creates a self-publishing audiobook platform similar to what they've created for the Kindle. That kind of blurring of the lines between retailer, distributor, and publisher is something that makes many in publishing more than a little nervous.