The Daily Square – Beyond Belief Edition
Daily links from Medialoper: booksquare
How Not To Start A Book Club
Possibly one of the most fascinating things going on this week (yes, back from vacation and ready to go) is the story of Borders and its online book club. After sitting on the sidelines for about ten years, the retail giant has decided it’s about time to go with a little book club love. Alas, it’s a decision to enter into a time warp as well. We applaud the decision to go with original content — good move on the part of Borders. The rest? Hmm, not so much. First, let us say that there’s a bizarre, almost obsessive, interest
On Slow, Painful Baby Steps
“For me the Web is like a teenager’s room,” Menaker [Daniel Menaker, editor-in-chief of the Random House Publishing Group] said. “It can be very messy, and you don’t quite know how to bring order to it. But you can’t ignore it. You have to deal with it.” Booked-Up Publishers Could Be in a Bind
Lazy Daze Of…Fall
We are just now getting around to taking our summer vacation. There’s an excellent chance that we’ll feel the urge to post from our undisclosed location…if that’s the case, expect nothing from brilliance, if not, well, we’re in a bad mood this week anyway. Nothing worse than a cranky blogger, right? And, yes, we were so busy that we forgot to line up guests to post in our absence.
In Which The Publishing Industry Continues To Exhibit A Profound Lack Of Understanding Of The Real World
There is a saying that, if we recall correctly, suggests that closing the barn door after the horse escapes is rather foolish. Unless you are really trying to protect hay, in which case, you may ultimately be seen as practical. We are not sure the latest scheme initiated by publishers will be seen as practical, possibly because it does not seem to, oh, show an awareness of how the world works. Let us begin with a bit of positivity: creating smart “use” tags — a concept called digital rights management in the real world — to identify levels of content