iPad Culture Spreads as BBC Comedy Team Explores iPaditis
It’s funny and tells how fast iPad has come into our consciousness.
Updates from Brij Singh RSS Toggle Comment Threads
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Brij Singh
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Brij Singh
Recommended Read: eBook Buying Guide
Mike Cane has a very useful post on eBook buying. Perfect guide to help you out in Christmas season. It’s a must reason if you are planning on buying one.
[H/T @lizcastro]
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Brij Singh
WSJ: eBooks, Next Frontier For Advertising Agencies
Now here is something traditionalists won’t like. Idea is gaining traction where advertising agencies and few eBook vendors are planning to test ad units inside an eBook experience:
The marketing world is drawing up plans to invade one of the last bastions of media that is largely advertising-free: books.
As e-books proliferate, advertisers are experimenting with ways to pitch to consumers while they read, a trend that could change the publishing business but faces opposition from some traditionalists.Marketers are exploring a variety of formats, including sponsorships that give readers free books. Videos, graphics or text with an advertiser’s message that appear when a person first starts a book or along the border of the digital pages are also in the works. Ads can be targeted based on the book’s content and the demographic and profile information of the reader.
Like everything else on internet nowadays, polarizing people across taste leads to new behavior and hopefully monetization. I am all for it if it leads to more revenue to authors/publishers and lower cost for readers.
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Brij Singh
Google Editions is Now Google eBooks. Launched Cloud Based eBook Program
After long anticipation, Google today launched it’s ebook service – Google eBooks. Previously this service was branded under Google Editions. Like everything else Google does, this launch is full of scale and ambition. Launch offers 3 million ebooks. That makes Google biggest player in a fast growing eBook market.
Google eBooks will let reader access ebooks from any device – be it browser, desktop, mobile apps, netbooks and maybe Google TV. There are apps for Android and iPad/iPhone devices as well. Sign up and use of this service will be as familiar an experience as using Gmail or Google Docs. Which means Google is going into this battle with a huge advantage. They are also planning to extend web reader to competing platforms like Sony and Nook.
Google is also bringing another weapon to the battle – indies! Small booksellers who suffered in the elephant fight between Apple and Amazon can now find some level playing field. Google is allowing these independent booksellers (for now US only – so much for globalization!) to host ebooks for sale. It will be interesting to see how far Google goes to empower Independent booksellers. Can an average joe running book review blog convert that community into bookselling service? Going by Google’s investment in Adsense and Blogger, this should be obvious but we will have to see how this evolves.
All in all exciting development. We will be test driving this service and wherever possible pushing Fliplog eBooks to Google eBook platform. Exciting time for book lovers!
Demo video:
More information:
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Brij Singh
Why iPad Magazine Apps Suck?
We spend lot of time tinkering with the magazine format. Couple of magazines we did develop for private circulation. We were not too happy with the outcome. There was always this nagging feeling that there has to be something more than just animated version of PDF content. That and a clear lack of subscription support slowed down our iPad magazine app initiative.
We are still in touch with publishers and hopefully this situation will improve as technology matures and concrete behavior emerges from tablet usage.
It’s good to see refreshing analysis by Khoi Vinh on this subject –
My opinion about iPad-based magazines is that they run counter to how people use tablets today and, unless something changes, will remain at odds with the way people will use tablets as the medium matures. They’re bloated, user-unfriendly and map to a tired pattern of mass media brands trying vainly to establish beachheads on new platforms without really understanding the platforms at all.
The fact of the matter is that the mode of reading that a magazine represents is a mode that people are decreasingly interested in, that is making less and less sense as we forge further into this century, and that makes almost no sense on a tablet. As usual, these publishers require users to dive into environments that only negligibly acknowledge the world outside of their brand, if at all — a problem that’s abetted and exacerbated by the full-screen, single-window posture of all iPad software. In a media world that looks increasingly like the busy downtown heart of a city — with innumerable activities, events and alternative sources of distraction around you — these apps demand that you confine yourself to a remote, suburban cul-de-sac.
As it’s happening elsewhere, nailing this problem requires many experiments. Lot of throw-away code has to be written before we can claim one or two diamonds. Unfortunately industry insiders don’t always have the luxury of experiments.
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Brij Singh
Wired Magazine’s iPad Edition is Live on App Store
Ok this a fan boy post here. I love Wired magazine and I am sure most of the serious gadget geeks can’t live without this wonderful magazine. Today Conde Naste’ has launched iPad version of Wired and this is going to be huge for several reasons.
Wired, by it’s unique place in technology journalism, is also expected to successfully showcase iPad as the future of media. I will be downloading it soon. Magazine has got great features and shows the potential of iPad in extending magazine’s reading experience.
You can see the video here:
This is what excites us at Fliplog. Idea of reinventing reading experience for different content formats is just getting started and we applaud Conde Nast for taking leadership role here.
Small but not insignificant point about this iPad version is that it’s approved by Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).