Gleick's "The Information" is to the nature, history and significance of data what the beach is to sand

Janet Maslin, NY Times: "The Information is so ambitious, illuminating and sexily theoretical that it will amount to aspirational reading for many of those who have the mettle to tackle it. Don’t make the mistake of reading it quickly. Imagine luxuriating on a Wi-Fi-equipped desert island with Mr. Gleick’s book, a search engine and no distractions. The Information is to the nature, history and significance of data what the beach is to sand."

Big Brains on eBooks

Of these "big brains," only Judith Regan and Bill Lynch have anything to say that's relevant, or based in reality. Newsweek: "The transformation of the book industry has reached a tipping point. Electronic books now outsell paperbacks on Amazon, the retailer recently announced. And Borders, the second-largest bookstore chain in the United States, is reportedly considering a bankruptcy filing. With books evolving at warp speed, we polled some literary brains on the future of reading ... "

Year One: The Born Digital Publisher

Essential reading from Joe Esposito, who knows his stuff. The Scholarly Kitchen: "While one would be hard-pressed to find any publisher who does not view digital media as a central strategic concern, we have reached a critical point in the evolution of publishing — henceforth, no one who starts a new publishing company is likely to be thinking of the world of print. ... "

David L. Ulin: eBooks are Good News for the Literary World

LA Times: "The great debate of the last several years — whether readers would read book-length material onscreen — appears to have been settled with a resounding 'yes.' What does this mean for reading? It's too early to tell, but I see a lot of cause for optimism as the e-book experience becomes more sophisticated and more and more of us explore the world of digital literature. ... "

Flipping Through e-Readers, a Skeptic Becomes a Believer

Michael Hiltzik, LA Times: "One entire wall of our family room is a bookcase, floor to ceiling, and piles of books unstrategically decorate almost every other room too. Yet over the last seven months I've become a convert to e-reading, to the point where reading something bound and on paper seems almost quaint. I never thought I would make this transition, certainly not so effortlessly. I say this in full awareness that this trend may do incalculable harm to traditional bookstores, places where I have spent incalculable hours of my life."

How Google Can Save America’s Books

Robert Darnton, The New York Review of Books: "Google represents the ultimate in business plans. By controlling access to information, it has made billions, which it is now investing in the control of the information itself. What began as Google Book Search is therefore becoming the largest library and book business in the world. Like all commercial enterprises, Google’s primary responsibility is to make money for its shareholders. Libraries exist to get books to readers—books and other forms of knowledge and entertainment, provided for free. The fundamental incompatibility of purpose between libraries and Google Book Search could be mitigated if Google were willing to contribute some of its data and expertise to the creation of a Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). ... "

Art by Félix Vallotton

The Year in Digital Publishing

From The Literary Platform, an interesting round-up of opinion from industry insiders, such as:

Michael Bhaskar, Digital Publishing Manager, Profile Books:

In the next twelve months the relationship between book content, online content, marketing materials, ad campaigns and experimentation will continue to break down, seeing the development of a new style of work that exists somewhere between them all.

This is material that is at once integral to a book, central to the story or idea, but also apart from it, working as something to draw readers in. This isn’t just an abstract idea of transmedia or the like, but a hard headed marketing calculation in an environment where attention is at a premium."

On The Certain Economics Of Relegating Paper Books To The Margins Of The Business

A "must read" analysis from James McQuivey | Forrester Blogs: "Time to get my hands a bit dirty. Last week I posted an eBook forecast with a brief explanation of why the book business may complete its digital revolution more quickly than other media businesses have. Turns out this assertion was more difficult to hear than I anticipated and I got some very insistent (and worth reading) comments. The discussion that ensued both on the blog and outside of it was very complex, this is not a simple matter. However, there are parts of it that are very simple that I have to clarify, even though it means rolling up my sleeves a bit. Allow me to draw into this discussion John Thompson of Cambridge University who gave a very worthwhile interview to the Brooklyn Rail this month to discuss his recently published analysis of the book industry, Merchants of Culture. ... "

Ironically, Merchants of Culture seems not to be available as an ebook. At least not from Amazon.

One on One: Tim Wu, Author of The Master Switch

NYTimes.com: Tim Wu, author of the book The Master Switch and architect of the term "net neutrality" discusses the future of the Internet, corporate monopolies, Steve Jobs and companies that are evil.

What's the Next Page for eBooks?

Justin McGuirk | guardian.co.uk:

... For all its quirks, the Kindle is a perfectly effective reading device – which is what it's intended to be. Amazon chose to forgo the touch screen and flashy multimedia connectivity of the iPad and other e-readers, first to keep their product cheap, and second to appeal to a more conservative audience. Yes, you can use the internet on it, but it's rather like using a Roman wax tablet with dial-up. It's only really good for buying more books from Amazon.

The Kindle is, in other words, what Marshall McLuhan referred to as a 'horseless carriage', the term first given to automobiles – in other words, an in-between stage on the way to a technological leap that we haven't quite grasped yet. The Kindle's one-dimensionality is strategic, but it is also short-sighted. Everything is pointing to the likelihood that the book will be absorbed into a multimedia world in which we switch from text to video to the internet in quick succession – some even believe all at the same time.

The design firm IDEO recently unveiled three possible futures for the book that re-imagine not the format, but the medium itself. In slightly patronising design-for-dummies style, they have cute names. "Nelson" allows you to read a text while simultaneously checking the sources and comparing other material on the same topic; "Coupland" links your reading tastes to a social network, so you can see what friends are reading and generally keep up with the Joneses; while "Alice", "an interactive reading experience", turns the book into a form of computer game.

The first two ideas sound potentially useful and plausible, depending on how well they're done. It's Alice that worries me. IDEO's designers are not the only ones predicting that the book is going to morph into some hybrid gaming experience, in which readers can interact with characters and even contribute to the story – like a multimedia version of those fantasy books I loved when I was 10, where you turned to a different page depending on which door you opened (do they still exist?). The "participation" rhetoric of the web 2.0 era insists that we all want to be involved in everything; that we cannot simply sit back and enjoy. I would much rather put myself in the hands of a master and be taken wherever they will rather than add my own jumped-up tuppenceworth. But that's me. ...

WIRED Co-Founder Kevin Kelly Talks About His Latest and "Last" Paper-Native Book

PW: "I’m really happy with what Penguin has done with What Technology Wants. And as an artifact, it’s beautiful. But this is probably my last paper-native book, because the attention has fallen elsewhere. That’s basically the only reason—because people, young people especially, are spending more and more of their time on things that are happening on screens, and if you want to reach people, that’s really where you should be looking. It’s not for a lack of love for books, it’s just necessary because the center of culture has moved."

Stephen King Says Digital Publishing Isn't Scary

WSJ.com: "Mr. King is realistic about where books are headed. In digital publishing, as a writer, he's what might be called an 'early adopter.' Back in March 2000, Simon & Schuster Inc. issued Mr. King's story 'Riding the Bullet' as an e-book that was downloaded from the Web onto hand-held devices or computers. More recently, Mr. King's novella 'Ur' was written exclusively for Amazon's Kindle e-reader when the second generation of that device went on sale in February 2009. In [this] interview ... Mr. King discusses his thoughts on the future of digital reading and publishing. ..."

Is The Word "Publish" Becoming Obsolete?

NYTimes.com: "You could say that everyone is a publisher these days, with blogging, Twitter and Facebook (amongst hundreds of other social media tools). What's more, there are many new devices on which to deliver content - tablets, smart phones, video web sites and more. ... Ultimately it's a much larger and diverse media ecosystem than it was even a couple of years ago, so the increasing irrelevance of the word 'publish' probably doesn't matter much. Perhaps the next update to Oxford Dictionary's definition of 'publish' will be along these lines: used to mean make something public using print, but now virtually everything is public online. Word discontinued." Of course, rumor has it that the next edition of the OED won't even be "published" on paper.

Business Impact of Transisition to Digital: Books vs. Periodicals & Music

Mike Shatzkin: "... the problems caused by digital change for newspapers and magazines and record companies were so much more grave than they were for book publishers (so far). It is simply stated. For those businesses, the unit of appreciation does not match the unit of sale. By that I mean that record companies sold us albums when what we wanted were songs. That’s what their economics were built on. The minute we could buy songs, it blew up their business model. Newspapers sell us the weather when what we want are the box scores, or the horoscopes when what we want are the comics. There are many books which will be read cover to cover. Newspapers and magazines are rarely read cover to cover. ..."

Book Review - The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

Check Joy Lo Dico's review of Nicholas Carr's intriguing new book. This comes from The Independent: "The headline-grabbing concept of The Shallows is that the internet is rewiring our brains to negative effect. Carr recognizes that he is placing himself in a proud tradition of Jeremiahs bemoaning technological advancements, from Socrates, who fretted that the written word would create 'forgetfulness', via the Gutenberg press naysayers, to those who were disturbed by the unfettering of the written word, the speed of the telegram, and finally the internet, a vast, seething jungle of distraction and inanity. ... "

Love this from Carr: "The bond between book reader and book writer has always been a tightly symbiotic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization. The words of the writer act as a catalyst in the mind of the reader, inspiring new insights, connections, and perceptions. And the very existence of the attentive, critical reader provides the spur for the writer’s work. It gives the author the confidence to explore new forms of expression, to blaze difficult and demanding paths of thought, to venture into uncharted and sometimes hazardous territory. 'All great men have written proudly, nor cared to explain,' said Emerson. 'They knew that the intelligent reader would come at last, and would thank them.'"

In Carr's view, prolonged exposure to the rapid and varied flood of information on the internet has caused a sort of societal ADD: a general inability in individuals to think long and deeply on any one subject.

I'm not so sure. I note that Carr, though he diagnoses himself with this malaise, has nevertheless been able to think long and deeply enough to come up with yet another carefully researched and reasoned tome.

In my view, the internet is just like any other tool. The benefit, or lack thereof, derives from how one uses it. If the internet is simply your connection for playing a lifetime's worth of Halo with strangers, or mindlessly "surfing" from one wave to another as so many do, then, yes, it'll rewire your brain to negative effect. If, on the other hand, it is your lifeline for collaboration on serious work with colleagues around the globe ...

The Future Of Reading | Wired Science

Jonah Lehrer, Wired.com: "I ... have a nagging problem with the merger of screens and sentences. My problem is that consumer technology moves in a single direction: It’s constantly making it easier for us to perceive the content. This is why your TV is so high-def, and your computer monitor is so bright and clear. For the most part, this technological progress is all to the good. (I still can’t believe that people watched golf before there were HD screens. Was the ball even visible? For me, the pleasure of televised golf is all about the lush clarity of grass.) Nevertheless, I worry that this same impulse – making content easier and easier to see – could actually backfire with books. We will trade away understanding for perception."

Nicholas Negroponte: The Paper Book is Dead; Long Live the Narrative

Global Post:

Kindle owners buy twice as many books as non-Kindle owners. Just one of the many signs that while the paper book is dead, the narrative will live on.

If you are saying to yourself, “That sounds horrible. I hope books do not go away,” I ask you to consider the world’s poorest and most remote kids."

The manufactured book stunts learning, especially for those children. The last thing these children should have are physical books. They are too costly, too heavy, fall out-of-date and are sharable only in some common and limited physical space.

Paper books also do not do well in dampness, dirt, heat or rain. Not to mention that 320 textbooks require, on average, one tree and produce about 10,000 pounds of CO2 in manufacturing and delivery. This makes no sense. Kids in the developing world should not be sent physical books.

The only way to provide books to the 2 billion children in the world is electronically. You cannot feed children or clothe them electronically, but you can certainly educate and provide hope with these weightless, sizeless and mostly costless 1’s and 0’s. ...

The Many Futures of the Book

Linton Weeks, NPR:

The premise of Lane Smith's new work for children, It’s a Book, is simple: Books are under siege.

On the first page a donkey asks a monkey, "What do you have there?" The monkey replies: "It’s a book."

"How do you scroll down?" the donkey asks. "Do you blog with it?"

Then he asks: "Where’s your mouse? ... Can you make characters fight? ... Can it text? ... Tweet? ... Wi-Fi? ... Can it do this? TOOT!"

No, the monkey repeatedly replies. "It’s a book."

Smith's book, in stores this month, may be an example of a dying breed. A book, published — and meant to be read — on paper.

People have been talking about "the death of the book" for more than a decade. But recent events suggest the end may be imminent for bound-paper books as we have known them for more than 500 years. Hardbound and paperback books may never totally disappear, but they could become scary scarce — like eight-track tapes, typewriters and wooden tennis rackets. ...

Dan Visel, a founder of the appropriately named Institute for the Future of the Book, points out that, first of all, a "book" can mean many things ...It would be a mistake to think that these various forms have a single, unified future,' Visel says. "Rather, I think it's more appropriate to say that there are futures of the book." ...

Suzanne Fields: Battle of the Books

To what extent does the medium impact the way we comprehend and digest information? Washington Times: "It's much too early to measure the full impact of e-reading on the way we 'process' ideas. Denis Diderot, famous for the encyclopedia he edited in the 18th century, was skeptical of the benefits of technological progress and wondered who ultimately would be the master of content - the reader or the writer. That question remains to be answered - maybe on paper and maybe on the tiny screen."

This Week in Indie Publishing History - Henry Thoreau's WALDEN

156 years ago yesterday Thoreau self-published Walden. In general, Henry did not care for technology. I've got to wonder what he would have thought of the Internet, given this: "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate." Still, my hunch is he'd like the digital tools that today enable indie publishers and indie authors to do great, innovative work without having to bow to corporate behemoths. The first printing of Walden (2,000 copies) was published by Ticknor & Fields of Boston, but at Thoreau's own expense.You'll find all of Thoreau's writings here.