Square Pegs

In the coming months, much will be written and said about the Google Book Search settlement. While I do support it in principle, I, like others, have niggles and quibbles and some distinct worries about the specifics. Part of the problem, of course, was that a subset of interested parties created the class, a subset of interested parties negotiated the settlement, and it just now that everyone is able to look at the final results and ask questions. It’s a settlement only a mother could love. Google, of course, won in a big way. In fact, they won bigger than […]

Did you feel the Earth shift a little bit yesterday? Maybe around 1:30 or so Pacific Standard Time (the only time zone that matters!)? Did you Twitter feed seem to be filled with jangly nerves? It turns out that Amazon bought Lexcycle today. Lexcycle? Huh? Who? Erm? Lexcycle is the mighty little company behind the bookish iPhone application darling, the Stanza Reader. Not only were they near first, they’ve been the best. With a strong focus on usability (or, if you will, making it easy for real people to accomplish the very simple goal of reading), support for ePub, and

Dear Amazon, (See updates at the end of the post, including link to official response from Amazon.) Happy Easter (or if it’s Monday morning, happy belated Easter!). It seems the Easter Bunny, while hopping down the bunny trail, left some rotten eggs all over the Amazon site while we were sleeping. Suddenly, many books lost their sales ranking and levels of searchability on the Amazon site. Somehow, the brain trust of your company has decided to protect the “entire” Amazon customer base by restricting access to content that someone (who?) decided was offensive. In your zeal to protect me from

If there is one thing we can agree on, in the discussion surrounding digital books, it is that the issue is not “if ebooks ever take off” but “how ebooks will assimilate”. To my mind, too much energy is wasted on the idea that digital books are not the same as physical books. Focusing on the tactile, the kinesthetic, the heft of books and comparing that experience to a digital book makes no sense. Of course they’re different, just like cars, boats, and airplanes are different. Trains are different. All are forms of transportation, all have their strengths and weaknesses.

Next Tuesday at the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference, Kassia put together the most excellent panel ever in the history of the world.  (Oh really? No – O’Reilly!) Smart Women Read eBooks, an examination of ebook technology and the savvy female reader, will feature Kassia, who deserves the people’s ovation and fame forever for the proposal itself, plus a few other monstrously cool people. First: Malle Vallik, Director Digital Content & Interactivity at Harlequin. I call her St. Malle of EBook, and really, she’s a freaking oracle of eBook technology and how it can and should be sold to female

I am tired of protests and petitions, which is probably good because I think there’s really only one more to suffer. Okay, so newspapers are folding book coverage — if they have it at all — into general entertainment sections. Okay, so newspapers are cutting back on book coverage. No surprise considering they’re cutting back on everything, sometimes without seeming thought, though you have to give some benefit of doubt. Assuming the New York Times Book Review survives (and that fortune is largely dependent on factors outside anyone involved in the Review’s control), we are still officially in a new

A few quick items for a busy day: Don’t forget that the deadline for completing our Booksquare University survey and entering to win a pass to the Tools of Change conference is January 22, 2009. Details, link to survey here. Ron Hogan/Beatrice.com have teamed with “Share the Love”, a non-profit organization that distributes gently used novel to institutions that serve women, including domestic violence shelters and halfway houses. Join the group for a reading series in New York, starting February 2, 2009. Details about Lady Jane’s Salon

[Note: Don’t forget that our survey for Booksquare University is still open. We’re giving away one pass to the Tools of Change Conference to one reader as a thank you for helping us.] About four, five years ago — not long after we went online, the National Endowment for the Arts released a study with the naturally calm, well-reasoned title “Reading at Risk”. The sky was falling, the sky was falling, and we Had To Do Something or reading would be nothing more than another duckbill platypus. It was hard to get worked up then and it’s hard to get

Didja hear, didja hear? The O’Reilly Tools of Change Conference is coming up, February 9 through 11, 2009. It’s going to be awesome. Some of your favorite folks are going to be there. The Booksquare team is going to be there. And you can be there, too. Yes, there’s a tiny catch. Booksquare has wrangled one free pass to the conference, and we’re giving it away to someone special, someone willing to take a few moments to answer a few questions about our upcoming Booksquare University project. We’re putting together a social media training program, and while we like to