Entries tagged with “technology” from Tools of Change for Publishing
New on O'Reilly Labs: Open Feedback Publishing System
Andrew Savikas
May 21, 2009
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O'Reilly engineer Keith Fahlgren has formally launched our new Open Feedback Publishing System over on O'Reilly Labs:
Over the last few years, traditional publishing has been moving closer to the web and learning a lot of lessons from blogs and wikis, in particular. Today we're happy to announce another small step in that direction: our first manuscript (Programming Scala) is now available for public reading and feedback as part of our Open Feedback Publishing System. The idea is simple: improve in-progress books by engaging the community in a collaborative dialog with the authors out in the open. To do this, we followed the model of the Django Book, Real World Haskell, and Mercurial: The Definitive Guide (among others) and built a system to regularly publish the whole manuscript online as HTML with a comment box under every paragraph, sidebar, figure, and table.
You can see the system in action at the site for our upcoming book Programming Scala.
Presentations from the StartWithXML Forum
Mac Slocum
January 16, 2009
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The following slides accompanied many of the presentations during the StartWithXML forum, held Jan. 13, 2009 in New York City.
XML--Why Bother?
David Young, Hachette Book Group USA
As Chairman and CEO of one of America's leading trade publishers, David Young presents the executive perspective on the role of XML technologies in the increasingly complex business of creating and selling books.
An Introduction to StartWithXML
Michael Healy, Book Industry Study Group
Introduction to some of the key terms and concepts needed to understand the day's program.
ROI Drivers for a StartWithXML Production Process
Brian O'Leary, Magellan Media Consulting Partners
Overview of the key components that provide the return on investment in an XML workflow.
Saving Money by Adopting an XML-Based Meta Data Workflow
Werner Fischer, Klopotek North America
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Savings" panel.
Starting with XML: The Benefits of Automating Composition with Standard Stylesheets
Rebecca Goldthwaite, Cengage Learning
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Savings" panel.
Leveraging XML for IP Rights
Steve Kotrch, Simon & Schuster
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Savings" panel.
Marketing Books In A World Of Discoverability
Evan Schnittman, Oxford University Press
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Revenues" panel.
Supporting Multi-Format Publishing
Leslie Hulse, HarperCollins Publishers
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Revenues" panel.
Online Licensing Strategies: The Path to Digital Revenue
Bill O'Brien, Copyright Clearance Center
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Revenues" panel.
Digital Book Printing: The New Economics Of Print-On-Demand
David Taylor, Lightning Source Inc.
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML ROI: Revenues" panel.
The View from the Front Lines
Ken Brooks, Cengage Learning
As a publishing technology pioneer and SVP, Global Production and Manufacturing at one of America's largest educational publishers, Ken Brooks presents lessons for the publishing industry at large based on his experiences implementing successful, large-scale XML production processes.
StartWithXML Solutions Overview
Brian O'Leary, Magellan Media Consulting Partners
Overview of the many publishing technology solutions providers and how their offerings support an XML workflow.
XML Workflow Foundations: Efficient Title Management Practices
Doug Lessing, Firebrand Technologies
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Tools" panel.
Building an XML workflow: Tools and Key Considerations
Steve Waldron, Klopotek North America
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Tools" panel.
DAM for Production vs DAM for Distribution
Scott Cook, codeMantra
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Tools" panel.
O'Reilly XML Toolchain
Andrew Savikas, O'Reilly Media
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Tools" panel.
StartWithXML Readiness Checklist
Brian O'Leary, Magellan Media Consulting Partners
Checklist of the key issues publishers should consider before implementing an XML production process.
Tagging and Chunking Best Practices
Laura Dawson, LJNDawson
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Methods" panel.
The Evolving Role of Authors and Editors
Phil Madans, Hachette Book Group
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Methods" panel.
How Wiley Uses Word to Invite Authors, Engage Editors, Improve Production, and Put XML at the Source of Its Content
Frank Grazioli, John Wiley & Sons
Presented as part of the "StartWithXML Solutions: Methods" panel.
Audible CEO: Publishing Has History of Tech Ambivalence
Peter Brantley
August 22, 2008
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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.
What if Ebooks Were the Dominant Platform?
Mac Slocum
August 5, 2008
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I recently came across an old blog post from Harvard Business School professor Andrew McAfee that discusses the utility of the "technology flip test". McAfee writes:
At a conference years back I was sitting on a panel that was asked to talk about future of the book. As the discussion was heating up about the inevitability of the electric media, someone on the panel (I wish it had been me) proposed a flip test. He said "Let's say the world has only e-books, then someone introduces this technology called 'paper.' It's cheap, portable, lasts essentially forever, and requires no batteries. You can't write over it once it's been written on, but you buy more very cheaply. Wouldn't that technology come to dominate the market?" It's fair to say that comment changed the direction of the panel.
The ebook vs paper flip test is intriguing for a number of reasons:
- It inverts the offense and defense: Ebook advocates become defenders and paper-book supporters become disruptors. Shaking off the vestiges of a default argument is always a good idea -- think of it as a "debate cleanser."
- It amplifies the strengths of each format ... initially: When I ran through the flip test on my own, I at first honed in on the cost savings of ebooks (no paper, no printing, no shipping) and the sensory aspects of print books. But further review revealed deeper complexities to this debate. And that led me to ...
- It upends assumptions: Print's dominant position in the real world causes me to challenge pro-print arguments, most notably the tactile experience overreaction that often derails discussions. But placing ebooks in the hot seat gave me a new perspective on ebook defenses. For example, if my default reading environment was electronic and networked, would I want (or need) a disconnected outlet? Would I crave solitude and a languid pace? Does the upside of ebook economics supersede the other reading/storytelling experiences I'm looking for, or would I welcome a print alternative the way I now welcome an electronic option?
What's your take on the flip test? Does inverting the argument open the discussion, or is this a diversionary trick that detracts from the issues at hand? Please share your thoughts in the comments area.
(Original idea and McAfee link via Reading 2.0 list.)
Technology's "Killer" Distraction
Mac Slocum
July 29, 2008
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A new search engine, Cuil, is attracting the requisite "Google killer" coverage. Thankfully, Seth Godin provides some much-needed perspective:
I have no doubt that someone will develop a useful tool one day that takes time and attention away from Google, but it won't be a search engine. Google, after all, isn't broken, not in terms of solving the iconic "how do I find something online using my web browser" question.
I have no beef with Cuil itself (the handful of queries I ran worked fine), but this "killer" business is another matter. In the history of tech prognostications, has an upstart killer ever successfully terminated its target? More importantly, what possible benefit do any of us get from this type of analysis?
I can only imagine the useful commentary we would see if the killer oeuvre could be stricken from the record. The bombastic flavor-of-the-day cycle might be replaced with actual thoughts about the future of particular applications and their accompanying industries. Perhaps we'd even stop shoehorning lightning-in-a-bottle success stories into unrelated products (e.g. the Kindle/iPod comparisons). And maybe we'd finally see that the exciting developments -- the products and experiments that really stir things up -- come from people who focus on creation rather than dominance.
As Seth eloquently notes:
... success keeps going to people who build new icons, not to those that seek to replace the most successful existing ones.
Last Days of the Audiobook Cassette
Mac Slocum
July 28, 2008
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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.
Open Question: Do You Use Twitter?
Mac Slocum
July 1, 2008
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Mediabistro recently conducted an informal round-up of publishers and authors who use Twitter to publicize titles and interact with readers. Within TOC, we use Twitter (plug: follow us here) to exchange quick bursts of information and story ideas, and we've also found it to be a surprisingly effective beat coverage tool -- breaking stories and new memes often appear on Twitter before they hit the blogosphere and mainstream media outlets.
This anecdotal evidence suggests Twitter is gaining steam in the publishing world, but is that really the case? Are you using Twitter? Have you even heard of Twitter? Please share your thoughts in the comment area.
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